Trevor Noah: treading carefully as the new Daily Show host

By LINDANI MEMANI / As soon as news in March of Trevor Noah’s appointment to replace Jon Stewart of the Daily Show became public, online spaces flooded with calls for his axing. While the news in South Africa was met with an explosion of excitement and pride, the same cannot be said about the reception to the news in America. The NPR headline “Trevor Noah, Jon Stewart’s replacement, goes from hero to villain In 24 hours” succinctly captured the speed at which the news story was developing. Noah, a 31-year-old South African comedian, was tossed to the middle of a whirlwind over jokes he had made on Twitter as far back as 2011. In some of these jokes, which were included in most online news sites ranging from blogs to CNN, Noah disparaged Jews, African Americans and fat women. Writing for Vox, Kelsey McKinney labeled Noah’s jokes as “misogyny, fat-shaming, anti-Semitism, and a large dose of homophobia,” something she said she found “upsetting.” McKinney then suggested that a comedian hosting the Daily Show “should be held to a higher standard than other comedians.”