LONDON—Woke has reawakened the television career of Piers Morgan.
You might well ask: So what?
Well, it’s adrenalizing that the woke thing — hyperawareness of societal issues, especially racism and social justice, rendered bonkers by the every-which-way censorious — has spurred a kickback that isn’t the sole purview of Fox TV. A lot of ordinary, even progressive people have fallen afoul of these neo behaviour dictates, particularly when applied to historical transgressions dug out by the vituperative mob. Apologias infinitum.
Does anyone remember “It’s Pat,” the adenoidal social misfit of “Saturday Night Live” sketch comedy, where the humour revolved around the inability of others to determine the character’s sex? Can you imagine playing gender identity for laughs now? Retroactive criticism led a chastened Julia Sweeney, who played the Pat part (right into a big screen movie that bombed) to wonder aloud in her one-woman show a couple of years ago: “My God, what did I do? Was I the Al Jolson of androgyny?”
It’s hard to put every foot right all the time and, really, I don’t care to. I’m on board to respect everyone’s individuality, to use the preferred pronoun, to always keep in mind the persecution experienced by trans folks and try to ensure they can enjoy lives of dignity — though I part company on the matter of trans females competing against cis females in sports at any level above grade school. But that’s a subject for another day.
Increasing numbers, the heretofore overwhelming silent majority, have had a bellyful of toxic repudiation for so mild a purported offence as lamenting the eradication of the very word “woman” from our vocabulary. Again, this isn’t about gender self-identification. Again, I’m not disputing that. Rather, it’s about language, the fundamental purpose of which is to communicate clearly. Ask the Divine Miss M, Bette Midler, whose career first thrived as a gay-friendly performer playing bathhouses in New York City, and who has become the most recent victim of trans radicalism, crucified for cautioning in an interview that appeared in the New York Times about women being “stripped of our rights over our bodies” in trans-inclusive language such as “birthing people.” Whoops, there goes another TERF — trans-exclusionary radical feminist.
Let’s turf TERF, for starters.
Anyway, about Morgan, who has moved from tabloid editor to the boob tube, he’s been riding that wave of fed-up-ness for quite a while and it’s a big part of his new evening chat show, “Piers Morgan Uncensored.” It hit the airwaves in April with the launch of TalkTV in the UK (and Fox Nation in the U.S.), a network owed by media magnate Rupert Murdoch, for which the one-time no-holds-barred tabloid editor is being paid a whopping $63 million over three years. Not bad coin for someone who was famously axed by CNN as replacement host for put-out-to-pasture Larry King, after anchoring the program for a mere three years.
Earlier this week, Morgan had the sublime singer Macy Gray as a guest. Gray last year was lambasted for suggesting the United States design an updated national flag, dumping the Stars and Stripes for a version that better reflects the country’s diversity. So she knows from the pitchforking phenomenon.
On this occasion, Gray got onto the topic of What is a Woman? “I will say this and everybody’s gonna hate me, but as a woman, just because you go change your parts doesn’t make you a woman. Sorry. Like, if you want me to call you a ‘she,’ I will because that’s what you want. But that doesn’t make you a woman, just because I call you a ‘her’ and just because you got surgery.”
(Most trans women, of course, don’t undergo gender reassignment under the knife.)
Think of her comments what you will, but one can both accept gender self-identification and see the point of what she said next: “Being a little girl is a whole epic book and you can’t have that just because you want to be a woman. It’s the truth and I don’t think you should be called transphobic just because you don’t agree. There’s a lot of judgment and throwing stones at people for just saying what it is.”
Yeah, she got pelted. Cue her hit song “I Try.”
Gray hasn’t subsequently unsaid anything, just insisting in a statement she’d been grossly misinterpreted. “I have nothing but love for the LGBTQ+ and transgender communities, have been a supporter since day one. I don’t hate anyone. I respect everyone’s right to feel comfortable in their bodies and live their own truth.”
But you could practically see Morgan salivating during the discussion over the controversy that would inevitably follow.
He’s much more cutting than he was on CNN, more in sync with the British zeitgeist. The program’s opening visuals feature a blue pulsating brain alongside slogans such as “woke insanity” and “snowflake society” and “the whole world’s gone nuts!” His debut show drew an audience of 400,000, likely due to Morgan’s much-touted “get” — a two-part “world-exclusive” with Donald Trump, in his first TV interview since leaving (having his fingers ripped from) the Oval Office.
Morgan couldn’t have dreamed of a better inauguration. The president had a hissy fit over Morgan’s no sugar-coating “fact” that Trump had lost in a free and fair election and he’s continuing to drumbeat the big lie. Teasers before the telecast claimed Trump had stormed off in a fury. That’s actually not true and the former president accused Morgan of “unlawfully, deceptively” editing the “tedious interview.” Trump may have walked off set but he was back in situ for the second half.
That’s tab tactics, the phoney “gotcha.” But since that first show, “Uncensored” ratings have plummeted, last week pegged at just 32,000. So maybe Brits aren’t that anti-woke enthralled after all, tired of outrage and culture wars, or they’ve plain grown weary of Morgan.
He, of course, pulled a storm-off of his own last year whilst co-presenting “Good Morning Britain,” after getting into a row with a co-host over his ceaseless trashing of the Duchess of Sussex, this on the heels of Meghan and Prince Harry’s tell-all interview with Oprah. Morgan is a celebrity suck-up; he and Meghan used to be pals when she first ventured overseas, before meeting her prince. Apparently, Meghan “dropped” Morgan like a radioactive chunk of plutonium upon her romance with Harry and Morgan has never forgiven her.
As he took a powder from the live-on-air program, Morgan nattered: “OK, I’m done with this, sorry, no, can’t do this.”
Morgan does have deft interview skills, just recently eliciting from Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone that “I’ve never met a coloured person I didn’t like” and that using the N-word “is like being rude about weight.”
He’s also had a lip-smacking time with Boris Johnson melodrama this week.
Rupert Murdoch has lavished money on “Uncensored” as his network’s flagship show but it’s unlikely he’ll tolerate a bust for long.
Maybe Morgan’s woke-awakening is actually putting TV viewers to sleep.
