When Samantha Bee launches her TBS program Full Frontal tonight, it will be “the only late-night satire program currently hosted by a woman, and one of very few in the decades-long history of the genre to feature a female star.”
That jarring disparity hasn't been lost on Bee, who has frequently discussed the male-dominated landscape in interviews and pokes fun at the topic in show promotions (“I am female as fuck”).
Bee has also created a diverse writing staff. As New York's Rebecca Traister reported, the weekly show crafted “a blind application process to make it more accessible to people who have not traditionally spent any time in writers' rooms. The result is a writing staff that is 50 percent female and 30 percent nonwhite.”
Full Frontal, which begins airing on February 8 at 10:30 p.m. ET, will feature pieces on the Department of Veterans Affairs' handling of health care for female veterans, and Syrian refugees (“Meet the People We Are Incoherently Yelling About”). Bee told Entertainment Weekly that the show is “trying to shine our comedy light on stories that need to be told.”
Bee's work on The Daily Show has regularly debunked right-wing misinformation through field pieces. Here are four of her best segments:
“Left Behind”
Bee mocked right-wing media claims that anti-gay Christian conservatives are being persecuted and victimized for their intolerance against LGBT people.
“Women's War Daily -- Military Brohesion”
Bee responded to complaints that women would begin serving in front-line combat and highlighted double standards against women already serving in the military.
“Crisis In Dairyland -- Apocalypse Cow”
During 2011 protests in Wisconsin over collective bargaining, Bee mocked Fox News' claims that teachers are living lavishly at the expense of taxpayers.
“Grover Norquist's Taxpayer Protection Pledge”
Bee interviewed Grover Norquist, who has pushed members of Congress to sign an ironclad pledge against raising taxes. Bee asked him if there were any scenarios in which he would raise taxes. “Natural disaster? ... What about the rise of the apes?”