Whoa, not so special now are you, Lake Superior?
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s week from minstrel show hell has done the unthinkable — it has given US late night talk shows something else to goof on besides Donald Trump.
The shock and disappointment south of the border is almost giddy. This was the anti-Trump, the environmental and diversity white knight.
Hasan Minhaj jumped off the Trudeau bandwagon early when he neatly deconstructed the PM for Americans last month on Patriot Act. This latest revelation, showing Trudeau wearing dark skin makeup as an Aladdin character at a 2001 school event, has opened the floodgates.
“I’m not going to show you the picture because it’s really bad,” Seth Meyers told his Late, Late Show audience Thursday night. “So bad Canadians traveling in Europe are going to start telling people they’re American.”
The Daily Show‘s Trevor Noah, a South African, did not hold back. “If you’re going to darken your skin, at least get the colour right,” he said. “Trudeau isn’t dressed as Aladdin, he’s dressed as Aladdin doing blackface.”
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They showed the photo on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “This is pretty bad,” said the CBS host. “And I just want to say, it’s not us this time. Suck it Canada!”
The tone was even more condemning on CTV’s news satire, The Beaverton. “Sad news,” read comedy co-anchor Emma Hunter. “Turns out a wealthy, white privileged son of famous parents is not the woke babe we were promised by Rolling Stone.”
The Trudeau news came hours before the PM was supposed to make a pre-taped appearance on Toronto-born late night talk show host Lilly Singh’s prime time NBC special Thursday. An NBC spokesman said a decision was made to yank the clip at the last minute, proving once again that face time on television is a relative term.
