Writers Guild Awards: Stephen Colbert takes aim at Paramount in acceptance speech
Stephen Colbert took aim at Paramount during his acceptance speech at the Writers Guild Awards in New York.
The talk show host was the recipient of the rare Walter Bernstein Award, which has only ever been given twice before to honour someone who “demonstrated with creativity, grace and bravery a willingness to confront social injustice in the face of adversity.”
Referencing Bernstein, who was blacklisted in Hollywood during the 1950s, Colbert said (per Rolling Stone): “This is not the 1950s. This is not the Red Scare. And, as far as I can tell, no one in late night is formenting a revolution. As we know, the revolution will not be televised.”
He added: “It was going to be televised, but then Paramount bought it. Evidently, the revolution was losing, like, $40 million a year — it had to go. I hear the revolution is thinking about starting a Substack.”
It comes after the controversial decision for Colbert’s The Late Show in CBS, which is owned by Paramount, to be axed, with its last episode due to air on May 21st. The company were reportedly pressured into the decision by Donald Trump’s administration, although the host did not make reference to the president in his speech.
Instead, Colbert chose to honour the impact of Bernstein, as “The blacklist wasn’t a law or a regulation or an executive order,” he explained.
“It was a voluntary industry-wide agreement to deny work to left-leaning artists out of fear that certain members of the government might publicly attack the parent corporation of these artists or the union that they belong to. It was that threat, only the threat, of trouble that ended so many careers,” he continued.
And now while to be associated with Mr Bernstein in any way is a great honour, I want to be clear that I do not deserve the implied parallel here,” Colbert added.
In a speech that lasted almost 15 minutes, Colbert also paid tribute to the wider late night talk show landscape, which he has been part of since taking over The Late Show in 2015.
Elsewhere, Sinners and One Battle After Another were the big film winners of the night, while The Pitt and The Studio also scooped major TV awards.
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