Samatha Bee was back on the air last night and addressed her controversial use of language. On her program “Full Frontal” last week she called Ivanka Trump the c-word.
“It is a word I have used on the show many times, hoping to reclaim it. This time I used it as an insult. I crossed the line and I do apologize for that. The problem is that many women have heard that word at the worst moments of their lives. A lot of women don’t want that word reclaimed, they want it gone and I don’t blame them. I don’t want to inflict more pain on their, I want this show to challenging and I want it to be honest and I never intended it to hurt anyone.”
But what she said next is causing some people to say her apology wasn’t heartfelt. Bee went on to joke:
“Many men were also offended by my use of the word. I do not care about that.
I hate that this distracted from more important issues. I hate that I did something to contribute to the nightmare of 24-hour news cycles that we’re all white-knuckling through. I should have known that a potty-mouthed insult would be inherently more interesting to them than juvenile immigration policy.”
Slate declared, “Samantha Bee Opens Her Show With an Apology That Will Make No One Happy.”
You all realize Samantha Bee basically said she didn’t mean her apology, right?
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) June 7, 2018
Her full remarks are above.
As for what Bee says going forward, it looks like the network behind her show will be taking a more active role. Daily Beast reports:
“Following the intense backlash to Bee’s original comments, it was reported this week that TBS will be taking on a more significant role in overseeing her show’s content. This new approach is in sharp contrast to the attitude the network has taken toward Full Frontal during its first two years on the air. As Bee said recently, ‘They have been incredibly generous, just keeping themselves separate and letting us create the show. I just can’t imagine a more free, creative landscape.’”
In the meantime Variety reports that some advertisers have stopped buying spots on Bee’s show:
“The first broadcast of Bee’s TBS series “Full Frontal” after she sparked a controversy last week contained far fewer national commercials than it normally does, a signal that Madison Avenue finds the comedienne too hot to support…”