"The Daily Show" v. Jezebel

I've been watching "The Daily Show" since 2001, right around the time when it was first getting popular with the college crowd and Jon Stewart started showing up on magazine covers. I remember when Steve Carrell and Stephen Colbert were still correspondents. And I remember when Stacey Grenrock Woods, Rachael Harris, and Nancy Walls were also correspondents. And that leads to the uncomfortable question: what happened to all the women? The lack of female talent on the program in recent years has been noticeable and worrisome, and I'm surprised it took this long for someone to call them out on it.

Cue the Jezebel "lady-blog," which posted this controversial article last week: The Daily Show's Woman Problem. Compiling interview snippets with former "Daily Show" employees and snubbed hopefuls, it paints a picture of a female-unfriendly workplace culture, with an old school boy's club mentality. Noticeably, there's only a passing mention of Samantha Bee, who was the only woman on the show's roster of correspondents for the last several years, and remains one of their best comedic assets. Admittedly though, her frequent absences due to multiple maternity leaves made the "Daily Show" estrogen deficit all the more obvious. Jon Stewart and his crew have not taken this lying down, and a response from the program's female employees was posted on the "Daily Show" website a few days ago.

It's ironic that we're hearing these complaints in response to "The Daily Show" hiring a new female correspondent, Olivia Munn. There have been some snide attacks on her credentials, which may be lacking for a serious journalist, but look pretty impressive for a comedienne and television personality. Jumping into a giant pie while wearing a French maid's outfit for a publicity stunt? Perfect! The correspondents need guts and a yen for the ridiculous to pull the stunts they do on "The Daily Show." She's only been in two segments so far, not enough to tell how she's going to fare in the long run, but I'm rooting for her. I want to see Munn succeed on the show. I want to see her use more of the geeky snark that's been coming through in recent interviews. I want her to let loose and become the evil Connie Chung to Jon Stewart's bewildered Dan Rather. And I think she deserves a chance to try without the mob tearing her down just for being conventionally attractive.

On the other hand, it's been disheartening to see other outlets like Slate pile on Jezebel for bringing up the issue, or being dismissive because of the blog's female empowerment mission statement and point of view. There are mutterings about that old bête noire, feminism, being the real culprit, once again derailing the discussion and turning the spotlight on the perceived failings of the accusers instead of the accused. Whether the charges raised by the women quoted in the article are a bitter reality or just sour grapes, they've struck a nerve with enough people to have spawned the massive controversy the blogosphere is currently weathering. Is "The Daily Show" sexist behind the scenes? I don't know, but I think it's a question that needs to be taken seriously. Even though Jon Stewart is beloved by the Left, he shouldn't be free from scrutiny.

Calling out the program for its faults could be a good thing, because we know "The Daily Show" can fix them. After all, this isn't the first time that they've had skewed representation issues. Prior to 2006, there were no non-white cast members. So they hired Aasif Mandvi to become a correspondent and Larry Wilmore started making regular appearances as a contributor. Wyatt Cenac, who joined the cast in 2008, and Munn, who is part-Chinese, made the show even more diverse. The decision to hire Munn, the first new female correspondent in over half a decade, is a good sign that "The Daily Show" already recognizes its gender balance problems and is trying to move in the right direction. Hopefully the controversy will be a good kick in the pants to get them to move a little quicker.

In the short term, maybe they'll bring back a few faces who were gone too soon. Or we might see more of contributor Kristin Schaal, whose reports were meant to comment on women's issues, but never quite hit the mark. With this much material generated by the controversy, though, it would be an awful waste to let it go without getting in a few more zings.