By Jarod Golub
Samantha Bee has been a voice in late night television since joining “The Daily Show” in 2003, and her impact for people of all ages was on full display during “In Conversation with Samantha Bee” at the Kennedy Center Dec. 1.
“I love Sam Bee, I have been watching her since about 2005,” Mary Fraker, 65, said. “I just knew she would be wonderful and really honest and outrageous, and the show absolutely met my expectations.”
The one-hour show consisted of a Q&A with Bee that was moderated by Rebecca Traister, author of “All the Single Ladies” and a writer for New York magazine, followed by a chance for audience members to ask their own questions.
The show provided long-time fans of Bee the opportunity to experience her comedy in a different way.
“I think that Samantha Bee is a super important voice and she has an incredible impact on politics on television,” Danya Degen, 26, said. “I was really curious to see how her commentary would work live and if she was as eloquent and insightful as she is on her show, which she was.”
Bee managed to infuse her classic brand of comedy into the Q&A, covering topics like millennials and feminism with ease. She highlighted her political impact by discussing a Michigan Attorney General candidate whose campaign advertisement closely mirrored her Penis PSA segment from the Oct.11 episode of her show “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.”
“Not whipping it out is the easiest thing I do all day,” Bee said on the subject.
Traister managed to keep the event relevant by focussing Bee’s comedic feminism on people like Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer, to which Bee responded that they should be put in “total exile on an island on the moon.”
Despite the unconventional structure of the event, audience members were still pleased with the outcome.
“My expectations were that it would be a little more rehearsed, a little more like a stand-up routine in structure,” Degen said. “But she still managed to keep it comical and really earnest and real.”
While the goal of a comedian is always to provide laughter, the Q&A with Bee allowed the audience to leave with inspiration too.
“As the audience questions were wrapping up, the person next to me jumped up and ran downstairs and was actually the last person to ask a question,” Fraker said. “And to me, that was like the perfect example of the message that Sam was trying to send, always persist, so I’m going to try and do more of that.”
“Her show was really powerful,” Degen said. “I really want to go home and be more liberal in my use of comedy to deal with all this bullshit that’s happening around us right now because I think that’s what she would do.”
Featured Photo Credit: Courtesy of Full Frontal With Samantha Bee’s Facebook page.
Jarod Golub is a sophomore journalism major and can be reached at jarodgolub@gmail.com.
