Documentation
What “Truth” is told: Satirical Late-night Talk Shows as an Example — Jenny Chan
In his seminar “Humour, Truth-telling, and Situated Knowledges”, Dick Zijp reflected on the truth-telling role of comedians. Zijp first introduced the Foucauldian concept parrhesia, with which comedy practice is associated, meaning “fearless and courageous speech” (Zijp 2026). When applied to contemporary stand-up comedy, it suggests that comedians are parrhesiastes who speak truths via their “liberal free speech” (Zijp 2026). However, Zijp critiqued such positioning of contemporary comedians from the perspective of standpoint epistemology. From this perspective, comedians’ access to and expression of “truth” are conditioned by their social positions; and their “truth-telling” performances take place on a specific stage with a particular group of audience. In other words, when we take into account comedians’ standpoints, their speech is not automatically universal or morally righteous.
Zijp’s critique of comedy is important in this day and age. Increasingly, people are losing confidence in conventional authoritative truth sources, such as news outlets (Fink 2019), and some are turning to comedy, for example, satirical late-night talk shows (Farnsworth et al. 2023), for national and world news. In “The Discourse on Language”, Foucault writes: “Each society has its régime of truth, its ‘general politics’ of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true …” (Foucault 2005 [1972], 333). It is important to understand that comedic performances become perceived as “truth” by the audience and thus hold the power of truth. This gives comedians credibility and authenticity, which places them in a position of authority from which they represent information as ‘truth’. Some examples of satirical late-night talk shows include Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (English, HBO), The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (English, CBS), and LUBACH (Dutch, RTL). In these shows, the hosts wear a full suit, sit upright in front of a nighttime cityscape background, and news headlines are occasionally displayed on screen. At first sight, the setting looks like a news broadcast, but the host starts comparing a politician to a funny dog, or talks about how Dutch winter sports enthusiasts turned into “snow hooligans”. These political parodies turn news into funny and entertaining information, which is then shared across social media. Becker observes that Generation Z viewers come across attention-grabbing segments of late-night shows through social media, and friends and followers share segments with them (Becker 2026, 233). Late-night shows arguably gain credibility by basing their content on news topics, and the hosts’ comedic performances are perceived as critical voices in the discourse. It is noteworthy that The Guardian has a page called “Late-night TV roundup” under their Culture section, whereby late-night shows’ discussions of news topics are documented. It suggests that comedic performances by late-night hosts are considered valued opinions, not only acknowledged by viewers, but also by some established news outlets.
References
Becker, Amy B. 2026. “‘But I Don’t Watch Television!’ Keeping Late-Night Comedy and Political Satire Relevant for the Audience.” Comedy Studies 17 (1): 231–48. 192656899. https://doi.org/10.1080/2040610X.2024.2436738.
Farnsworth, Stephen J., S. Robert Lichter, and Farah Latif. 2023. “Political Consequences of Late-Night Humor: Learning about Politics via Political Comedy.” In Late-Night in Washington. Routledge.
Fink, Katherine. 2019. “The Biggest Challenge Facing Journalism: A Lack of Trust.” Journalism 20 (1): 40–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884918807069.
Foucault, Michel. 2005 [originally published in 1972] . “The Discourse on Language.” In Truth: Engagements Across Philosophical Traditions, 1st ed., edited by José Medina and David Wood. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470776407.ch20.
Zijp, Dick. 2026. “Navigating Entanglements in Stand-up Comedy: Humour, Truth-Telling, and Situated Knowledge.” PowerPoint presentation, Utrecht University, March 25.