Image via Complex Original
Finally, late night has its Queen Bee.
Monday night’s premiere of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee was a giant leap forward for womankind in the realm of late night television, but the Canadian funny lady is no stranger to the scene. Bee, a former Daily Show correspondent, was the first woman to sign onto the Jon Stewart-helmed Comedy Central program in 2003, where she regularly made us laugh at Washington’s expense until just last year.
In case you missed Monday's premiere (and if so, I highly suggest you catch up on TBS.com), here are five ways Full Frontal is changing late night TV for the better.
1. She's not shy about talking politics
What differentiates Bee from previous female late night hosts, such as Chelsea Handler and Whitney Cummings, is her politics. Chelsea Lately and Love You, Mean It with Whitney Cummings focused largely on pop culture and celebrities.
Sure, Handler and Cummings were funny, but they reinforced the gender stereotype that these kinds of “lifestyle” topics were the only ones women were capable of discussing in a late night format (and maybe in general). Thanks to Bee, who is the only woman currently hosting a late-night satire program, that's no longer the case. Full Frontal is thoroughly political, on par with similar male-hosted shows in the space, including The Daily Show With Trevor Noah, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, and the The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore. It may even be funnier.
2. She's not afraid to address the elephant in the room
On Monday night's episode of Full Frontal, Bee wasted no time addressing the lack of women on late night television. She opened the show with a hilarious sketch that played out as press conference; in it, Bee played herself, fielding sexist questions from reporters about how she managed to get a late night hosting gig...since, you know, she's a woman.
3. She doesn't only cater to female viewers
Bee is an equal opportunist when it comes to the victims of her joke assaults. Despite having a female host, Full Frontal is decidedly not a woman’s show in the Lifetime sense—and thank God for that.
Instead of being driven by any sort of feminist agenda, it’s simply driven by the political issues of the day. Case in point: Bee's takedown of Hillary Clinton. The Democratic presidential candidate suffered the same verbal beating for her campaign's missteps as her male counterparts did. Even better, Bee gracefully avoided the trap of going extra hard on Clinton in an attempt to prove she was playing it fair.
4. She’s not afraid to be controversial
Bee’s humor and razor-sharp delivery is not for those who are faint of wit or have virginal ears. The writing on Full Frontal spares no f-bombs.
On Monday night's episode, Bee described Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz as a “fist-faced horsesh*t salesman.” Not that we disagree, but dayum, girl. Bee has the same sort of irreverence and crassness we see in John Oliver and Jon Stewart—in other words, the stuff that really gets your attention, and humanizes what could otherwise be an inaccessible (see: boring) political news show.
She pushes the boundaries of what's allowed on TV that much further, and perhaps it’s because she’s a woman that Bee is able to do so. As a pioneer in the space, she can set the tone for what to expect from future female hosts (or any host for that matter). If other shows are going to compete, they’ll have to keep it just as real.
