'Doing Nothing Is Cowardice': How Late-Night Hosts Addressed Vegas
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It’s become a grim American ritual: In the wake of a mass shooting, TV viewers collectively turn to late-night hosts for messages of comfort and clarity. And so these funny men turn serious, their live studio audiences fall silent and for five or so minutes before bedtimea safe distance from the painful images and unbearable frenzy of cable newswe approximate national introspection.
In his opening statement on “The Late Show,” Stephen Colbert asked “What are we willing to do to combat pure evil? The answer can’t be nothing. It’s can’t. … Doing nothing is cowardice.”
Jimmy Kimmel, a native of Las Vegas, fought back tears on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” as he spoke of the aftermath of the massacre: “Children without parents, fathers without sons, mothers without daughters. …” He also deconstructed the logic of American politicians’ response to terrorism: “When someone with a beard attacks us, we tap phones, we invoke travel bans, we build wallswe take every possible precaution to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But when an American buys a gun and kills other Americans, then there’s nothing we can do about that.” And as Emma Hall noted in this morning’s Ad Age Wake-Up call, he publicly shamed the 50 senators who voted against closing loopholes on background checks after the 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
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