Rolling Stone. Log In. To help keep your account secure, please log-in again. You are no longer onsite at your organization. Please log in. For assistance, contact your corporate administrator. Arrow Created with Sketch. Calendar Created with Sketch. Path Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. Plus Created with Sketch. And while Bell took primary aim at what is making news, those who deliver it did not escape his mockery.
The sainted Bob Costas was shown in a clip saying Douglas should be an inspiration to other African American girls. The bit was funny and made its point, but it also displayed one challenge that Bell has doing a weekly show instead of a daily show: The news arc for Gabby Douglas' hair probably peaked a couple of days ago.
That's not to say the segment misfired, just that after the first six episodes, FX should consider giving Bell a nightly slot. Of course, the one thing that made Bell's commentary on the story relevant is that he's an African American comic. And while a lot has been said over the past few days about Gabby Douglas, Bell had a great last word on the matter: "She won her gold medal by a hair - one small, beautiful nappy hair. Bell also showed just how good he is at walking the fine line between very serious news and pointed commentary in a segment about the killing of six members of a Sikh temple in Wisconsin by a white supremacist.
While the nation is still reeling from the insanity of those heinous killings last Sunday, Bell spoke of the differences between Muslims and Sikhs.
He pulled out a map to show that the Middle East is a region, while Sikhs are a religious order from Punjab. And then, with unbelievable courage and comic genius, he began to riff, building on the difference between "Sikhs" and Muslim "sheikhs," pulling up one photographic example after another as he threw in similar words: "Shaq," as in O'Neal, "shake," as in milk shake, and "Sith," as in "Star Wars.
And that's only a bit of the brilliant chain of similar-sounding words that made us laugh at the same time it reminded us of the stupidity that festers at the base of all prejudice. Bell is likely to smooth over the minor bumps in coming shows, but make no mistake: "Totally Biased" isn't likely to look much like "The Colbert Report" or "The Daily Show.
In fact, the show's audience probably doesn't even want that kind of look or feel for "Totally Biased. Totally Biased With W.
Kamau Bell: 11 p. Thursdays, with encore broadcasts throughout the week, on FX. E-mail: dwiegand sfchronicle.
0コメント