What the Cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” Means

Nothing to see right here! CBS’s cancellation of “The Late Present,” an establishment so fundamental to the feel of our quickly thinning frequent leisure tradition that it appears like a quasi-public utility, as profligately out there as water or electrical energy, has nothing to do, we’re informed, with Stephen Colbert—the present’s peppy, shrewdly healthful host for the previous decade—and his regular stream of critique geared toward President Donald Trump. By no means thoughts that Paramount, CBS’s mother or father firm, not too long ago forked over sixteen million {dollars} to Trump, following his lawsuit in opposition to “60 Minutes.” Or that solely three days earlier than the cancellation was introduced, Colbert inveighed in opposition to that settlement—calling it a “massive fats bribe”—on the present. And don’t fear about the truth that Paramount now needs to promote itself to the leisure behemoth Skydance Media, owned by the mega-rich David Ellison, and that it’d assist to supply up a pleasant, juicy Colbert-size sacrificial lamb to the Trump Administration—identified, after all, for its susceptibility to bribes and ostentatious shows of compelled loyalty—to be able to clear the way in which to get the deal executed.In a press release, the CBS executives George Cheeks, Amy Reisenbach, and David Stapf insisted that the cancellation was “purely a monetary choice” and—protesting a lot—“not associated in any solution to the present’s efficiency, content material or different issues taking place at Paramount.” That’s some stressed-out syntax and an oddly particular chain of denials, however, certain, let’s say that’s true. We might think about ourselves absolutely briefed and transfer on. One of many signature options of life below the recrudescent Trump regime is {that a} fixed sandstorm of informal lies and destabilizing ambiguity retains obscuring vital info—the sorts of info atop which a constitutional republic, dominated by self-governing, notionally knowledgeable residents, is meant to be constructed.As an illustration: the Wall Road Journal not too long ago reported that Trump allegedly wrote a summer-camp-style love notice to the plutocrat pervert Jeffrey Epstein on the event of Epstein’s birthday, cooing suggestively that “enigmas by no means age,” and that “we have now sure issues in frequent, Jeffrey,” and wishing that “each day be one other great secret.” What to make of this skeevy epistle? Who is aware of. Trump says that that is “not my language.” Nice, thanks. As goes Epstein, so goes CBS—the reply could find yourself being that the world won’t ever know. So many massive questions with scant solutions! Little surprise that conspiracy theories, centered on authorities and the excessive spires of enterprise and finance, flower so simply on this period’s soil.We get by nowadays studying indicators, divining codes, analyzing symbols and attitudes in quest of hints that may lead us to the reality. What CBS obscures, perhaps just a few of Colbert’s current performances might help illuminate.On the night time that he joshed round, maybe fatefully, with Paramount, his company overlord, about its settlement with Trump, Colbert was in a very zany temper. He’d not too long ago been on trip in Turkey (“I’d heard so many nice issues from Mayor Adams about it,” he mentioned), and had come again stateside sporting an olive tan and a skinny, suavely trimmed salt-and-pepper mustache. The ’stache, urged upon him by an insistent barber in Istanbul, grew to become the anchoring actuality for a brand new alter ego, “Mr. Stephen,” an “worldwide purveyor of scented oils and rose-flavored candies,” languidly prepared to set the document straight.“Tonight, women and gents, my mustache involves you with a heavy coronary heart,” Colbert mentioned, with a falsely grave expression. “Whereas I used to be on trip, my mother or father company, Paramount, paid Donald Trump a sixteen-million-dollar settlement over his ‘60 Minutes’ lawsuit. As somebody who has all the time been a proud worker of this community, I’m offended. And I don’t know if something will ever restore my belief on this firm. However, simply taking a stab at it, I’d say sixteen million {dollars} would assist.”After that joke landed, Colbert leaned nearer to the digital camera and futzed coolly together with his mustache, clearly feeling himself. As he swaggered via the remainder of the routine, he saved his physique unfastened and flexible, at a number of factors breaking out into dance, as if his personal chutzpah had occasioned an ecstatic expertise. (“What can I say? Mr. Stephen loves to bounce!”) This dead-serious silliness jogged my memory of Colbert’s early televisual appearances, on the twisted turn-of-the-century sitcom “Strangers with Sweet.” Again then, Colbert performed the closeted high-school trainer Chuck Noblet, who generally broke out into theatre-kid raptures of sudden music and choreo, mixing Colbert’s goody-goody sincerity—the middle of his energy as a performer—and his career-long curiosity within the darkest corners of the nationwide thoughts. As a dismayed citizen and a gleeful satirist, he was on bivalent terrain that he acknowledged and loved.“I consider this type of sophisticated monetary settlement with a sitting authorities official has a technical title in authorized circles—it’s massive fats bribe,” he mentioned.On Thursday night time, Colbert was equally efficient as a TV presence, if enjoying a very reverse emotional tune, when he introduced the cancellation of “The Late Present.” The tan had worn off, for one factor. Sitting sedately behind his host’s desk as a substitute of standing up and jigging, Colbert knowledgeable the viewers about his visitor, Senator Adam Schiff—one other bugaboo to Trump—then rapidly transitioned to telling the unhealthy information. “I wish to let you understand one thing that I came upon simply final night time,” he mentioned. “Subsequent 12 months will probably be our final season.” As shocked boos and cries rained down from the studio viewers, Colbert raised his voice a bit and deadpanned, “Yeah, I share your emotions.” He thanked all of his collaborators, even CBS, seeming to get emotional solely when he shouted out his band.The traditional knowledge is that late-night tv is doomed, whether or not Colbert is considered one of its practitioners or not. Individuals have too many self-directed different methods to spend their time and feed their starvation for interpretive takes on the information of the day. However Colbert, on each of those nights, displayed a sort of sly subversion that may solely be achieved below the odd twin circumstances of his antiquated kind—having each the constraints of a boss and the liberty of frequent dwell broadcasting. To clue a public in on a high-level company communication that was delivered solely “final night time” is to say, in a approach, that the reality has a slim channel from the seat of energy to a budget seats the place they’re. The fun of the unique so-called “late-night wars,” between NBC and CBS (and their avatars, Jay Leno and David Letterman), was {that a} real-life company competitors, involving not simply the careers of the hosts however billions of {dollars}, might play out with roughly dependable readability, proper earlier than our eyes. You could possibly flip in your TV and get some model of the reality.Fewer Individuals consider that anymore. And on Thursday Colbert informed us what had occurred. All of us needed to assume why. ♦