Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: The Confederacy, Jimmy Savile, Rex Tillerson
For those of you who have blasted many late-night talk shows and Saturday Night Live for not focusing on Harvey Weinstein, here you go: Oliver did a minute or so talking about the film producer and some of the terrible things that he has done.
Now, let’s get back to President Trump and some of the chaos at the White House. Oliver touched on Rex Tillerson and some of his alleged comments — basically, comedy gold. We could’ve spent more time on Tillerson and been more than satisfied, but this is the sort of show that finds a way to cram a lot into a very short period of time.
The Jimmy Savile segment – This was something that we never imagined we would be seeing on the show — a segment about a British TV host who was disgraced as a sex offender year ago. We didn’t know at first why we were hearing about this … but then it made sense.
Our main story: The Confederacy
Basically, Oliver views the Confederate States of America as the Jimmy Saville of America — something horrible that most people don’t want to remember. There are many people out there, especially in the South, who do want to pretend as though the Confederate flag is a “part of our history.” They want to ignore the talk of slavery and discrimination, even though slavery and discrimination were key cornerstones in the Confederate Constitution.
There was some interesting information that was passed along in here, and also some surprising highlights from the show Finding Your Roots. It’s pretty interesting that Last Week Tonight showed the clip of Larry David learning that he had an ancestor who fought for the Confederate Army given that Curb Your Enthusiasm was only on the air around half an hour before that. All of this was funny, and while we don’t think there was all that much in turns of big revelations here, there didn’t need to be. The shocking part about this segment is that there are still people who believe the Confederacy should still be honored and facts are getting through to them.
Statue suggestions
At the end of the episode Oliver decided to offer up some suggestions for new statues rather than the ones that are up celebrating the Confederacy right now — some of these people were actual heroes, some were comedic suggestions, and then there was Stephen Colbert, who Oliver suggested could just stand around on a pedestal in Charleston and offer suggestions.
What did you think about Last Week Tonight?
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