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By Josef Adalian
TheWrap
Wanda Sykes, George Lopez &
Mo'Nique |
Fifteen years after Arsenio Hall signed off the air, late-night TV is once again making room for hosts who aren't white men.
Fox on Saturday launched a weekly showcase for African-American comic Wanda Sykes. This week, George Lopez becomes the first Latino to host a nightly late-night comedy series on a major network when his "Lopez Tonight" premieres on TBS. And last month saw the arrival of "The Mo'Nique Show" on BET.
Is this the Obamafication of the late-night wars?
"It may have to do with the fact that we have a black president," said Eddie Feldmann, executive producer of "The Wanda Sykes Show."
In the past, "I had been out (in the TV marketplace) at different times with different comedians of color, and you'd go in and say, 'There's nobody of color on now in late-night,' and it didn't get a lot of attention from the networks," Feldmann said. "I do think that it's because of President Obama, that maybe the networks started saying, 'Well, OK, we might need to get into this business.'"
Michael Wright, who heads up programming for the Turner networks (including TBS), agrees there's something happening here. But rather than looking at Obama's election as the reason for the changes in late-night, he's hoping they're both signs of a broader societal evolution.
"I would like to think they're a reflection of a cultural shift that's going on," he said. "That maybe, please, we're all growing up and becoming a bit more open-minded and more inclusive."
On TheWrap: Reality TV Watch: The Bombshells Are Back
What's surprising about the emergence of a new rainbow coalition in late-night is that it took so long for programmers to realize the logic of embracing diversity in the daypart.
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