On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 12:37 PM, Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote: > > Deconstructing Segment Five: > > Not employing hyperbole, that was easily the best interview segment > Jay Leno has ever had. I don't know if it was Leno's idea to use his > meeting with Kanye's mother to approach the situation, but it was the > best way to get the proper response out of Kanye. You know me and > staged apologies, but this was the best way to do more than > apologize... it was a way to tell a story. It was a great interview.
I don't know how good an interview the Kanye segment was relative to Jay's lifetime body of work, but judging it simply in terms of how good it was, I would give it something like a 3 out of 10. I was surprised to see the Today Show gang going ape shit over it this morning, and I have seen several other media sites agreeing with Kevin, but I thought it was really quite bad. I don't have Kevin's principled opposition to apologies - it seems that Kanye really had something to apologize for (though I had to pause my TiVo to google-research the event in question and finally find the youtube video). I thought the bringing up of his dead mother was the worst kind of sensationaslitc pop-psych interviewing that would have made Barbara Walters herself blush. It is fine to give a musical guest a chance to apologize and explain and begin to rehab his image - fine too to acknowledge that many other celebs in that situation might have skipped the gig. But at least ask a few actual questions. The reports I read stated that he had been chugging booze from the bottle on the way in to the event - was he drunk when he intruded on the stage? Doesn't he have a history of a couple of similar jerk moves that predate that death of his mother? Did he talk to Beyonce about it after, and if so what did she say? What did other musicians at the ceremony say to him, or him to them, about it? What would he have done if some drunk boor intruded on his acceptance speech in a similar way? Why did it take until after he saw how she responded to his comment for him to figure out he had done something wrong? Has he called her to apologize directly (I see from today's news that he had not when he talked with Leno last night, but he did today)? In stead of any of these questions we get "what would your dead mother have said about it"? and, had he not given us 12 seconds of silent reaction shot, I suppose Jay would have followed up with "If you were a tree, how many leaves would still be on your branches right now"? I don't know what the great story is that got told here - Kanye bitch slapped Taylor Swift because he was still sad about his mother dying two years ago? My mother died 21 years ago, and I am still sad about it, but I have not bitch slapped any young girls that whole time. At the very least he could have tried to explain that he go drunk because for some reason he was thinking about his mother, and in his drunk state acted like a dick. This was less about any kind of revealing interview, and more about Leno saying "Look, here is the advantage of doing a daily show - I can put the pop culture fetish of the day on the air faster than anyone else. You'd ahve to wait 6 months to get the Kanye on Oprah interview! --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
