Everyone is pointing and laughing at Michelle Wolf this morning after her Netflix show was cancelled yesterday. It had only been on the service for a few months.
If you’ve already forgotten who that is, she’s the comedian who viciously mocked Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the last White House Correspondents Dinner. Even some on the left thought it was too much.
But to listen to this editorial on the Daily Beast, you’d think a pillar of our society had collapsed:
Well, that was fast. On Friday, Netflix quietly pulled the plug on The Break with Michelle Wolf, one of the only “late-night” shows on “television” hosted by a female comedian, just three months after it premiered.
The streaming service also ended the short-lived Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale, but it was the news about Wolf’s show that came as a much bigger shock. That’s because, when The Break premiered in May, Wolf was riding higher than pretty much any other comedian in the country after her breakthrough performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. As recently as last week White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was still talking about how much her jokes stung.
“None of us can believe how classlessly Netflix has handled this,” a source connected to the show told The Daily Beast after the news broke, noting that the entire writing staff and even the showrunners found out they had been fired on Twitter.
Yeah guess what guy, nobody likes being fired. That they’re pissed has nothing to do with whether the show deserved to stay on or not.
His next reasoning is “I don’t know if it had good ratings, but it pissed off conservatives, so that’s good!!!” LOL!
The utter opacity of Netflix’s model makes it impossible to know how many people were watching The Break on a weekly basis, but the show’s cultural impact could be felt on a near-weekly basis. Wolf is an expert at outraging conservatives—perhaps something Netflix was less-than-thrilled about—from her “God bless abortions” segment over the 4th of July to her commercial parody that equated ICE to ISIS a couple of weeks later.
The later segment made heads explode on Fox News, including comedy aficionado Mike Huckabee, who declared, “You know, comedians are supposed to be funny, they’re supposed to make us laugh. I love satire, it’s one of my favorite forms of comedy, but her form of comedy is not satire, it’s angry, bitter hate.”
Oh no wait, this is egregious because she was VICIOUS:
After the show’s premiere, Slate’s Willa Paskin heralded Wolf’s “willingness to be vicious.” That particular quality is what made Wolf’s correspondents’ dinner speech such a huge moment in the world of political comedy.
Oh, that’s why? And yet the left still whines about Trump’s civility. Ok.
Anyway, the right had a field day with the jokes. It was fun:
Michelle Wolf: "I am a strong independent woman who isn't afraid to share my opinions."
— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) August 18, 2018
Netflix: CANCELLED
With Michelle Wolf canceled, how will liberals find comic affirmation of their deepest beliefs?
— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) August 18, 2018
Michelle Wolf's show was cancelled because she's a woman
— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) August 18, 2018
Look, it's simple: @Netflix and @michelleisawolf had some fun together. Which they had the right to do! But that doesn't mean one of them should be punished with an unwanted show. Their network, their choice.
— Currently between fraudulent suspensions (@jtLOL) August 18, 2018
Stay. In. Your. Lane.
The jokes about Michelle Wolf's cancellation are funnier than anything that ever appeared on the show.
— Eric Spencer (@JustEric) August 18, 2018
The only people pissed at Michelle Wolf’s cancellation are progressive journalists. I think I found the problem guys.
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) August 18, 2018
Ironically, I couldn’t really find that many tweets of liberals angry about it, except for the Daily Beast guy.
I don't know what the fuck happened to the twitter algorithm this morning, but I'm not having it. I just woke up and am already sick as shit of seeing these pricks with American flag emojis in their display name bashing Michelle Wolf today. I'm fixing to tear some asses up.
— Petitesque (@RomeyPetite) August 18, 2018
.@netflix why on earth would you cancel Michelle Wolf she did 30 minutes of fire, scathing stand up every single week y'all fucked up
— kombucha slut (@gnashkins) August 18, 2018
Very sad that @netflix cancelled @joelmchale and @michelleisawolf! Enjoyed them both.
— Britta The Needlessly Defiant (@DefiantBritta) August 18, 2018
They sound like they didn’t actually watch the show, they’re just angry Netflix won’t subsidy poor performing liberal shows. Amaaaazing!!