I usually love and agree with Jon's take on almost everything, and I'm not opposed to the difficulty of gender, but this episode was really badly assembled and presented and well beneath Jon's usual high standard.
Instead of looking at a complex issue Jon and his writing team decided what they wanted to say and then proceeded to find people to say it for them. It wasn't investigative news so much as an essay with an agenda. One they'd already decided on.
I thought the interview with the Arkansas politician came across as more of a point scoring showboating lecture than a real discussion with someone of opposing views. Jon is obviously the better word gymnastics expert, but he let his joy of delivering a zinger overpower the topic.
So she came to a gunfight with a knife, she was unprepared, so stop the talk, let her get her files and continue. Did she provide the info to the show at a later time regarding who they consulted? It was never mentioned. Was this really a test of her memory? Was that the whole point, to show she didn't remember stuff?
The reality is human science and especially in the fields of medicine and psychology is in its infancy. We're not very far along the knowledge curve and we're learning as we go, and that the key point here, he's talking about his chosen experts as if they come from a long line of wins and are never wrong, yet we know 'we're/they're' often wrong, many times in the same week.
Science is a work in progress, and Stewart failed to acknowledge that. He set up strawmen and set them on fire, and used slight of hand word play to make a point and slip in another card for the punch line. He over simplified a very complex subject and dismissed inconvenient points to hammer home his position, and he's very skilled at it, but we expect more from him, because he has regularly been that more, a guy with compassion and insight. This show didn't come across like that at all. It came across as the latest button issue that a bunch of comfortable NYC writers had put their bleeding hearts to to generate some content.
Jon didn't have no points, they were just watered down with the song and dance showboating.
The way it was presented you'd think it was the most pressing issue in the world but not once were we given real numbers. How many kids are dealing with this as a real life issue, what does 40% suicide mean in real numbers,
The best bit which did have real value was the 2 parents talking about their kids. There was an honesty to their accounts and it presented real insight.
But again, we were given no idea of the scale of the events. How common is it. It could be just those 2 or if we believe the presentation, it's every second kid is dealing with this all of a sudden.
Normal human variation, sure, so give us numbers, is it 20% ie 1 in 5, or is it 0.000001%? We're given no idea of the scale, and are told we need to be really concerned about this topic because it is rampant. How would we know? No data was given except percentages.
We wouldn't know because no one presented that information to us. Anti trans legislation increased by 800% but we're not given any context as to what that means. What are the bills, are there really 160 distinct issues dealt with by legislation that needed to be addressed? It's just all so vague.
What could justify this unprecedented urgency he asks, well could it be that media have decided its a hot button topic and they see it as a bums on seats winner for their shows. This is in the same week that Jon Oliver delivered an episode on the same topic. Apparently it's a really big issue, but we still don't know how big.
77 anti trans sports bills in one year alone. What does that mean? Each state introduced 77 requirements to regulations on women in sport or roughly 24 states introduced 3 bills each? In what way are they anti trans? We wouldn't know because we're not given that information by the show. It's just dumped on the table and moved on.
His Olympic sports bit shifted some more goal posts. Apparently the measure of a woman is the ability to have a baby. That was the punch line, so is that how he wants to quantify? The ability to have a baby?
We already established chromosomes are complicated and not cut and dry exactly, but having a baby, having the anatomy to deliver a baby naturally, that's a decent point. Why not apply it to the overall story rather than leaving it as a punch line?
It just seemed disingenuous and that's not something I usually associate with Jon Stewart.
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