Michelle Wolf wasn’t ready for the fallout from hosting the 2018 White House Correspondents Dinner. Despite going out of her way to avoid critiquing the physical attributes of the women working within the Donald Trump administration, two jokes about Sarah Huckabee Sanders left her buried in a barrage of criticism, including from the Orange One himself, and disavowed by the WH Correspondents Association itself.
Wolf, of course, stood her ground.
In a new interview with Vulture, the host of Netflix’s The Break opens up about the blowback.
Wolf says she doesn’t even recognize her own jokes in the fray they kicked up. Many complained that it was unkind of her to go after another woman’s looks, [...] but Wolf swears that was not her intention.
“Before we started writing, we made a conscious decision to not make fun of any woman’s looks,” she says, “because then that’s all anyone will hear. So we didn’t do it, and then it was like, Oh, it’s all about the looks, but it wasn’t! It was about abilities! But I guess as soon as you’re making a joke about women, it’s heard as a joke about her looks.”
She tells no lies.
Though Wolf insists she beat feet out of the nation’s capital and went and ran an ultramarathon, thus leaving her relatively unscathed by the frenzy surrounding the April event, it’s undeniable that she suddenly found herself more Google-able than ever. And after 10 years of rising through the comedy ranks, including stints at The Daily Show and Late Night with Seth Myers, the 32-year-old comedian was no stranger to the spotlight—but she also wasn’t at a place where red-hat death threats and bipartisan condemnation were a part of her daily life. Thankfully, she had her supporters as well.
When asked if it was hard to call Huckabee Sanders a liar while she was just a few feet down the dais from her, Wolf waves off the question and focuses on what really troubled her about the WHCD.
Campaign Action
“No! It was gross! Like, I saw (CNN president) Jeff Zucker hugging Kellyanne Conway, and it was just like, Oh! You’re all in this together! People are really getting hurt, and you guys are just celebrating your money.”
Wolf went on to explain that Trump’s trained monkeys’ constant attacks on mainstream “Fake News” media is basically a moneymaking feedback loop that everyone—including networks like CNN—is in on.
“It’s all a game, nothing more than ‘How will we best profit off of this?’ It was icky.”
Icky, indeed.
For those who haven’t yet watched it, Wolf’s show on Netflix is careful not to mimic her work at the WHCD, or even The Daily Show. In fact, Wolf tells Vulture that she is troubled by comedy’s increasingly powerful place in the forefront of news consumption.
“People are getting their news from comedy, because you turn to a news station and it’s like four guys sitting around talking about their opinions and selling their books,” she says. “I think news should have that responsibility, to be accurate. It’s not fair that comedy has that responsibility. But jokes are always funnier when they’re rooted in truth.”
Speaking of truth, check out this great parody trailer about portrayals of powerful women in film and television. I dare you not to laugh.
BONUS: If the New York Times’ ongoing penchant for garbage fire op-eds frustrates you to no end, enjoy this musical hot-take on WHY the paper of record keeps doing what they’re doing.