Apparently Jon Stewart's show on Apple TV+ has been canceled because he intended to talk about China:
The New York Times reports that along with concerns about some of the guests booked to be on The Problem With Jon Stewart, Stewart’s intended discussions of artificial intelligence and China were a major concern for Apple. Though new episodes of the show were scheduled to begin shooting in just a few weeks, staffers learned today that production had been halted.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, ahead of its decision to end The Problem, Apple approached Stewart directly and expressed its need for the host and his team to be “aligned” with the company’s views on topics discussed. Rather than falling in line when Apple threatened to cancel the show, Stewart reportedly decided to walk.
Financially, this makes complete sense: Good relations with China are worth at least a thousand times more to Apple than Stewart's program. And they must have done this knowing perfectly well what would happen. Stewart has plenty of fame and money and doesn't need the Apple gig. There was zero chance he'd stick around if Apple started dictating what he could and couldn't say.
Still, understandable or not, it's discouraging as hell. Apple now joins outfits like Tesla and the NBA that tiptoe around all things China because they depend so much on China for revenue. In the end, it's self-defeating for China to have a reputation that makes this kind of tiptoeing common, but that's small solace in the here and now. Who knows how long it will take China to become confident enough that it can accept everyday criticism without having a temper tantrum?
Side comment: Because China is not a Democracy, you need to distinguish between what is good for China rulers and what is good for China people.
Even in a democracy the government's and the people's interests don't always align well, but at least there are mechanisms that push in this direction.
I would never say anything mean about my Chinese friends! They are wonderful people and their fearless leader Mr. Xi is awesome!
And Tim Cook is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life!
Silly John Stewart.
I blame mostly Bill Clinton and the Bush's. They told corporate America it was OK to sell their souls to the Chinese communist party so they would get rich. Along with the feckless EU, they created this monster. Oh well.
You sound like that tough guy John Cena
I can see this becoming a fairly big deal especially if Colbert has him on to discuss it and if Stewart goes to Congress to testify about it.
I doubt he's going to Congress to testify.
He’s done it before about 9-11 workers’ compensation.Democrats in Congress should be willing to have a hearing on corporate and Republican America interfere in with political speech and the press.
It’s a serious problem. NBC/MSNBC took Medhi Hasan and Ayman Mohyeldin off the air last week because of the attack on Israel. In the run up to the Iraq War MSNBC demanded that Phil Donahue, host of their highest rated show, have two pro-war guests on for every critic of invading Iraq. Donahue counted as one anti-war “guest”. Then they cancelled the show, using the excuse that it was “too expensive”. It has been well documented that Meet the Press regularly has a lot more conservative guests on. During the Scooter Libby trial it came out that Cheney’s people thought that Meet the Press was their best venue for getting their side out. Keith Olbermann tells how Jeff Immelt — the CEO of GE who owned NBC at the time — leaned on him to tone down his criticism of Bill O’Reilly, in part because it made his mom angry.The other reason was O’Reilly had started retaliating against MSNBC by accusing GE of providing parts for terrorists bombs because terrorists were using parts from old GE products in their bombs. Immelt didn’t choose to have NBC/MSNBC counter that ridiculous propaganda because he was more concerned with GE’s reputation than he was with NBC’s integrity. Olbermann’s taking on O’Reilly was the main reason his ratings had gotten higher than other MSNBC shows but Immelt put the good of GE over the good of MSNBC.
The point was that Republicans are absolutely not going to call Stewart to testify before Congress, full stop. So it's not going to happen.
Senate foreign relations comittee.
The show is bad. And if it weren’t bad, it probably wouldn’t be getting canceled. If it had made any cultural impact in its two years, I suspect Apple would be more willing to stick up for it. But it’s bad. That’s the subtext here: why fight for a bad product?
From the Atlantic Mag:
“The Problem With Jon Stewart is a strikingly unambitious, defiantly untimely show that confuses thrift with substance … and though Apple declared the show an immediate hit with viewers, well, do you know any of them? Have you seen even a single viral clip from it?”
Yes, actually, I have indeed watched some segments from the show. One was from an episode called “The problem with white people.” Was Stewart trying to be edgy or lefty with such an insulting title? I don’t know, but I remember looking that one up because I had read so many bad reviews about the episode that I wanted to see the car wreck for myself, and it did not disappoint.
In that and other segments, there was little if any of the Stewart from the Daily Show; instead, I felt like I was watching someone trying and failing to remain relevant. Back to the Atlantic:
“Aside from his Jon Stewart thing at the beginning of The Problem and a few wry asides during interviews, he’s not even trying to be funny. When you take the comedy out of topical comedy, though, you become … the media.”
And who wants yet more of the media? I think the Daily Show was funny and important during the Bush Jr. presidency. But we are in different times.
Stewart's "everything is a joke" approach worked kinda sorta under GWB when it was somewhat unique, but with the rise of Youtube and Tik Tok, it was increasingly a victim of its own success and influence. And Stewart just wasn't, and isn't, brainy enough to make the leap to doing longer more in depth stuff. Going for the joke has its limitations.
From everything I saw and have read about Stewart he is plenty brainy enough. The Daily Show made that clear, too. However since his show ended our politics have gotten even worse. He no longer masks his (justified) anger and intensity with humor which has made him less appealing. It was his clever, intelligent humor that made him a big hit.
"In that and other segments, there was little if any of the Stewart from the Daily Show; instead, I felt like I was watching someone trying and failing to remain relevant."
It was essentially the Stewart from the end of his Daily Show tenure - he's been that guy since the last few years he was there. And that guy is someone who is toxically, reflexively, and uncontrollably both-sides-ist.
That was the structure of the show. And it worked in the Bush 2 administration. It stopped working in 2009 because reality had changed. Stewart did not change with it.
If the reason Apple cancelled the show was because it was bad/ratings were low they would have said so rather than risking a controversy by cancelling him over China criticism. Doing that makes Apple look bad — unless their goal was to pander to China.
Apple rarely comments on anything (a generally sensible approach...)
The claim that this is about China comes from Stewart's team, as reported by the NYT, not by Apple. And for obvious reasons Stewart's people are going to claim this is about what a courageous martyr to truth he is, not about how he's a non-funny has-been whom no-one watches.
Is it, though? It's not like Google's got a presence in China. But anyway, is "The Problem with Jon Stewart" the property of Apple or Jon Stewart? I bet Max or Showtime would pick up the series.
At some point after Pooh is no longer in charge.
Even if Apple owns the show, it's just a talk show. He could easily start a new one at any rival. Unless they had some kind of ironclad non-compete clause.
Certainly seems like Streisand Effect to me. Had Stewart done the episodes, it would have had almost zero impact and largely gone unnoticed. Maybe it would have rankled Chinese officials enough to give Apple problems, I guess.
Now the Chinese government and Apple's relationship with them will almost certainly get more scrutiny and bad press. Not enough to hurt either, but worse than had Stewart done his episodes. Seems like a clear net loss for both.
Who knows how long it will take China to become confident enough that it can accept everyday criticism without having a temper tantrum?
It has nothing to do with the amount of time required for confidence building. Rather, it's a matter of how much time the current, fascist regime holds power. As long as they're in charge, many China-related things will continue to be difficult.
This. This isn't the case of an insecure middleschooler lashing out--it's the fundamentally different set of values an autocracy has versus a democracy. It isn't so much that China fears criticism of China, but instead that China feels criticism of China is _illegitimate_.
"China feels criticism of China is _illegitimate_."
Chian's RULERS feels that criticism of China is _illegitimiate- (specially if it is criticisom of Chian's rulers).
????????????????????
Being pedantic certainly has its place, so I apologize: By saying "China" I did not intend to mean "All Chinese people" but instead "the political and institutional structure commonly referrered to as 'China' which is largely reflective of the Chinese government, official actions, mores, and culture, but may not be so reflective in every particular instance."
"China's rulers" is agood enough shorthand.
"China" is too ambiguous. Many people use it to refer to the people living in China (as well as to the physical country).
As I understand it, you are currently living in China. Also, as I understand it, China is the kind of place that is kind of like Santa (knows when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake) and doesn’t particularly like criticism. So, just out of curiosity, how is it that you are so confident that your opinions aren’t going to be noted and land you in some kind of trouble? This is a real question.
It is definitely are big risk to criticize China. Watch this short segment front the PBS special “Hacking Your Mind” about how China is using people’s social media posts to control them.They assign a social credit/citizenship score to people based on their social media posts and other behavior. They even use face recognition at busy intersections to catch people jaywalking and use that to lower people’s score. Low scores make it harder to get travel, documents and other benefits. If you are friends with people with low scores your score also goes down and you are notified that that friend is hurting your score. Scores are available to everyone so people with low scores are shunned by others.
https://youtu.be/ymg_RItD3JA?si=Sh4VA-wzu9ayT6KP
Unfortunately this excellent four part series didn’t get a lot of attention. This short segment on China really freaked me out.
It is disturbing that a lot of young people have no clue how governments can invade our privacy to control our behavior because we no longer talk about how the Nazis and USSR spied on people and had people spy on each other to control their citizens and the horrific consequences that were meted out to those who dared criticize them. I know my 4 grandkids have no clue about it.
I suppose this story is news, but it's bigger news that the Chinese market for entertainment, which once was something that Hollywood slavered over and dominated for a while, is now a market that their domestic industry controls. China makes content for its domestic market now, and controls whatever foreign media can show. Not just because Xi is an autocrat (although that's partly the reason), but because it has Chinese appealing and palatable alternatives to content produced elsewhere.
The whole idea of "opening China" to become a marketplace for Western products was a chimera all along. China's history never supported the idea. Now current events align with historical trends there.
The whole idea of "opening China" to become a marketplace for Western products was a chimera all along.
Not so. China imports more than any other country except the US, at more than $3 trillion annually. That's up from about $7 billion in 1978, at the beginning of Deng's reforms. China plays by rules others don't like, though, that's true.
"it has Chinese appealing and palatable alternatives to content produced elsewhere."
This is how I can tell you don't actually watch much Chinese content. My wife is a Chinese immigrant, and she watches a lot of Chinese movies and TV shows. Mind you, even she doesn't claim that they are as good as western content, nor even as good as Japanese or Korean productions. No, she watches them because the language is more comfortable for her, and the cultural milieu makes sense to her. But the production values are drastically inferior, *especially* in terms of writing quality. The censorious political pressure on Chinese productions means their imagined universes are cramped and stilted.
China is far, far away from producing their own equivalent to Bong Joon-ho, Ang Lee, or Hayao Miyazaki.
Agreed. Chinese mainstream cinema is virtually unwatchable.
Yeah, Netflix recently promoted a Jackie Chan/Jon Cena action flick from China and it was the definition of mediocre. Lots of pointless action, wooden dialog and adequate cinematography. Like those B westerns of the 50's, but obviously shooting for more.
A few years ago I watched "The Wandering Earth" on Netflix. I thought it was a pretty good sci-fi / action-adventure flick. The FX were just as good as anything out of Hollywood.
Yup. Given a large enough budget Chinese studios can produce excellent special effects, and also convincing sets, costumes, and props. And sometimes good acting and directing, though not consistently.
The one thing they are just not capable of is good writing. It's interesting that you cite "The Wandering Earth" as a positive example of Chinese filmmaking. I agree that it was visually impressive, but the jingoistic political propaganda got nauseating towards the end. There's a reason this huge-budget Chinese film barely made a dent overseas.
Both Wandering Earth's are above average movies, with Hollywood production values and above average scripts. (The originality of the source material, of course, helped.)
Both Wolf Warriors are also very good for what they are trying to do.
China may make fewer of the sort of totally predictable Oscar Bait movies that a certain segment of the US absolutely loves and that the rest of the movie publicly sensibly avoids; you know the genre – "disease of the week meets injustice of the month".
Whether or not you see that as a negative for Chinese cinema is, uh, a matter of opinion.
All the more reason to check the “Made in ..” markings while pushing one’s cart along the aisle s at the UberMart…
To be fair, this is a company that won't let me say "ducking" no matter how much I want to.
Capitalism breeds a strange and infuriating conservatism.
OT: 24 R votes for NotJordan with ~50 to call yet
Stewart is using the alleged misalignment between China and Apple so he can make another anti-Iran film.
Remember when Apple's motto was "Don't be evil"? ...Oh, wait. That was Google.
I take the other side - this is a real risk for Apple. They are the most valuable company in the world largely because of their positive brand image. If that's tarnished by sucking up to tyrants, then what do they have? A limited line of too-expensive electronics.
Chinese production is how Tim Cook made his bones. It's what brought him to prominence in the company. They have ruthlessly suppressed criticisms of their sub-contractor's labor practices. You can't fool all the people all the time, though. Scandals like this can open them up to a world of bad press.
You know what would be oh so ironic?
That he livestreams his anti-China show on Xitter, just like Tucker Carlson.
Yeah, that won't happen. But having Elon Free Speech Absolutist Musk deny Stewart his free speech would be so much fun. Please, Jon, try, please!
I'm getting the popcorn out, and hoping we start seeing more of the old Jon Stewart. Who knows how much they forced him to both sides issues? I'd love to see him back where he is best, if he's willing to do it. And for those who don't like the show, did you not see him eviscerate the pro-gun nut from Ohio? Very few could have done what he did to that guy. Yes I am a huge Stewart fan, I hope he gets back on the air with a good set of writers for another swing at it. We need it.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that while I don't particularly care either way, I don't think the world is losing much here.
Comedy, especially Jon Stewart's type of comedy, is not a good way to explain issues. It IS a good way to create an echo chamber of everyone agreeing about the designated hero's and designated villains. If you're laughing along to Whitney Cummings or Bill Maher, try either listening to old versions of this material (eg Elayne Boosler) or the right wing (or at least not explicitly leftist version) eg Bob Smiley or Norm McDonald. Ooh, not so funny are they?
Nothing is easier than getting a crowd that ALREADY AGREES WITH YOU to bay for blood. That doesn't mean it's a good thing to do.
I would love to have more insight into what's really going on in China (especially bearing in mind that China's a big country, meaning there is a LOT going on, with multiple causes, reasons, and disagreements). But I trust I would get such insight EVEN LESS from a comedian than I would from the NYT. Because I care about insight, not about repeating a set of cliches and stereotypes about China with which we are all already familiar.