COMEDIAN SAMANTHA BEE has apologised to Ivanka Trump and viewers for using an obscenity to describe the president’s daughter.
Her network, TBS, also said it was “our mistake, too,” in allowing the language on Bee’s show, Full Frontal, on Wednesday. Her show is taped and not aired live.
The word was used towards the end of a segment about President Trump’s immigration policies. She used the slur in urging Ivanka Trump to speak to her father about policies that separate children from their parents.
“Let me just say to you, from one mother to another, do something about your dad’s immigration practices you feckless cunt. He listens to you. Put on something tight and low-cut and tell your father to fucking stop it,” she said.
Bee, a former correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart whose own show has been one of TBS’ big successes since it started in 2016, said that her language was “inappropriate and inexcusable”.
“I crossed a line, and I deeply regret it,” she said.
Before the apology, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders called Bee’s language “vile and vicious” and said executives at TBS and corporate parent Time Warner needed to demonstrate that such explicit profanity about female members of the administration would not be condoned.
TBS said Bee had taken the right step in apologising. The network made no mention of any disciplinary action.
The car company Autotrader said that it would pull its advertising sponsorship from Full Frontal, calling Bee’s language offensive and unacceptable.
Bee’s show was honoured last night by the Television Academy as one of the most “meaningful and relevant” on the air.
In accepting the award, Bee addressed the controversy indirectly.
“You know, the thing is our show is steeped in passion,” Bee told the audience according to IndieWire.
Every week I strive to show the world as I see it, unfiltered. Sometimes I should probably have a filter. I accept that. I take it seriously when I get it right and I do take responsibility when I get it wrong.
The academy said its event was “non-political” and that Bee’s recognition is for “her engagement in 2017 on the subject of sexual harassment and the #MeToo movement.”
Coming two days after ABC cancelled Roseanne following a racist tweet about former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, Bee’s remark was immediately seized upon by culture warriors.
Some conservatives upset about the Roseanne cancellation suggested Bee should meet the same fate, while liberals wondered whether Bee’s words were any worse than some used by President Trump, notably in the Access Hollywood tape.
“I dream of a life where we hold our president to a higher standard than we hold comedians,” said another comic, Marie Connor, on Twitter.
Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to President George W. Bush, said there was a double standard when you compare media reaction to Barr and Bee. He said the media would go “nuts” if a conservative Republican used the same slur that was used by Bee against Nancy Pelosi.
“The outrage would be instant and overwhelming,” Fleischer said online.
Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore noted that President Trump and his aides had not condemned Barr’s racism and tried to “confuse the issue by going after Samantha Bee’s brilliant rant against Ivanka.”
One of the sharpest attacks against Bee came on corporate cousin CNN. Bee is no better than the behavior she sought to criticise in her immigration segment, said CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin.
“To use that word from a woman to another woman is offensive,” Baldwin said. “Wrong is wrong, whether you’re on the left or the right.”
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