Jon Stewart has lambasted several companies over their annual Pride Month campaigns, mocking them for financially exploiting the “decades-long struggle of gay people.”
Opening Monday night’s episode of The Daily Show, Stewart began by going through recent news headlines. He briefly noted longtime Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak’s retirement, joking that Sajak’s exit was just in time for Pride Month.
“Pride Month is, of course, that time of year when corporations get together and financially exploit the decades-long struggle of gay people for acceptance and equality,” Stewart said to wild audience laughter.
“Remember when you were fired from that bank job after you were outed? Well, Burger King does! With a burger that has two bottom buns,” he said, bringing up a CNN headline that read: “Burger King has a ‘Pride Whopper’ with ‘two equal buns.’”
He continued: “Scarred by conversion therapy? Skittles is releasing a colorless version of Skittles.” Zooming in on an image of a grayscale pack of Skittles with the slogan, “Only one rainbow matters during Pride,” Stewart quipped: “Apparently not wanting to confuse gay people with competing rainbows.”
Eventually settling on Target — the retail chain that recently announced it would allow its stores to decide whether or not to carry Pride merchandise following backlash in 2023 — the host sarcastically questioned: “How will I live laugh lesbian?” referencing one of the phrases on the company’s Pride shirts.
“That’s right, Target is apparently less proud of Pride this year,” Stewart said.
“Why are we allowing ourselves to get worked up over whether giant multinational corporations are pro-gay or have traditional American values?” he asked. “Because corporations have but one value: shareholder value. That’s all they have.”
Stewart then expanded his criticism beyond Pride Month and looked at corporate campaigns for other causes, like the Black Lives Matter movement.
“There is nothing corporations do that is not in service of their bottom line,” he argued. “Let’s stop pretending that a corporation can even be woke or unwoke or patriotic or unpatriotic. Let’s just let corporations live their truth as the profit-seeking, Patrick Bateman psychopaths they are. At the very least, we might finally get some honesty.”
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Last week, Stewart roasted President Joe Biden for his “f***ing weird” reaction to Donald Trump’s conviction in his criminal hush money trial.
After Trump was found guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, Biden appeared at a press conference where he offered no verbal response but looked directly into the camera and flashed a grin, before walking off.
“Why does everything have to be so f****** weird? Why?” Stewart said. “If you have something to say about it, say it. If you don’t have something to say about it, don’t say it. But you’re just going to stop and hit ‘em with some kinda ‘70s sitcom freeze-frame?”
