Trevor Noah was born in South Africa in 1984 and took over the famous American talk show "The Daily Show" in 2015, and he has a nickname in China, "Triva". Former host Jon Stewart laid the show's style of relentless criticism of politics and the media, and Noah took 6 years to establish himself, and he also faced a situation that his predecessor never faced – the epidemic that changed everything.
He wore explosive heads, wore hoodies, and recorded videos of the show at home, trying to build conversations in a time of severe division. This article was published in the US issue of GQ in December 2020/January 2021. Now there are some new changes, such as Biden winning the election, the epidemic in the United States has reached its peak and then fallen, but some things have not changed, such as effective communication between different groups, it is still very difficult.
But that's what Noah does every day, "the first part of the show is just to get people to breathe a sigh of relief," and then, "The second thing I want to do is let myself and my audience know what's going on right now, so you don't have to surf social media all day, you don't have to watch cable news 24 hours a day, you don't have to watch people argue all the time." ”
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"Trevor, is that you?" On the night of the last day of September, in New York, a homeless man shouted at Trevor Noah.
A smiling Trevor was riding his e-bike through the entrance to a park near the Studio in Manhattan's "Hell's Kitchen" neighborhood, where he made an appointment to meet me at social distancing. A few minutes ago, a white tramp had just made himself a bed on a nearby bench with pillows and blankets. Noah put the bike on and walked over to the man and chatted with him for a while. Later, Noah immediately explained to me that the man had been living on the streets here for 4 years, and the two of them slowly became acquaintances. Noah and his employees had tried to help him, but so far he had refused.
"I remember one time, when I first arrived, I felt very overwhelmed. I asked him, 'Hey, dude, is there anything we can do for you?' He said, 'No... I'm fine that way now. I thought, well, it's really weird to meet someone like that," Noah said, before adding that he later realized that the man wasn't as relaxed and easy-going as he seemed. "He's homeless, but he's going to say something extremely racist or sexist nonsense to my employees, especially female employees. Sometimes I have to make him shut up. But when he met the white male on our team, he never said anything. You'll think, 'Wait a minute, let me get my head straight: You're on the streets, but what you have in mind is, yes, but I'm still white.' It makes people think that this sense of superiority is strange. I said to myself, 'But you are all living on the streets!' Noah explained. That kind of momentum is really interesting. I don't know how the rules of the momentary awakening of racial consciousness work. I don't even know what this rule really is. ”
This expression is too much in line with Trevor Noah's style. He's extremely kind—so he can definitely be friends with the tramps on the block—but at the same time his bluntness is irritating. He's the kind of guy who listens carefully to the answers after asking questions. He is a man who is angry about racism and can analyze it objectively at the same time. A mixed-race boy who grew up in apartheid South Africa, he grew up wandering between ethnic groups, often acting as an interpreter for his compatriots who spoke different languages. Today in the United States, he positions himself similarly. In a moment of political totalitarianism and polarization —in a reality where the good guys and the bad guys are at odds, and different parties are at odds — Noah stares at us from the TV screen, trying to coax us into reaching some sort of consensus.
It's a Barack Obama-esque line of thinking that looks like a discordant note in Donald Trump's world. Moreover, there is a view that liberals want to compromise with people full of malice and make friends – to condone those fascists instead of punching them in the face – is dangerous naivety and has a lot to do with our current crisis. But I must admit that in this moment of common cynicism and common despair, a conversation with the self-proclaimed optimist Noah can lift one's spirits.
The day before we met, there was the first televised debate for the presidential campaign, and the magnitude of the debate was so disastrous that many people publicly called for the remaining ones to be cancelled — and in the second half of that week, Mr. Trump would report that he had tested positive for COVID-19. But even then, Noah saw hope in the midst of disaster. He watched the debate live through the Fox network, and he was surprised to find that even the host of the Fox network admitted at least briefly that the president had behaved rudely and rudely when the debate had just ended and the media had not yet reversed.
"The presidential debate is one of the few shows that all Americans are watching," Noah notes, "and the reality has become so fragmented that only the debate can get the attention of the people." Whether we watch Fox channels or MSNBC (Microsoft National Cable Broadcasting Corporation) channels, we watch the same content. ”
During this year of chaos and confusion, we found that the most frequently watched was actually Trevor's show. Back in March when we were still struggling to meet through Zoom, Noah had made the perfect transition to recording the Daily Show in his own apartment. When the latest video of police killings of black people went viral and shocked the nation, Noah stared intently at his phone camera and found the most appropriate language to tell the story of George Floyd. If 2020 is the year that most Americans want to forget, what remains in our minds is Noah's show.
"For me, this year has allowed me to get the most liberation in my thoughts and emotions, and it has also freed me from many of the rules and regulations that I have set for myself before," Noah told me, "from an objective point of view, the new crown epidemic has helped me eliminate the clutter." ”
The first thing to eliminate is the format of the show itself. The Daily Show faces the same dilemma as most office spaces: Do we want to see COVID-19 as a temporary anomaly, or a new reality? The show team quickly chose the latter and changed the name of the show to "Daily Social Distancing Show", where Noah and his reporters reported every night in their apartments. In the beginning, clips of the show are published directly on the YouTube website. But it didn't take long for them to start broadcasting the content on television, replacing studio recording. The well-tailored suit on the news anchor was also missing. Noah left an African-style explosive head and began appearing on camera in a hoodie. He felt he could be more experimental. "The first part of the show is just to get people to breathe a sigh of relief," Noah told me, "and the second thing I want to do is to keep myself and my audience informed of what's going on right now, so that you don't have to surf social media all day, you don't have to watch cable news 24 hours a day, you don't have to watch people argue all the time." ”
When CNN repeatedly broadcast a joking interview with his own brother in prime time, Noah persuaded Dr. Anthony Fauci to give his first in-depth television interview. When the nation's attention once again turned to the police officers who killed blacks, Noah — one of the few black television hosts currently active in American radio and television — faced the monologues spoken by the cameras were broadcast millions of times online.
After George Floyd was killed on Memorial Day, Noah recorded an 18-minute mobile video posted on YouTube recounting a series of heart-wrenching and angry events: Amy Cooper called the police after encountering a black man watching birds in Central Park, Ahmaud Arbery, Georgia, was shot while jogging, and now, A Minneapolis police officer pressed Floyd's neck with his knee for 8 minutes.
"I don't know why this video looks more uncomfortable, because watching a person's life being taken away in front of us, because a man who is supposed to be responsible for protection and service kills people, or because he seems so calm when he kills people?" Noah pondered, he didn't shave and his hair was messy, "At that moment, the only thing that gave me a glimmer of hope was to see so many people immediately condemn what they saw." And, maybe because I'm an optimistic person, I've really never seen a response like that before, especially in the United States. ”
In August, police shootings of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, made him speak out again in anger. "Nobody wants to march on the streets, clash with the police, get deported by tear gas, get beaten, get arrested. They would definitely prefer to live their lives," Noah shouted after the news broke that only one of the three police officers associated with the death of Breonna Taylor was facing criminal charges, "but they protested because some people could not get by." ”
The home-recorded version of the show worked well, so Comedy Central executives decided to extend the show from half an hour to 45 minutes in April. "In a sense, we can be more cordial and speak more candidly," the show's reporter, Desi Lydic, noted, "Trevor is not at all afraid to have a sincere conversation." With newscasts being taken over by a global pandemic and the legacy of American racism, Noah seems destined to emerge at this moment, as ronny Chieng, a program reporter, puts it, "like a robot that came into being."
But that hasn't always been the case. Noah got off to a tough start, having just been announced as the new host of The Daily Show in 2015, when some of his past tweets were highly controversial for being sexist, losing nearly 700,000 viewers overnight compared to Jon Stewart's last year as host. At the time, "the primary goal was survival." Noah's old friend, David Kibuuka, a colleague of the Daily Show and roommate at the time, recalled. Noah was very concerned about the pickiness of his pronunciation ("Sometimes I just sit on the side and practice different pronunciations of a word over and over again.") And Twitter spit, for which his friend and The Daily Show screenwriter Joseph Opio finally couldn't help but scold him. He said to me, 'Essentially,' complaining that the birds were pulling on your Ferrari sports car,' Noah recalled, but you have a Ferrari! ’”
We sat on park benches, his smiling face on a huge billboard as big as the floor above our heads, and it was clear that Noah had let go of those insecurities. As the show's online reach expanded, ratings finally began to pick up, and he adapted to the job and was no longer seen as "the black guy who gave Stewart an indefinite shift." And it's not a bad thing that Donald Trump has more slots than Barack Obama. Five years after taking over the nation's most influential talk show platform, Noah's arrival isn't just about holding his place — he's at the center of the conversation, judging by his performance this year.
Comedy has always been a source of social and political commentary, "especially in times of social unrest," says Caty Borum Chattoo, a scholar at American University who studies "the impact of comedy on social change." During the Bush and Obama administrations, Jon Stewart's relentless criticism of politics and the media turned The Daily Show into a regular show for viewers to follow. Yet, despite Stewart's blatant opposition to calling him a "journalist," especially his famous mockery of Tucker Carlson, "My show was scheduled to air after a little puppet spoof phone show," his Daily Show has evolved to this day in a way that has greatly admired audiences who are keen on comedic positive journalism.
John Oliver makes clear points about public policy on the show every week. Samantha Bee and Hasan Minhaj are known for their columnist images in the form of talk shows. Jordan Klepper and Michelle Wolf say blatantly mockingly what veteran media outlets are reluctant to say out of courtesy or for professional compromise.
Then there was Noah, who always talked about his Daily Show as a global news show rather than a comedy series. "I grew up in a world where everybody watched the news," he said, "and the news told us where the earthquake was, then what happened in Burundi, then what happened in South Africa, and then what happened in the United States." That's the news," he added, "and I still like the newsworthiness of the show." ”
Noah argues that most political media outlets use journalism as a game that draws attention to conflicts, and stimulates television networks to sustain those conflicts. "My instinct as a person is always to try to decipher people's conversations with each other," he told me. "What my show is trying to say, 'Look, dude, I don't have 24 hours, so it's not good for you to tie you up here and watch 24 hours.'" As a result, Noah's program is often used as an important news story. In late October 2020, thousands of Nigerians took to the streets to protest police violence, and the nine-minute report on noah's show about the demonstration provided as much information as any cable news report.
Like Stewart, Noah invited politicians and celebrities to the show, but he chose well-known black writers and thinkers, including Eve Ewing, Mychal Denzel Smith, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Tressie McMillan Cottom. In 2016, I went to his show to discuss a book I had written about the Black Lives Matter movement, and that book Noah not only read, but also took notes. "What I've learned in the U.S. is that people don't like the complexity and chaos of nuance," Noah told me. "But what I've done on the show is to express my truest thoughts directly, to appeal to my fellow human beings, and I'm going to say, 'Uh, dude, a lot of the things we're dealing with in this world are chaotic and complicated.'" ”
The first time Noah ventured into the chaos was when he invited conservative media personality Tomi Lahren to a show in late 2016, when videos of her contemptuous promotion of various major right-wing views were going viral online. Two diametrically opposed media personalities in the Culture Wars engage in lengthy discussions on television rather than clamoring at each other, which is rare in the Trump era. Noah told me that he grew up idolizing Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin, who could eagerly debate ideologically different opponents, all part of the interpretation.
When I revisited the interview 4 years later, I realized that it was indeed a frustrating but thought-provoking exchange. Noah asked Laren to explain her most inflammatory views, such as "Black Lives Matter" or "The New Ku Klux Klan," and most of the time she answered with more points. After that episode aired, Laren received numerous death and rape threats. Noah was so angry that he invited Laren and her producer for a drink with him and his producer. "I thought, maybe we could talk a little more about the intersection of misogyny and sexism." He said. As a result, photos of their meeting (the producer who was present at the same time were cut off) spread across the web, and the keyboard men began accusing Noah of asking Laren to appear on the show just to find a chance to date her.
"The Tommy Laren incident made me understand that a lot of times things don't look like they seem," Noah said, referring to the extensive coverage of their meetings at the time. In the minutes that followed, he lamented that today's journalists, whether covering the White House or the movements of the police, often become the answering bugs of those in power. The news media are so eager to spread explosive news so quickly that they don't pause for a moment to get the facts straight. Noah said it was these trends that gave Donald Trump the opportunity to lash out at "fake news." Trump's lashing is exaggerated and politicized, but it also undermines the real failure of the press.
I think Noah's analysis is very sharp, and of course partly because he resonates with my point of view. "The problem with America is that the media doesn't take any responsibility," Noah told me, "and I certainly say it in general terms, but in the world I grew up in, if your news goes wrong, you should correct it where it went wrong." So, if something goes wrong with your front-page news, you should make a correction on the front page. ”
I'm not surprised that Noah was deeply touched by Laren's controversy: nothing bothers a sincere person more than feeling unjustly treated. Noah demanded that the employees of the Daily Show treat the politicians they mentioned fairly, even when they were parodying them; of course, he couldn't stand his words or actions being deliberately distorted.
In the impression of Noah's friends and colleagues, Noah would only really lose his cool in that situation. While in Johannesburg, he once calmly negotiated with a bandit who wanted to rob his friend. "'Hey, Dave,'" the friend remembered noah coldly instructing him, "'Just give some money to the people.'" But after taking over the "Daily Show," he went mad when he thought the tweets he had posted years earlier had been taken out of context. Since then, he has never invited anyone as extreme as Laren, but he continues to debate with conservatives through private messages on Twitter. Noah told me, "The most interesting thing is that when there is no melon eating crowd to watch, when no one is fanning the flames on the side, your discussion will be much deeper." ”
But even Noah acknowledges that his style of discussion has limitations. Polite dialogue with neo-Nazis waving the Tiki torch proved impossible, even irresponsible. It's hard to seriously discuss the serious topic of restarting the economy with those who insist that COVID-19 is a hoax. "I think in a lot of countries around the world, the idea is, 'This is true, so what are we going to do?' And in the United States, from the beginning, there was a debate about 'whether this is or true,' Noah said. "Wait, what? It's fun to go through this pandemic in the U.S. ... The strangest thing is that we can't agree on whether the problem exists or not. ”
Noah also added: "I'll give you the best example. Herman Cain's Twitter posts still say the coronavirus is a hoax and over-exaggerated. That's Herman Kane's official tweet. When the coronavirus came, Herman Kane didn't stand with us humans. ”
Five years ago, when Noah first started as the host of the "Daily Show," the Americans said that he had previously been obscure and now he was stepping into the sky. In fact, he was already a highly successful "international comedian" at the time, living a semi-retired life in Cape Town. Once, he and the young Justin Bieber appeared at the same terminal of an airport in South Africa, and a large number of teenage fans passed by Bieber and rushed straight to Noah.
His path to fame seems to be a movie plot: because of a challenge from a cousin, he stumbled into the comedy industry, and then quickly became popular, becoming the most famous person in South Africa. Soon after, he began touring the world, and after becoming an international superstar, he toured the United States for two years at his own expense, mainly in small cities. Noah often said that it was those years that gave him a real understanding of America.
His first professional performance in the United States was in a 3-minute short segment at laugh factory in Los Angeles. The audience saw this tall foreigner with a lighter complexion and did not know how to react for a moment. "These people were silent; they didn't know what was going on," Noah recalled, "and then, halfway through the show, I told a joke, but no one laughed." But then one person burst out laughing, causing everyone to turn around and look at the second-floor box, it was Kate Williams.
"Don't change," Williams pleaded to Noah after the show. "There's always someone who wants to change your comedy, don't change it."
While American audiences were still trying to figure out his path, Noah was quickly warmly welcomed by his black comedy peers. Arsenio Hall told me that he first saw Noah perform a few years ago because Eddie Murphy strongly recommended that he watch a video of Noah's talk show in Johannesburg. "This kid can definitely make it!" Hauer still remembers his own exclamations. To this day, Chris Rock texts him suddenly for advice. Dave Chappelle also became his mentor. Soon, he was also loved by black audiences.
"Between the Black Comedy Club and the Black Comedians, I was constantly being recommended," Noah recalled. "I'm starting to realize that even though we've grown up on different continents, oh my God, many of our experiences are similar. You'll feel as if black Americans also grew up in South Africa or other parts of Africa. In Noah's native South Africa, classmates and neighbors refer to him as a "man of color" (a term used to describe a mixed-race South African population). In Britain, he was treated first as a South African and then as a mixed race. The United States is more binary. "In America, they think you're 'black.'" I suppose it's the poison of the 'one-drop rule'. 'Yes. I'm black. Let's talk about the next thing. He told me.
Noah and I joked that white Americans have an attachment to mixed races. They often assume that if you have a black and a white parent, you must face some sort of identity crisis, and identifying yourself as black is an important choice, rather than the obvious conclusions that can be drawn at a glance at skin color in childhood. A white psychiatrist once asked me if I thought I was white, and I laughed.
The so-called pressure to "behave like a black person" is caused by many factors, but the black community in the United States, although diverse, is generally accepted. In these people who have fused all kinds of bloodlines hundreds of years ago, mixed races don't make you look special—you're just family. If there's one thing worth mentioning about being a mixed race, it's that white people with discriminatory skin color will be more receptive to you. While mixed races no doubt face racial discrimination, they don't cross the street extra carefully when they see Barack Obama; no one is afraid of singer Drake — and no one is afraid of Trevor Noah, just as no one is afraid of Trevor Noah.
"White people don't fear him," said Hower, the "most successful black comedian" in the history of Late-Night Television programming in the United States before Noah, "if you make people scared and can't push the boundaries of race, you can't succeed." Trevor was the kind of guy black people could be proud of him and white people could play with him. ”
His accent, the fact that he didn't grow up in the United States, and his difference all became factors in Noah's favor. Darryl Littleton, a historian who studies black comedy and is himself a comedian, said that Noah's identity as black but not black American gave him an advantage in analyzing racial issues in The United States because "he could see things from the outside." Noah argues that his alien status makes it easier for white audiences to accept his criticism, which would not necessarily be the case if the same views came from an African-American comedian.
As he explains, "Sometimes I find that if I were articulating the current situation in America, the response of the white audience would be more comfortable and peaceful, because maybe they don't feel any debt to me, and they don't feel guilty when they talk to me." I'm not going to jump up and shout at them, 'Compensate me!' So, I can explain the compensation to them. ”
When we met at the park, I asked Noah if he was really as calm and composed as his friends and colleagues told me. The show's reporters shared many of the generous arrangements he made on the spot: He insisted that Roy Wood Jr. fly to Chicago to watch his beloved Cubs win the World Professional Baseball Championship, and invited Dulcé Sloan back to her hometown of Atlanta to be the opening performer on his special session. Jen Flanz, executive producer of The Daily Show, told me that in her memory, Noah only gets frustrated when a throat injury affects her work. It is said that during the epidemic, he paid the salaries of all the staff of the "Daily Show" out of his own pocket.
"A lot of times, people know your side rather than your real side. What I mean by that is that these are all me, because I've been in anxiety and depression for a long time," Noah said, "and my emotions are random, like a daily routine." Sometimes you wake up and think, 'I don't want to do this today.' And that's the greatest blessing that "The Daily Show" has given me. One of the best ways to cure depression is to have routine, purposeful tasks. Every day I make a show. I have to finish this show every day. Every day I have to put down this show. ”
Depression has always existed, in part, no doubt related to the trauma and experiences of his childhood. It manifests itself in the same way that many of us have experienced: wanting to lie in bed all the time during the day and not being able to sleep at night because of anxiety and insecurity. About 4 years ago, Noah started seeing a psychiatrist.
"In the profession of comedian, you don't even realize the signs of depression because you don't have a nine-to-five routine. So, sometimes you sleep all day and don't wake up until 4 p.m. Sometimes you fall asleep at 4 a.m. and you think that's the way the comedian's life should be," Noah said, "and then you find out, it's not normal — it keeps you under control." ”
In the course of our conversation, there were only two topics that kept Noah silent, and depression was one of them. Another topic is what the future holds for the country he moved to. After all, despite all the madness that Donald Trump and the coronavirus have brought to the United States, Noah has experienced worse. Like his home country, our multicultural demographic composition is no accident of history. "Every time people talk about the melting pot, the United States is a melting pot, South Africa is a melting pot, this melting pot, that melting pot, but you forget a little bit, what makes the things in the furnace melt is fire," Noah said. He cites historical similarities between South Africa and the United States — the massacre and oppression of indigenous peoples, the introduction of foreigners as laborers, and the systematic demonization of immigrants: "There is no pluralistic region in the world that was formed because someone wanted to have fun. ”
However, apartheid in South Africa eventually collapsed and the Government began a process of national reconciliation. I asked Noah if he could imagine a similar process in the United States. After all, he was an optimist. He quickly gave the answer: no.
Noah explained that the majority of white American dominance has been going on for hundreds of years. Overall, they never really transferred power to an equal system. The Civil War did not spark a discussion about why the South lost. Instead, "the result is: 'Ah, we lost this war, but we're going to keep doing our thing,'" Noah said. He also noted that many years have passed since the worst period of racial oppression in the United States. "It's hard to get people to repent of things they're not directly involved in." He said.
Then I asked Noah how America had changed him, and there must have been something that had been worn away. Has he become more cynical, more materialistic, more vain? He was silent for a long time.
"I realized that one of the American traps I started into was that America made you believe you were forever poor," Noah explained. "The U.S. is the only one in the world who would say, 'Mark Zuckerberg lost $50 billion today!' the country, he did not lose $50 billion. It's just that the value of his stock has fallen, and it will rise after that. It's like letting everyone play an imaginary game. This game is strange. It tricks people into thinking they're not getting (enough stuff). But in reality, we've got what we need.
"That's where I don't want to get back into. I don't want to be the hardest working person in Hollywood, I don't want to be on the Forbes Rich List (which ranks Noah as the fourth-highest grossing comedian in the world in 2019), and I don't want to be included in it. If there's something like the Forbes Happiest List — just write me down. ”
To be clear, Noah is still working very hard. He owned a production company and eventually began preparations to write a sequel to his best-selling book Born Guilty. His agent wanted him to go to a movie. Noah himself hopes to double the number of languages he speaks, from 5 to 10.
"Trevor can do whatever he wants because of his intelligence." Hassan Minha told me. Minha recalls attending the First Metropolitan Dinner in 2017 and is quickly impressed by Noah's charm. Noah said to him, "You're really nervous, you have to try to get back to normal." "It didn't work, so then Noah pulled Minhal aside to chat and help him relax." Think of this moment of fame as a rented sports car," Noah said, "and drive out for a spin, enjoy yourself, and when the night is over, return it." ”
Moments later, the two found Nicki Minaj. Noah pointed at Hassan and shouted, "Hey, Nikki, your brother is here!" The rapper asked confusedly, "What?" ”
"He burst out laughing, and he continued to walk into the dinner party with Nikki Mina's posture," Minha recalled. "Trevor said, 'Come here, enjoy it all.'" ”
After reading the story of "Triwa"
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Author: Wesley Lowery
*Wesley Loweley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.
It mainly covers racial issues and justice.
Photo by Shaniqwa Jarvis
Styling: Mobolaji Dawodu
Operations Editor: Wang Da meow