Talk Shows

In the modern day and age we have 11 late night talk show hosts ranging from the standard 5 days a week with two personal segments, two guests, and a musical guest to once a week comprehensive study on a big issue in the style of John Oliver.

This photo features the ten main male late night talk show hosts, and there is one extremely important correlation: they're all male. That's creating a near monopoly on male dominance in late night. Recently, as in February of this year, there was an addition to late night to include a woman. Samantha Bee is a veteran of the daily show and knows how to host a show like the one she has now. In her third episode she addressed her situation of being the only female late night television host.

In the video above Samantha Bee shares the importance of having a female voice in late night, but not treating that woman's voice as any different than a man's. Having a solely male perspective on the weekly or daily news is doing a disservice to the large majority of the country that is watching.

In this segment Bee also addresses the importance of having girls that dream big and want to achieve at a young age and encouraging them to reach their full potential. However, her point explored through satire is that the working world is hostile toward women and that messed up work world is not the world she wants to send her daughters into. Using her position as a late night host, with 20 minutes a week (factoring out commercials), she is trying to draw attention to these issues in a way the current late night hosts do not.

Having the least amount of airtime out of any other late night hosts, Bee is changing the climate of late night, but in a way that isn't all about women. The particular clip displayed above relates to women, but most of her show doesn't. It talks about the same issues that the men do, which is admirable. She spins her show in a truly feminist way. A way that is equal for men and women.

Late night TV is still a male dominated world and Sam Bee is the first woman to break that barrier, but hopefully she isn't the last. She is clever and doesn't change herself in anyway to make herself more likable to a male audience. I admire her, and what she is doing with the oppourtunity she has to change the way the world gets their late night news. She pokes fun at her male dominated field with a photo that I will leave you with.