What do you call a man who has won 19 Emmys, nine Producers Guild Awards, seven Writers Guild Awards, three Peabody Awards, a Grammy Award, and whose political satire has influenced the U.S. legislature? He’s certainly not “just another comedian.” John Oliver is all that and more.
The state of American politics over the past few years has left many feeling like we’ve been caught in a bad TV show, where the twists and turns are so crazy it’s hard to believe they’re real. While that may be a gift of endless material for comedians, Oliver sees it quite differently.
“It’s not necessarily a gift you want, to be honest,” says the executive producer and host of “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” which has been nominated for six Emmys. “Technically, it’s a gift, but it’s not a great gift. I think the tendency is often to think that it writes itself. I promise you it doesn’t. Everything moves so fast these days, you can get raw jokes online so quickly, so you have to write a joke that’s not the most obvious of anything to have any kind of surprise factor. On top of that, things are so dark,” he adds. “When you’re writing jokes, you want to try to find a way to deal with that melancholy that’s not like, ‘Fooling around while Rome burns.’”
The British import first appeared in American homes in 2006 as a correspondent on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” There, his smart, funny, biting, but deeply emotional comments about government opened eyes that had been closed before, and he is credited with inspiring lawmakers to make changes—what Time magazine called the “John Oliver effect.” The idea makes him laugh. “I think that’s what’s happening now.” [the John Oliver Effect] It can mean different things to different people. I think for some people this “effect” is depression.
Being a political satirist during American election seasons isn’t as easy as it might seem. There’s a lot of crazy “low hanging fruit,” and you can miss the real substantive stuff that’s going on. “One of the flaws with the way American elections work is that a lot of it is about personality, not policy,” he says. diverse“The politics stuff, of course, is more interesting, and certainly more important, and that can be a problem, especially when you're writing comedy — it can seem counterintuitive to say, 'Don't look at this funny thing objectively.'
Unlike the 2016 election, this time it’s much easier not to let Donald Trump—or the daily news cycle—disrupt every show. “Because this is his third time running for president, there’s not a lot you can say about this guy,” Oliver says with a laugh. “He’s an open book. I don’t know what we can really add in terms of content that we haven’t already done. So it’s actually easier to talk about other things. That wasn’t the case in 2016.”
Oliver makes no secret of it, he leans unabashedly left. He has had his share of burning not only the Republican Party and its agenda, but also those who support it. This could be dangerous waters for him. “I’m sure there are [threats]“I don’t care about that,” he says nonchalantly. “It seems like a huge waste of time wondering if someone hates you… because deep down you should know the answer is yes.”
To overcome the bleak events he covers in his main report—each of which takes six weeks of research—Oliver always leaves viewers with something lighter to end the show with. “Once you talk about the sources of the drugs used in the death penalty, he really tries to pull you out of the abyss,” he says. “I’ve eaten an awful lot of vegetables here. Isn’t there anything stopping me from having a nice scoop of ice cream?”
