Samantha Bee heads to Puerto Rico
Full Frontal looks at the island post-Maria.
In the infamous words of President Trump, Puerto Rico is “an island surrounded by water. Big water. Ocean water.”
It has also been largely forgotten by the media since Hurricane Maria ravaged the U.S. territory in September, says Full Frontal host Samantha Bee, who aptly compared its citizens to Harry Potter on her TBS late-night show. (“We’ve been treating them like the unwelcome nephew under America’s stairs for more than a century,” she joked last fall.)
Now she follows in the globetrotting footsteps of Conan O’Brien to bring her cutting humor to the island for a one-hour special Wednesday (10:30 ET/PT). In the episode, taped last month, Bee and her team of correspondents visit areas devastated by the hurricane to help restore power, spotlight local volunteers working to rebuild the community through reforestation and medical services, and provide cathartic comedy shows.
Bee, 48, chatted with USA TODAY about her trip.
Question: What did you hope to accomplish by taking the show to Puerto Rico?
Bee: Obviously we love to put our laser focus on stories that aren’t getting enough attention, so we conceived of this quite a long time ago and just thought we’d like to bring some eyeballs to the story of Puerto Rico. It was the sixth-month anniversary of Hurricane Maria on (March 20), so it timed perfectly to revisit Puerto Rico six months after the disaster.
Q: From a comedic standpoint, was it difficult to strike the right tone?
Bee: Well, it’s not hard to not make fun of them. (Laughs.) But it’s not like you want to ride in there with your white stallion. Like, I’m not the white savior of Puerto Rico by any stretch. ... It’s more about us focusing our attention on something we think is really important on a very basic level. I mean, a lot of Americans don’t know that Puerto Ricans are American citizens.
Q: Is there a segment that you’re most excited for people to see?
Bee: What we really tried to capture was the spirit of the place and the diversity of stories that Puerto Ricans are facing right now. I don’t really have a favor- ite — I can’t pick favorites! There’s a lot of music, and we tried really hard to put the focus on the Puerto Rican people.
Q: You also bring on X-Files star David Duchovny for a FEMA conspiracy explainer.
Bee: He’s really funny. It’s hard to know why FEMA was so ineffective (providing disaster aid). They’ve been ineffective in the past — and slightly more effective in Texas and Florida in the last year — but they’ve failed miserably in Puerto Rico for a lot of different reasons. It’s hard to get to the bottom of that, so I was excited to present it as a mystery or a conspiracy of sorts. He is the perfect person to do that. He is iconically the person who wanders into foggy terrain and tries to make sense of it.
Q: What do the people you spoke to in Puerto Rico think of Donald Trump and his handling of disaster relief ?
Bee: The general impression from so many people that I’ve talked to is that they’re so terribly saddened by his response to the hurricane. Like, “Oh, we were hoping that we meant something to you? We were hoping that you cared enough to do right by us? And still, over 100,000 of us don’t have power and really have no understanding of when power is going to come back on.” It’s hard to picture what it’s like to not have power for six months. You can live in Westchester (County), N.Y., and your power goes out for eight days, and you’re like, “What the (heck)?!”
Q: Did they say anything about his paper-towel tossing?
Bee: Well, that’s part of the sadness. Can you imagine? Knowing people who died and whose lives were changed. We talked to people whose homes were wiped off the map. To have the president come and toss paper towels and act like a hero and downplay their tragedy? Tremendously disappointing. Anyway, so we thought we’d bring our comedy show there. (Laughs.)
“I’m not the white savior of Puerto Rico by any stretch. ... It’s more about us focusing our attention on something we think is really important.”