Michelle Wolf is a raunchy stand-up comedian known for her contributions on Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, as well as her HBO special, Michelle Wolf: Nice Lady. Now, she is the center of headlines and controversy after her comedy routine at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner (WHCD) on Saturday.
In her self-admitted shrill voice and usual dry humor, Wolf’s set was hilarious with its clever jokes. She stated she gets excited for Sanders’s press briefings “because I’m not really sure what we’re going to get — you know, a press briefing, a bunch of lies, or divided into softball teams.” It was also terribly unfunny, brimming with realism and the uncomfortable truth that this is the world we live in. I love Wolf and her set was genius and I loved every minute of it, but her dropping line after line of pure unadulterated truth about our administration who lies to our face and has no qualms about being racist, sexist and breaking the law is a little hard to swallow, much like everyone’s reaction to Wolf’s routine.
Mercedes Schlapp, the director strategic communications walked out with her husband Matt Schlapp, a conservative activist in the middle of Wolf’s speech, later saying “It’s why America hates the out of touch leftist media elites.” Mike Huckabee tweeted that “The WHCD was supposed to celebrate the 1st Amendment. Instead they celebrated bullying, vulgarity, and hate.” This appears to be in support of his daughter, the Press Secretary, who was rightfully vilified in Wolf’s routine.
It appears that the Trump administration can’t take what they can dish out. It would be one thing if Wolf targeted the looks or weight of Sanders, Trump, Conway and other members of the administration, much like they have done like when Trump called Rosie O’Donnell a “fat pig.” Calling Sarah Huckabee Sanders Aunt Lydia, the women who help train the Handmaids in The Handmaid’s Tale, or the white female version of Uncle Tom is a piece of brilliant comedy. It had nothing to do with her looks, but rather her actions.
Wolf mostly stayed clear of petty comments and focused on the heart of the manner: the truth, or the lack thereof. She called out Kellyanne Conway and Sanders for always lying and Michael Cohen for giving $130,000 to Stormy Daniels to cover up her affair with Trump. It’s seems that the Trump administration can’t handle honest criticism of their irresponsible, dishonest actions. After all, Trump can’t even attend the dinner after being embarrassed once at this annual roasting for charity. Hosted by the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), this dinner that began in 1921, has been attended by every president, except, you guessed it – Trump. Trump has refused to attend this charity function that also has an annual roasting since he himself was roasted in 2011. Attending as a guest of The Washington Post, comedian Seth Meyers and President Barack Obama, Trump was embarrassed by their remarks that roasted Trump and rightfully so. Apparently, this event was a motivating factor for Trump’s candidacy, but there is evidence that this event still affects Trump to this day, considering that when he tweeted about the event Sunday night he called Wolf a “a filthy ‘comedian’” and that “she couldn’t even deliver her lines — much like the Seth Meyers weak performance.”
Interestingly, while Wolf has been vilified throughout the media and across both sides of the aisle for going too far, no one appears to think Trump, the President of the United States, tweeting about a comedian and calling her “filthy” is going too far. Perhaps, we have become too complacent. Perhaps the truth, when it comes out of a brave comedian doing her job to expose what we already know as disgusting, is just a little too terrifying. Amidst all the controversy one fact remains: while Wolf was brutal, she was also equally honest.
For example, Wolf called Ivanka Trump, “about as helpful to women as an empty box of tampons.” This is honesty. Ivanka Trump’s role in her father’s administration is one fueled by nepotism (and potentially sexual attraction), and she is the epitome of the archetype of the rich, out-of-touch white woman who claims the support other woman, as long as they look just like her. No one even tangentially related to Trump was spared in Wolf’s set much like Trump has not spared any disadvantaged group in the U.S.
Margaret Talev, the president of the WHCA, said it best when said that “Comedy is meant to provoke thought and debate. And it certainly has done that.” However, Talev later backtracked stating that “Last night’s program was meant to offer a unifying message about our common commitment to a vigorous and free press while honoring civility, great reporting and scholarship winners, not to divide people. Unfortunately, the entertainer’s monologue was not in the spirit of that mission.”
The most unfortunate part of this is that there no longer is a common commitment to a “vigorous and free press” when the Press Secretary tells mainly lies and the President calls news that disagrees with him “fake news” and there can’t be true “civility” when the President, on the same night as this, is openly racist towards Hispanic people. At his counter-rally in Michigan, Trump asked if there were any Hispanic people in the room before talking about needing to build a wall to protect the U.S. from Hispanics who will vote for Democrats in our elections, despite this being a bold-faced lie. Although perhaps the greater issue at hand is that the WHCA didn’t like it when Wolf called them and the rest of the media out saying, “He [Trump] has helped you sell your papers and your books and your TV. You helped create this monster and now you are profiting from him.”
After all, this is the simple truth. No one else, including Trump, saw Trump as a viable candidate, but the media showed clip after clip of Trump, using contributors from every side of the aisle to argue Trump’s legitimacy, giving him much needed validity.The media gave Trump millions in free advertising with “$55 million in free advertising space” coming from eight major media outlets. Looks like Wolf said it best Saturday night when stated, “You guys are obsessed with Trump. Did you used to date him? Because you pretend like you hate him, but I think you love him.”
The New York Times put it best when it said Wolf’s piece was “scathing, confrontational and impolite.” In short, it was gifted and what this country needs. We can’t go on pretending that it’s normal for the President to joke about “grabbing women by the pussy” or that it’s acceptable for the President’s Press Secretary to lie ad nauseum. Most importantly, in the words of the incredible Michelle Wolf, we can’t go on pretending that it’s okay for Flint to still be without clean water.