Wyatt Cenac, a former writer and correspondent on “The Daily Show,” said Jon Stewart told him to “f**k off” when Cenac confronted him about the way he was imitating Herman Cain’s voice.
Cenac, a black man, recounted the story on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast released Thursday. The incident occurred in 2011, as Stewart was imitating Herman Cain’s voice, who was a 2012 presidential hopeful at the time.
“‘Fuck off. I’m done with you,'” Cenac said Stewart yelled at him, on the podcast. “And he just started screaming that to me. And he screamed it a few times. ‘Fuck off! I’m done with you.’ And he stormed out. And I didn’t know if I had been fired.”
He said that he remembered thinking the comments came from a “a naïve, ignorant place.”
Cenac watched Stewart’s bit remotely, but told Stewart that the sketch bothered him when he returned, according to the report.
“(Stewart) got incredibly defensive. I remember he was like, What are you trying to say? There’s a tone in your voice. I was like, “There’s no tone. It bothered me. It sounded like Kingfish,” Cenac recounted.
Cenac was the only black writer on “The Daily Show” staff at the time, according to the Vulture report.
“Something like this, I represent my community, I represent my people, and I try to represent them the best that I can. I gotta be honest if something seems questionable, because if not, then I don’t want to be in a position where I am being untrue not just to myself but to my culture, because that’s exploitative,” he said.
I am not sure what Cenac is complaining about, then or now. The only valid criticism of Stewart’s performance is whether it was funny. His concern about the quality of Stewart’s voice does not seem to address that. And if Stewart, his boss, was equally confused by Cenac’s confrontation, I could see why Stewart had to curse to stop it.
I always find it hilarious when black comics/actors imitate white-people voices for purpose of satire and humor. A small sample: Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Dave Chapelle, Chris Tucker, the black ladies on OITNB, Wanda Sykes, Whoopi Goldberg, et alia. Wyatt Cenac sounds like a hyper-sensitive child if he thinks people like Stewart can’t make fun of the professional dope Herman Cain. Time for him to change professions if he can’t handle rough 'n tumble comedy. Is there a job application for My People’s Representative & Insult Detector? Fill that one out Wyatt.
Is there more to this story? Stewart has always come off as attempting to be funny – not offensive or rude. His mimicking and imitating of whomever is definitely part of his shtick, so unless he intentionally far over-exaggerated something about Cain that could only be construed as relating to black men, etc., and making fun of only that … I’m not sure I get the gist to this story.
Totally agree on this. First, it’s comedy which is a sometimes brutal profession not required at all to be “polite.” Second, he claims
“Something like this, I represent my community, I represent my people, and I try to represent them the best that I can.”
Um, what? Cenac can only represent himself not any community; he is an individual person not a part of the Borg. If not, does that mean that 9-9-9 Cain represented “the community”? To me, this also asks the question, why would Cenac feel for one minute that 9-9-9 Cain needed to be fairly represented?
Cain is an idiot and deserves mocking. Stewart does voice imitations, albeit badly at times. Stewart has always come across as being 100% behind causes near and dear to African-Americans. I seem to recall that Stewart confronted criticism of his Cain-voice on the show and (if I recall correctly) apologized if he offended people by doing it. He had nothing to apologize for, IMHO. He didn’t do some Steppin Fetchit voice, it was an honest imitation of Cain, not of some generic person of color.