Had Paul Feig directed Mindy Kaling’s Late Night, as originally intended, of course, there would have been a certain meta ironic element. For the bulk of the film serves to iterate the long-standing perspective established by Tina Fey on 30 Rock: being a female writer in a comedy room forces you to “impinge” on a giant boys’ club. But if you’ve got the gumption, like Liz Lemon, or, in this case, Molly Patel (Kaling), the odds will quickly stack in your favor for being the only person in the room with a unique take on things. In the end, because of Feig’s scheduling conflicts, Nisha Ganatra (best known for her Transparent directing credits), took the helm, adding slightly more credibility to Kaling’s clear mission statement with this film: comedy needs more diversity. Still. Even after all the shade thrown toward the white male patriarchy, it seems the best that most writers’ rooms can muster in terms of “diversity” is a gay man. In Late Night‘s case, John Early as Reynolds.
So yes, it is indeed a blessing when someone like Molly comes along with her outsider ingenue perspective, as well as having no legitimate experience in the business. If it sounds just a hair like Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) with her journalism background traipsing into the fashion world as a personal assistant in The Devil Wears Prada, you’d be dead right. Of course, more than the eponymous star of Late Night with Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson) and editor-in-chief of Runway Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) being mercurial and callous older white ladies with severe hairstyles, it is their respective boss-employee dynamic with one special unwitting protégée that draws the most overt parallel. Katherine, accustomed to living in a bubble that causes her failure to see that her ratings have been dipping steadily for the past ten years, suddenly tries to liven up the writer’s room by telling her righthand man, Brad (Denis O’Hare), to “hire a woman.” Any woman, really. The first one that walks in for an interview. Which, yes, you guessed it, happens to be Molly. Who arranged to get her foot in the door by entering to win to meet with one of the heads of a company via her “chemical plant” a.k.a. factory where she works quality control. The roundaboutness of it all prompts Brad to ask, “So let me get this straight. You got this interview through the parent of our parent company?” This, too, certainly smacks of NBC-contolled-by-GE vibes as constantly touched upon in 30 Rock. “Yes,” she admits without shame. And so a star monologue writer is born. Or rather, co-monologue writer. For the longtime current one, Tom Campbell (Reid Scott), isn’t about to let her horn in on his inherited by way of familial privilege position (who knew affluent families even invaded middling comedy shows as well? Do the poor and unbequeathed with a recognizable last name truly stand no chance at all? Duh). He’s also sure to tout to others, like his brother over the phone, “I don’t know, it was a diversity hire. She’s like a single mom or something.” Naturally, Molly also just so happens to be right behind him in the food cart line to hear it. “I’m not a single mom,” she shoots back. “Maybe I dress like one, but I’m not.”
Molly’s consistent plucky indignation in the face of each and every one of her co-workers’ mockery also smacks of Andy’s similar blithe oblivion as she walks through the cafeteria in her dowdy attire and orders a bread bowl. It is only in Molly’s effortless refusal to adapt to the mold of docile laborer that she differs from Andy. Oh, Katherine says she can’t go to her standup comedy benefit for cancer and if she does instead of working late she’ll be fired? Molly’s off to the benefit without qualms. Whereas Andy’s over there pimping her flirtation skills to get unpublished manuscripts of the latest Harry Potter (reminder: this was 2006), Molly can’t be bothered to compromise her principles for the sake of the show. An act that is precisely what gets Katherine to follow her to it to see what she’s capable of, in contrast to Miranda, who can only be impressed by how low one will go to compromise her formerly uncompromisable morals (though, in the end, it is because Andy does not that she gives her, in her own way, such a glowing recommendation).
It is at this second act turning point that Katherine finally lets her guard down in much the same way as Miranda when Andy enters her home and hears her talk frankly, in a rare moment of vulnerability, about how the media will ridicule her yet again for her latest impending divorce. Yet, surprisingly, Miranda comes off as cuddlier and fuzzier than any moment of Katherine conveying so-called emotion–even after a long ago email exchange resurfaces proving some infidelity on her part right after her husband, Walter (John Lithgow, in a typically dithering role, also, again, present on 30 Rock) was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Her indiscretion is wielded with force after she goes against the wishes of the network president, Caroline Morton (Amy Ryan), to bow out gracefully by publicly introducing her successor, a misogynistic comic by the name of Daniel Tennant (Ike Barinholtz), to her audience as such. Instead, she dances around the topic, cleverly getting Tennant to decline taking over from her if she doesn’t truly feel ready to leave yet. It is some wily outmaneuvering that Miranda is also forced to engage in to keep her own hard-won post as editor-in-chief, refusing to be ousted without a manipulative trick up her Prada sleeve.
So it is that she stokes the fires of contempt already flaring up toward her, those in charge just hoping that she will, like all “elderly” women in media, simply fade away (and there is a great moment of Katherine’s unmarred by public opinion standup that really hits home the point of the feminine expectation of being put out to pasture without a fight, or a prayer, to stand against “the inevitable” “irrelevancy”). In this regard, Late Night gives us a rare, as Emma Thompson billed it, “science fiction” glimpse into what would actually take place if there were any known longtime female late night talk show host to speak of. Or even any shorttime one (though that will soon change when Lilly Singh debuts A Little Late with Lilly Singh, replacing the accepted white male dinosauric trend that has allowed Last Call with Carson Daly to go on for so long).
Not so shockingly, however, no woman has ever been permitted to enter this well-trodden blanco boy’s territory. This, one supposes, is what makes her truly stand apart from a character as iconic as Miranda Priestly (a.k.a. Anna Wintour). For Katherine Newbury is based on no one. She’s an amalgam of horrible boss traits Kaling has witnessed or heard about in all of her years in the comedy writing realm, but because no actual woman has set this kind of precedent in the world of late night, Katherine Newbury is, in many senses, a cut above the trailblazing path of Miranda (a woman who climbs to the top of the fashion journalism scene? Predictable…and already well-established). Which is precisely why it’s such a shame that Kaling couldn’t do more to make this movie a skewering of a niche of the industry that has continued to manage to evade much in the way of bona fide “retooling.” Just continued exaltation of tools. At the very least, it’s always refreshing to see a woman in charge put male lackeys in their place. One only wishes she didn’t need to clichely wear a pantsuit to do it. That, to be sure, is something that Miranda couldn’t sanction from a sartorial standpoint, likely saying in that annoyed tone of sarcasm, “Pantsuits? For a woman to attempt exuding power? Groundbreaking.”
