'Late Night' hits all the right notes in telling social media, equality issues

Late Night (2019) - Amazon Prime

During this era when the rhetoric about feminism, equality in the workplace, and social media is constantly re-evaluating societal values, I've watched plenty of movies or TV shows that make statements about such topics with varying degrees of success. Some movies say too much and only tell one side of the story while others just complain about issues but don't really address them in an impactful way.

Late Night is about as Goldilocks as it gets; this movie's delivery of its messaging is just right. The reason it's so successful and authentic in its mission? We get to see and hear from both sides. Gee, can you imagine a United States full of people willing to listen and to compromise where they can without everyone shouting at the top of their social media lungs? What a concept. We also get snippets of how these issues are handled on a practical level.

Mindy Kaling (of "The Office" fame) churns out quite the script in her first outing as a screenplay writer and director. The movie follows Katherine Newbury, who is the queen of late-night television. She's won 43 Emmy's during her storied career as a groundbreaking female late-night host. She's tough on her writing staff - which is a group of all-white men, though that's only because Katherine hates most women (that's only sort of a joke) - and she isn't afraid of the hard-hitting, "respectable" stories.

But like all good things, her show is coming to end. She is getting replaced by the lousy Daniel Tennant, a low-brow, moronic comedian who makes terribly juvenile jokes at the clubs.

The problem with Katherine is her age. By entertainment's standards, she's a relic. It doesn't matter how relevant her opinions are. The fact that she doesn't take selfies in any ol' public restroom to show off her new workout gear and post them to Insta means she is not relevant.

Right away, we get another classic battle between mature adults and social media-lite millennials who think taking videos of their dogs' butts is worthy of YouTube stardom (there was a pretend YouTube star famous for that exact reason, and I'm sad to say I'd be willing to bet it's not all that far-fetched).

Enter Molly, a young, Indian female who applies for the open writer position. So much happens on Molly's first day. First of all, two of the other writers are MIA from the meeting; one guy had to take a call from his long-distance girlfriend. Seriously? I don't want to sound like a Nazi here, but how sad is it that employers are expected to just "roll with it" while an employee abandons an important meeting because his girlfriend calls to tell him she's lonely? Call her back later! (Dude gets fired, so all is good there). Secondly, even though two guys stepped out of the meeting, Molly is not allowed to take their seats, and no more chairs are available, so she has to dump out trash and sit on an upside-down trash can. What a great first impression.

You want to make an even better first impression? Don't be a suck-up! None of the seasoned writers want to fess up that her show's poor quality is probably why the ratings have dropped during the past decade of her show. But not Molly. She's willing to come in guns blazing and tear the show apart.

These days, white men working corporate jobs have become punching bags for jokes from everyone other group (there's even a joke about that at one point), but Late Night approaches the male-centric workspace with much more finesse, practicality, and, dare I say, fairness. Molly is an Indian woman with zero writing experience; heck, she literally gets hired over a young white man solely because she's a woman (even if there was no competition, the younger guy wouldn't have deserved the job, anyway). Molly posts inspirational messages on her little bulletin board to brighten up her office, which she shares with a 27-year writing veteran. It's fun to watch her try to fit in. The guys try to talk her the way they talk to each other, which doesn't fly. Then there's the whole bathroom incident when the men start realizing they can't use the previously empty women's restroom.

Molly and the guys try to pitch new ideas to Katherine, one of which was a crossover between the Miss America Pageant and a dog show. I love how passionately Katherine spoke against the pageant. Seriously, ladies, isn't this an antiquated notion that needs to stop? It seems like a double standard, but why are women willing to participate if not for just the money? Anyway, we discover that Katherine, an old British lady, has plenty of worthwhile opinions. It's just that she comes across as out of touch. As I previously mentioned, Katherine brings on a YouTube sensation, Mimi, who is solely famous because she smells her dog's butt. Quick, what's worse, the fact that most people of the moronic millennial generation actually would think this is funny, or the fact that many moronic people are willing to make videos of themselves doing that because they know they'll go viral (because after all, follower count is the most important thing in life)?

And therein lies the true dilemma with which the movie asks the audience to wrestle. How much of yourself, your ideals, and your principles should you be willing to compromise for the sake of popularity, especially when your job is at stake? As the movie progresses, Katherine has an "Ah ha" moment while bombing on stage at a stand-up comedy night because she bad-mouths Twitter in front of a young audience. After that, she figures it out. She learns to stop taking herself seriously. She starts joking about herself, her age, her British background, etc. She embraces her celebrity status by calling out companies for stupid reasons on Twitter to get free stuff. She gets another young guest to appear on her show, but this time, Katherine doesn't come across as condescending, but rather tries to engage with her, and it works like a charm.

An ancillary concept that emerges from Katherine's and Molly's work on rehabilitating her public image is the realization that celebrities don't really get to make real friends. Celebrities are either suspicious of friendly people because they might only be trying to use them or sponge off them, or they are too famous for people to act normal around them; either way, Katherine makes the case for how lonely her life is. I suppose the humane thing for me to do is feel sorry for the lonely celebrities of the world, but I have yet to see a celebrity give up their fame and fortune for "real" friendships without regret, so I'm not holding my breath on that one.

The final big group the movie speak to is those who take part in the cancel culture. Katherine secretly cheated on her husband with a young writer a few years earlier, and the media found out. She gets dragged over the coals, but of course, this is a double standard; had it been a man, it wouldn't be an issue, but a woman who sleeps around is a slut who is trying to advance her career the wrong way. Everyone hates Katherine. She becomes the butt of other comedians' jokes (including Bill Maher, whom I can't stand). Cancel culture demands she disappear. Even Katherine tells Molly in a private conversation that she deserves it.

What I find fascinating, though, is how fickle cancel culture is. People are so quick to completely discredit and disqualify a person from having any validated thoughts or opinions because of one mistake, yet those same people tend to be the ones who play the victim card and demand not to be judged. How hypocritical! As a Christian, I see this a lot. The rest of the world sees a Christian make a mistake and concludes that they must not be real Christians, or that the religion as a whole is a joke, even though the message throughout the Bible explains how no one is perfect. How foolish and ignorant of the cancel culture! I will admit that some Christians definitely contribute to this flawed thinking because they pretend to be better people, and they cast judgment in ways through which God is only permitted. But still, let's stop dealing out blanket judgments to everyone without understanding what forgiveness means.

To get back on track, Katherine keeps her job, and in one of the final shots, we see a writers' room with younger people of different ethnic backgrounds to promote diversity. Equal representation is a great thing, though I still worry that the method of the messaging was not clear enough. It can be interpreted that some people are only "diversity" hires instead of hires of people who are qualified for the job. Workplaces shouldn't be hiring diverse groups of people solely to check the affirmative action box on the hiring sheet; rather, they need to be hiring a group of diverse people because they bring something to the table and have great insight and different perspectives. I know that's more or less the point of that final scene, but it almost came across as a token gesture instead of true reformation, which is defeating the entire purpose.

The final scene notwithstanding, "Late Night" was a joyous romp mixed with comedy and a strong message that is told better than most of its contemporaries.

Notes:

-I looked up all of Mindy Kaling's writing credits to verify that this was her first movie screenplay. During my search, I also noticed she's writing the screenplay for Legally Blonde 3! First of all, I didn't even know they were making a third one. Second of all, Reese Witherspoon is listed as a cast member, which means I can approve of this movie happening.

#LateNight