Jimmy Kimmel’s Apathetic, Insincere, and Belligerent Apology

When an Apology is Not an Apology

James Christian Kimmel also is known as Jimmy Kimmel, is an American television host, comedian, writer, and producer. He is the host and executive producer of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, a late-night talk show that premiered on ABC on January 26, 2003, at Hollywood Masonic Temple in Hollywood, California. This is how Wikipedia describes him, as a TV host, writer, and comedian. Jimmy Kimmel, at this stage of his career, finds himself submerged in a bit or two of controversy, like many celebrities with Internet history, surrounding past comedic bits that were questionable and more importantly, obtuse in stark contrast to a more sensitive audience. What did Jimmy Kimmel do you ask? Well, he has joined this particular club of individuals who’s comedic history has brought an unwarranted highlight to their past performance. Jimmy has joined the likes of Howard Stern, Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon, TV Producer, Bill Lawrence, Julianne Hough, Ted Danson, Billy Crystal, and the list keeps getting longer and longer for people who’ve donned blackface or showcased it in the TV shows for comedic purposes.

Jimmy Kimmel’s transgression was performing in blackface as he portrayed the NBA player, Karl Malone. To be honest, when I first saw Kimmel as Karl Malone, I couldn’t believe what IO was seeing. Jimmy was doing a bit in blackface as Karl Malone and he was getting away with it. He portrayed Karl Malone as a mush-mouth talking idiot with no consequence for his actions. Social media wasn’t that important during that time and nothing was done to admonish Kimmel and the only thing you could take away from this is the aspect of white privilege.

You would think that this would be the only blackface Kimmel had done but I recently watched Steven Crowder, a YouTube influencer, showing Kimmel in blackface again but this time he was portraying Oprah Winfrey. To make matters worse, his blackface Oprah was standing on a Latin woman’s stomach. The Latin woman was a housemaid. So, not only did he marginalize Oprah, he marginalized the Latin woman in a degrading fashion. That’s another strike against Kimmel.

You’d think that this would be enough but there’s more arsenal in Kimmel’s intolerant comedic tropes. Did you know that he put out a racially slurred rap album back in 1996? On this album, pretended to be Snoop Dog as he rapped this racially charged “Christmas” song where he invoked the N-word throughout the song. Know you would say that oh, it was in the 90’s so who cares and Kimmel was in radio then so anything goes with the atmosphere of shock-jock sensibility. I would strongly take exception to that. I was on the radio during that time and it was an AOR classic rock station with a morning drive time shock-jock talk show format. I was the sole black person there in a sea of white faces and I was also the head comedy writer and executive producer of the show. Elevating the discourse from perceived stereotypes wasn’t difficult to do when I was there. The comedy was a lot smarter and sharper by not relying on the notion that humor had to degenerate to a level so base that it’s cruel, harmful, and hate-filled. Kimmel’s comedy was just that, cruel, harmful, and hate-filled. And he kept getting away with it.

As he got more comfortable sitting behind a desk and interview other celebrities, he saw himself being more important in social issues. He self-promoted himself to the level of being an influencer with his talk show being his platform. He could talk about whatever he wanted on any subject without any impunity. With the election of Donald Trump, Kimmel had his political punching bag and his monologue was peppered with “Orange Man Bad” shtick that it was all he ever seemed to want to talk about. For me, it was one too many “jokes” and I had enough. There was no humor, no funny in any of his talking points, just an onslaught of visceral attacks on Donald Trump. The late-night guys need to go back and look at some vintage Johnny Carson material and how he handled politicians. It was funny and not mean and attacking and filled with vinegar as these crop of talk show hosts are doing. They stopped being funny in 2016.

Kimmel has been dodging this pile of excrement his entire career. He has gone on record saying that “I have long been reluctant to address this…“ 

Unfortunately for Kimmel, he’s in the public eye now and past misdeeds become the anchor around your neck and the hope of someone throwing you a life preserver slips even further away as you drift from the shoreline. But what can a late-night talk show host do? Well, he offers up righteous indignation unapologetic apology.

Kimmel has already mastered the unapologetic apology before. In his late-night attack on Vice President Mike Pence, he went after the VP for delivering medical supplies to a Virginia health care center. Mike Pence joked about delivering empty boxes after delivering filled boxes of supplies. But Kimmel had edited the video to show only the portion where he could mock the VP. The backlash was swift and Kimmel was forced to issue an “apology”. But in doing so, it wasn’t an apology but more of a continuation of the “Orange Man Bad” tactic where he danced around issuing a sincere apology to Mike Pence.

Fast forward and Kimmel find himself having to issue an apology for his past misdeeds but once again, it’s not his fault, it’s other faults for bringing up his unfunny comedic deeds. Kimmel is a narcissist to the nth degree who gets validation from his own ego. He offers up an apology but it’s like a carefully placed field of landmines as he goes after others for, as he puts it, “I know that this will not be the last I hear of this and that it will be used again to try to quiet me. I love this country too much to allow that. I won’t be bullied into silence by those who feign outrage to advance their oppressive and genuinely racist agendas.” He doubles down and draws a line in the sand with this approach. He’s failing to recognize that he is politicizing his misdeeds for all the wrong reasons. He wants to place the onus away from him while wanting to maintain his status as “the people’s champion” in his own image. This will not go away until he strips away his ego and fully owns up to his closet institutionalized racism that became ingrained in him subconsciously. And what will his network, ABC, do?

Do they take him at his word or do they take the option of what they did to Roseanne Barr? Roseanne was let go of her successful sitcom in 24 hours. If she had bags and boxes to pack, they didn’t give her time for her to hit the door. She did the unthinkable, she commented about Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to the Obama administration, comparing her to an ape. Roseanne said she didn’t know Jarrett was black and it was a bad joke. Well, 24 hours later, Roseanne is out, the show is canceled and comeback as under a different name because the show makes money for ABC. But how will they handle Kimmel?

He used the N-word multiple times, he’s donned blackface multiple times, he’s impersonated black people in unflattering ways under the umbrella of comedy so how can ABC justify firing Roseanne while keeping Kimmel? Kimmel’s misdeeds are more serious than Roseanne, from this perspective. I do understand and get youthful indiscretions and saying bad jokes that are in poor taste and we’ve seen a lot of people getting canceled of late with the loss of their livelihoods. Kimmel, in his derisive apologies, has missed the opportunity to get ahead of this. Instead, he has languished this out even longer because he sees himself as some social justice advocate and he should get a pass on this because he’s Jimmy Kimmel? I don’t think so.