Commentary by Jess Bozeman, Campus Carrier Opinions Editor
HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” returned for a second season this past Sunday, bringing with it Oliver’s satirical reporting on current issues. Produced by HBO, “Last Week Tonight” is a satirical news show in the same vein as Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”, the latter of which recently ended. “Last Week Tonight” first premiered last year and is hosted by comedian and former correspondent of the “The Daily Show,” John Oliver.
I personally like “Last Week Tonight” a bit better than the other satire news shows because Oliver tends to focus more on international issues as well as national issues. For example, on Oliver’s very first show of last season, he did a bit on the Indian election which was really interesting because I did not know a lot about it.
For Sunday’s premiere show, One of Oliver’s first bits was about a United States Congressman who has had his office decorated to resemble the show “Downtown Abby.” Oliver mocked the Congressman for both his decorating choice and his response to criticism. When asked about his office, the Congressman responded by quoting Taylor Swift and saying “haters gonna hate.” Oliver poked fun at the Congressman’s attempt to show he’s in touch with younger voters by saying “you are definitely a crusty old white guy if you think Taylor Swift was the first person to say ‘haters gonna hate.’”
Oliver then went to segment commenting on the scandal between the president of Argentina and the Chinese government. On a visit to China, the Argentinian president sent a tweet with a mocking Chinese accent. Oliver commented “that is a level of clueless racism on the internet you’d expect from a Dartmouth sorority pledge.”
Oliver followed with a piece mocking America’s apathy towards the closing of the almost century old company Radio Shack which filed for bankruptcy recently. Oliver in a parody commercial reminded viewers of all the things Radio Shack has done for them over the years, like selling the remote controlled toys they played with as kids. He ended the parody commercial with a great piece of black comedy on how viewers shouldn’t mock Radio Shack because we will all die and then Radio Shack will dance on our graves.
While the smaller segments were hilarious, Oliver’s big moment of the show came when he discussed how pharmaceutical representatives target doctors who in turn, thanks to unethical bribery, might prescribe patients drugs they don’t need. One of the things I like most about Oliver’s show is the amount of research that goes into it. For this episode, Oliver pulled interviews from former pharmaceutical representatives and prescription drug commercials as he outlined a grim tale of when doctors may be doing. He then, like in many shows, offered the audience a possible solution—or at least a partial alleviant—by telling them about a website where they can check what money a doctor has received from pharmaceutical representatives.
With his mix of national and international issues and his amazing blend of humor with incredibly important serious issues, Oliver presented a good start to what I’m sure is going to be a fantastic second season.