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Jimmy Fallon doesn’t need me to defend him. The host of NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon is just fine. But I’m going to do it anyway, because the internet remarkably couldn’t find enough things to be a hater about this week and turned its ire unfairly in the direction of Fallon.
After what many labeled as a “redemption profile” in the New York Times published first thing Wednesday morning, Twitter let out a collective eye roll. There was no sympathy for the man who, admittedly, screwed up by running his fingers through the now leader of the free world’s hair back in September. If you want to go ahead and believe that single late night TV moment is what led us to where we are now, well, I won’t be able to change your mind. But, yikes. It was a misstep, 100% for several reasons, but it happened, so playing the “should, could, would” game will do nothing and change nothing for today. Jimmy Fallon might have been a teeny tiny piece of a much bigger problem so hurling bitchy snark in his direction might feel good for a moment, but it’s ultimately unjustified.
Many are not on board with the way Fallon handles politics on his show, months after Hairgate: either the jokes are corny or not biting enough or there is simply not enough political talk. But is this really the man you are turning to for your political comedy and/or coverage? Sure, the media as a whole has a responsibility to discuss what is happening in the news, but this has never been the man I look to for that, dating back to his Saturday Night Live Weekend Update days. It was always Tina Fey that was going to bring the realness. So if it’s 11:35pm and you’re like, “Damn, who is going to skewer the president? I need to laugh at everything going on in DC!” I have some incredible news for you. Stephen Colbert is going there and getting angrier and ballsier by the day. Bill Maher is available on HBO Go and HBO Now. Trevor Noah certainly will be weighing in. There are even dozens of tweets and podcasts available at your fingertips. And if you want to go ahead and mute Fallon to read a book for an hour, Seth Meyers will be on soon enough and you know he’s got A Closer Look at the mess. You can wade into a pool of political jokes in each and every corner of the internet and television. Fallon is not those guys and he’s definitely not David Letterman, and nope, he’s not Johnny Carson either.
For those of us that can’t stomach that shade of bright red chyron that is screaming BREAKING NEWS at us 24/7, Fallon offers just a smidge of relaxation before drifting off to sleep for a soft 45 minutes until the tossing and turning kicks in. His show is a near oasis of denial and makes for a fantastic numbing agent. When he claimed in The New York Times piece that he “was just trying to have fun” with Trump that day on the show, OF COURSE HE WAS. That’s all he does. It’s all he’s ever done. He saw a chance for ratings, yes, but also a brief moment of levity in an election that desperately needed one. It just didn’t work the way he planned it.
Let’s also take a teeny step back to acknowledge that in May 2017, this is what we’re arguing about. Sometimes, we get in heated discussions about things that don’t matter in order to feel better about the things that are really bothering us. Anyone who has ever been in a relationship knows this. But as far as the matter at hand, this is what it comes down to: Fallon is a giggling toddler in a grown man’s body and he wants everything to be rainbows and unicorns all the time. And for the most part? It can be — on his show. Hell, it’s almost unbelievable he didn’t engage Trump in a game of flip cup or make him lip sync to a Bruno Mars song that night. That is what he does!
So yeah, when I want to see celebrities give surface interviews and play with new apps and crack eggs on their head, I know exactly where to go for that — and so do they. Celebrities, publicists, studios…they love Fallon because they know he’s not going to ask the hard questions. He’s the only one that does the squirming and it’s from laughter — whether you want to believe it’s forced or not is up to you, but he’s a rich white man on TV, he’s got a lot to laugh about.
For some people, it’s a major turn off: He reminds you of a guy that broke your heart or was the most annoying bro on your dorm floor or a dude your sister dated that made Thanksgiving unbearable. That sucks! But it’s also because there is a total vanilla-ness to Fallon: for the same reason you despise him, someone else finds him charming, endearing, and docile. If you don’t like his humor, I get it. And the incessant presence of his bits in your timelines and feeds and screens has got to be frustrating. But for others, it’s a small escape from their day; it’s a smile in the swampland of frowns that is 2017.
Some take issue with the fact that Fallon’s maybe not putting forth his most biting political commentary or jokes or even personality for that matter. Wanting to feel like you know and connect with a host of that magnitude is important. We feel the same way about our bosses, but I can promise you mine has never heard the dick jokes I’ve told or my real thoughts about my peers (in Fallon’s case, celebs and their multimillion dollar projects). He’s attempting to maintain a professional demeanor when he’s at work. So if that means turning up the cheesy laughter a little bit louder or keeping mean or controversial thoughts to himself and trying to get people to like him, is he really the only one? Part of it might be for ratings, of course. But Colbert and Meyers are going on rants for ratings, views, and clicks, too – just for a different audience.
If you don’t find him funny and you don’t care about “Thank You” notes, that’s fine. Yes, Fallon’s Tonight Show has some evolving to do. But he’s not a monster. We’ve got to be able to agree on that. Let him do the show he wants to do because sooner or later you’ll find yourself laughing at one of those omnipresent clips, whether you want to admit it to anyone (or yourself) or not.
