Late-night hosts, like many Hollywood stars, celebrated International Women’s Day on Wednesday, along with “A Day Without a Woman,” in which women took the day off work and refrained from making purchases to show their impact on the economy.
Celebrities, including Emma Watson, Madonna, Katy Perry and others, celebrated the day with uplifting messages online, and even President Trump tweeted his support, stressing he has “tremendous respect” for women.
Full Frontal’s Samantha Bee, for one, imagined a show without women on her staff. It wasn’t pretty.
Noticing that her audience was empty, her wardrobe was questionable and her monologue was full of sports jokes she didn’t find funny, she questioned the remaining four men on staff who showed up to work.
Trevor Noah said Trump celebrated International Women’s Day by “not inappropriately grabbing a woman for 24 hours. He calls it Lent except harder.” He mentioned Trump’s tweet and spoke about his daughter Ivanka’s message as well, inviting Michelle Wolf to speak critically about Ivanka’s brand of feminism.
“Ivanka’s feminism is the Lululemon model — It’s for rich white women, and you can see right through it,” said Wolf. She accused Ivanka of not trying to fight the patriarchy but instead teaching women how to slide into it.
The staff of The Daily Show, meanwhile, spent the day retweeting posts by President Trump over the years targeted at women.
.@realDonaldTrump sure, ok pic.twitter.com/KVyTVhK9sL
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) March 8, 2017
.@realDonaldTrump k pic.twitter.com/BGDKSlu7ah
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) March 8, 2017
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Jimmy Kimmel told his audience that he stands in solidarity with the women who took off work for the day. “I’m always happy to see Americans standing up for what they believe in,” said the host.
He even asked Siri what the day was all about, to understand it all better, but it turned out she took the day off too.
Stephen Colbert struggled with his cold open on Wednesday night because all of The Late Show‘s women staffers were gone. Footage, props, research, hair, makeup are all run by women. He decided instead to run a script written by only the male writers, and it involved Chewbacca.
Getting into the spirit of the day, Colbert spoke about the new statue of a fearless girl standing triumphantly in front of the Wall Street bull statue in New York. “Representing women’s daily experience of having to face a ton of bull,” he said. He also interviewed “Dude Liberty,” giving Lady Liberty a night off from her duties.
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Colbert also posted a montage of past female guests sharing their stories on his show, including Viola Davis, Laverne Cox, Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama, who spread the message: “We have to be on the ground because you can’t change culture if you’re not part of the culture.”
James Corden finds out just before the curtain rises that he can’t start The Late Late Show because he told his female employees they could have the day off. His plan instead? “Everybody, on the count of three, just press all of the buttons.”
