The Daily (Male) Show

Sarah Seltzer has a piece up on Jon Stewart and "'dude' culture" over at RH Reality Check. I've always enjoyed watching the Daily Show and, although I've been watching it less often since the writer's strike, Cristina Page noted that she was refused from the Daily Show to promote her book How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America while Ramesh Ponnuru was invited on the show to promote his right wing anti-choice book, The Party of Death. Furthermore, the Daily Show's list of guests in the last year didn't even come close to gender parity. In 2007, only 11 women sat in the chair across from Jon Stewart. Of those, seven were actresses and two represented the right wing, Margaret Spellings and Lynne Chenney. There are a number of Very Serious (read: mostly very boring) men that promote their books on the war or the economy. If you only got watched the Daily Show, you'd think that women didn't hold positions of power or write books. Most of the writers and on-air talent are men. It's probably just because women aren't funny. So much for a progressive comedy show.

Is Jon Stewart a Writer Ally? Or not?

On Monday Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will return to the air, even though a writers strike has yet to be resolved. The shows will only feature unscripted interviews and not commentaries (the interviews are probably . I know that there aren't just the writers to consider -- that stagehands and camera crews are also tightening belts, but I was a little disappointed in the Stewart/Colbert decision.

After all, that's the point of a strike. Strikes are supposed to cause public disruption and force the corporations to bend to something when the otherwise have ultimate power. Executives do what they can to smooth things over with the public so they can pressure the unions into folding. it's a tricky game. Of course, I don't know what decisions are made behind closed doors, but it seems weird that liberal dudes like Stewart are willing to compromise the situation of the writers. After all, before Stewart was a celebrity, he was a writer for HBO's "The Sweet Life" and Colbert himself broke in on "The Daily Show." I'm not sure why they made the decision, but I'm not sure I'll tune in on Monday.

Cross-posted on campusprogress.org/blog.