Trevor must tread PC minefield

SOUTH African comedian Trevor Noah has given us something to be proud of as a country, with the announcement this week that he will take over from Jon Stewart as the host of The Daily Show, which boasts 1.5 million nightly viewers. Noah shot to local prominence as the “CEO” of cellphone company Cell C, and is now set to become a well-known face around the world.

It’s never easy being a funny man, especially in an era of political correctness, which puts a lot of the traditional comic turf out of bounds. One has to be careful about jokes that deal with sensitive matters such as mothers-in-law, sex of any sort and all differences between people or groups of people and so forth.

In the past, these were rich seams to be mined by the comedian, which is attested to by the fact that Noah has already treated us to some of his “Jewish” jokes — and let’s hope for his sake that his other cracks are a bit funnier than this tweet from 2009: “Almost bumped a Jewish kid crossing the road. He didn’t look b4 crossing but I still would hav felt so bad in my german car!” Not exactly side-splitting, but you get the point, one supposes. Or his 2011 crack at the expense of women: “Oh yeah the weekend. People are gonna get drunk & think that I’m sexy! — fat chicks everywhere.”

Noah, dusting himself off after the social media tsunami that accompanied the announcement of his new job, has hit back, saying: “To reduce my views to a handful of jokes that didn’t land is not a true reflection of my character‚ nor my evolution as a comedian.”

Comedy Central has also hit back, telling us: “Trevor Noah pushes boundaries; he is provocative and spares no one, himself included.”

Let’s hope that this comedian doesn’t lose his bite in trying to appease audiences, and remains the equal opportunity offender he is famous for being — and for which he will earn a small fortune.