Once upon a time, a photo of 10 smiling men broke Twitter. Vanity Fair posted a photo of "the titans of late night" with a headline saying "Why Late-Night Television Is Better Than Ever" above an image of the 10 male hosts of late-night TV. They are smiling because, even though there is not a single vagina under a single late night desk in these great United States, late-night television is "better than ever." I would be smiling too, if I wasn't so tired from getting my period and not being funny all the time.
And, before I get too deep into my rage blackout here, I want to point out that every man pictured has worked hard to be where he is, and is good enough at his job to reasonably occupy it. This isn't about me picking out five of those besuited guys that I want to swap out for deserving women who could do the job with their eyes closed. It's about the fact that this is an opportunity...
...no, not just for repeated facepalming, although my body's been doing that automatically every time I catch a glimpse of that photo. It's a reflex. More than that, this is an opportunity for Twitter to do what it does best — use comedy to embarrass the bejeepers out of anyone who doesn't realize how ridiculous this situation is. Here are some of the funniest social commentary on the photo so far.
Haaaahaha! Except it's true, so why am I laughing?
So brave. Such courage.
For real, enough with the discrimination against Carson Daly.
Yup, uh-huh, this all checks out. Nothing missing here.
Crickets.
Just when we thought it couldn't get any more embarrassing.
Doing the good lord's work with Photoshop.
Ayooooooo!
Suit diversity is one of the most under-represented fields of research out there, so I'm so thrilled it's finally getting its due.
PREACH.
So, yeah, I guess the silver lining to this is that it makes the lack of diversity in late night even more blatant than (I thought???) it already was. Twitter poking fun at the people who seemingly aren't aware of that is hopefully just the teensiest tiniest step toward correcting it. Fingers crossed.
