Print this post.Two cheers for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Within the tricky boundaries of his format, that of a court buffoon cracking jokes about the emperor clothes, and managing to transmit news of some interest to the general public—a format pioneered by Jon Stewart—Oliver often provides in-depth exposes of shabby capitalist practices. Most of his reports deal with domestic issues of business chicanery. On matters of weightier import, such as criminal imperial policies, Oliver treads more gingerly with erratic results and seems a bit clueless, at times regurgitating mainstream propaganda memes. In this episode, Oliver is seen rather uncomfortably interviewing Ed Snowden in Moscow. Still, despite the overload of frat humour (which he uses apparently to deflect the death rays of the empire and protect his career from abrupt termination), he manages to force-feed the public some vital information about the government’s illegal surveillance programs. If you watch, and I hope you do, don’t miss the appalling street interviews he files with the inevitable low-info types that abound in America. Snowden, by the way, is impeccable. The man has gravitas and loads of intelligence… Hmm. Snowden who?
—Patrice Greanville