Talk Show Wars

I want to throw in my 2¢ on the whole Jay Leno vs. Conan O'Brien Tonight Show imbroglio because... well, because I have a blog and putting in my 2¢ is at least 60% of the reason I started one! But I especially want to talk about the recent talk show wars because I have been saying the same thing for over 15 years now:

Jay Leno literally embodies everything that is wrong with our parents' generation.

I refused to watch The Tonight Show when Leno usurped it and, in the 17+ years he's served as host, I've seen it all of maybe 15-20 times, and never all the way through. For me, it was never just about the fact that Leno stole The Tonight Show out from under David Letterman without so much as a reach-around, it was the shocking lack of compassion or remorse with which he did it. Leno offered absolutely no apology for robbing David Letterman, and laid the blame squarely at the feet of the network - exactly like he is doing now! The only direct reply to the Letterman ousting I've ever heard from Leno was along the lines of, "Of course I wanted the job; who wouldn't want that job!?"

He embodies the very worst of the Baby Boomers: an unjustly entitled, sociopathic opportunist who has absolutely no concern for how his actions affect others. And he tries to justify his behavior by convincing us that we would all be just as duplicitous and opportunistic as he, if given the chance - hell, we'd be fools not to! Ri-ight?

In the 1990s, Leno was lauded for his betrayal - after all, like the man said, "Who wouldn't do it?" The 1990s became noteworthy for such a lack of loyalty and basic, effing respect. Corporations dropped all pretenses and laid people off weeks before they could retire and draw the pension they'd worked decades to earn, and when they were called on it, they simply bought a senator or two and changed the rules (which is now, ahem, perfectly legal). Young and old alike scrambled from low-paying, entry-level job to low-paying, entry-level job while corporations shipped gainful employment opportunities overseas to avoid paying Americans a fair wage.

Thus came the rise of "The Slacker" - we "Gen-Xers" who basically fell into a comfortable routine of sliding from entry-level job to entry-level job as a sort of antisocial statement. We didn't want to play by established rules when corporations chucked them as they saw fit, especially since they were never really stacked in our favor in the first place; we had bigger dreams but no real way to realize them (until the Internet), and so we dutifully bounced from day job to day job just to pay rent. Obviously, the bad tidings of the decade weren't Jay Leno's fault, but he not only contributed to them early-on, he came to represent them as the decade wore on.

But Leno isn't finding it quite as easy the second time around. The people who had grown-up with Johnny Carson comprise Leno's audience thanks to something we Slackers helped defeat some 20 years ago: brand loyalty. Traditional values returned with a vengeance in the 1980s and we Gen-Xers had plenty to rebel against, and though most of us were still in highschool in 1992, the Leno vs. Letterman debacle is probably etched in the brain of every 30-something in this country. It actually was rather traumatic, as not only was Johnny Carson - who was an American institution by that point - no longer around, David Letterman wasn't going to pick-up the reins. It really was a wake-up call to our generation that said: "Corporations do not give a flying fuck about you; you have no voice, you make no decisions, and we can change the rules whenever we like."

It was a very loud, very clear statement which said there was no such thing as loyalty in the American business world, and certainly not in entertainment. It happened right around the same time a band called Nirvana released their album and I believe it had almost as much to do with the prevailing attitudes of the time - it was a confirmation of what our music told us the world was like, at the very time our fathers were telling us to "cut [our] hair and get [real jobs]." What real jobs? The corporate landscape our fathers and grandfathers had come to know was no longer there; in its place were the cutthroat corporations of Cyberpunk literature, run by the type-A overachievers we avoided in school for the very reasons we avoid people like Jay Leno IRL.

Brand loyalty is starting to reemerge, but for the right reasons, as the 1990s reminded corporate America that in order to preserve said loyalty, you had to maintain product superiority - they got a "pass" on such things in the 1970s and '80s, when America was filled with Baby Boomers starting families and largely doing what their parents had done before them. We Gen-Xers were dead-set on doing the very opposite - and if it sounds like I'm making more of this than it was, let me remind you that most American homes had only three stations (no one watched PBS then, either) and The Tonight Show was on in every one of them.

For me, this isn't about Conan O'Brien; it's about Jay Leno: he's not funny, he isn't relevant, and I can't for the life of me understand why he gets his old job back – especially so soon after “graciously leaving it.” And the fact that this is the second time he's taken the same job which didn't belong to him just burns me alive!

The entertainment world is flat – there has been nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing groundbreaking to hit mainstream entertainment for years now – and part of the reason for that is on display right here. More than ever before, artists and creators fear Hollywood and the corporate system and shit like this not only bolsters that fear, it legitimizes it. We are forging ahead online and underground, but the problem is that there are so many of us that, to most (even to those of us who are doing it), it looks like a patch of weeds where there should be a garden.

Did you know the kid who made the “Leave Britney Alone” YouTube video actually moved to L.A. to pursue a career!? Seriously!

Michael Ian Black's point is not missed, but he seems to dismiss the larger point so many of us have taken to heart: it isn't so much about Conan O'Brien as a person or entertainer. And though it is about fairness, justice, equality, and all of that – we, the little people, and so on - the idea that this guy got $40 million to walk away from a TV talk show isn't lost on us. The point is that here's a guy who played The Game the way we were all taught The Game is supposed to be played, who obeyed the rules, and paid his dues, and sometimes ate shit even though he knew it was neither dignified nor justified – all of this, just to get his dream job – and a known motherfucker was able to wrest it away from him so easily. It really isn't about Conan O'Brien losing his job so much as it is the fact that he lost it to Jay Leno, but the fact that it was his dream job – the very one he'd worked his entire life to get – shouldn't be overlooked.

It's hard not to be moved, not to be cynical, when many of us watched Jay Leno do this very thing 20 years ago! David Letterman hit the nail on the head when he said there are ways to do this without forcing someone out of a job, but only if Leno had been the one who capitulated – only if Leno had played The Game the way we were all taught The Game is played, instead of using his clout to change the rules. And he didn't.

But most of all, at least for me, it was about the same, tired, old entertainment bullshit I've always seen: the littler man backing down even when the entire world was on his side, just because he was afraid of the corporations and the industry – he's afraid of being blackballed, he's afraid of looking like a troublemaker and not being hired elsewhere, et.al. At a time when a $15k movie goes to #1, you might think someone of O'Brien's stature might finally find the balls to say, "There are a lot of people out there who have dreams, and this is mine; fuck Jay Leno and fuck the system that made him!" Instead, he bowed-out.

I'm not going to champion Conan O'Brien for being a Harvard-educated, multi-millionaire... especially when he also happens to be a raging pussy. But, again, this really isn't about Conan O'Brien.

Jay Leno is just an asshole, and there's nothing cool or clever about assholes. I mean, the guy collects life-sized Hot Wheels cars, for eff's sake! He's totally out-of-touch with anything under 50 years-old. And because he, and most of his fellow Baby Boomers, completely lacks any semblance of character, he can't bring himself to believe anyone else has any, either. Some people do have character and not everyone would have stepped-up and taken another man's job; it's called honor, integrity - fucking class.

There is NOTHING good about people like that. They are not clever, they are not brave or courageous, and they should not be looked-up to, regardless of how rich or powerful they become. Jay Leno should never be the type of guy about whom you say things like, "He knew what he wanted and he got it." I've never bought that and neither should you! He knew what he wanted and he showed absolutely no class, dignity, or shame in getting it. He has no scruples, moral compass, or sense of fairness. That is how he should be attributed. There's an ocean of difference.

I can literally see him in my mind's eye, as an unpaid intern reads this aloud to him behind the closed door of his office: hands in his pockets, shrugging-off my criticism with that nasally, high-pitched, "Ih." That single syllable which communicates Leno's monumental smarm: it's the sound of dismissal - the sound he makes when a joke bombs or the audience boos or an elderly woman falls headlong into the front of a bus, five feet away from him. Jay Leno's constantly ready to "move on" rather than face the music. He has no honor, no integrity, and doesn't want to hear what anyone else thinks or feels about that; he's just a suit and a haircut and he not only knows it, he's fucking proud of it! In Jay Leno's world, we would all be tools too, if only we had the chance - who wouldn't!? Fools, that's who!

Ih. I've been called worse.

© C Harris Lynn, 2010