In his two short seasons on HBO, Daily Show alumni John Oliver has roasted everything from the FIFA administration to the death penalty. What sets Last Week Tonight from the vast majority of talk shows is that every week it picks up a topic and dissects it in great detail, making it something of a rarity in the current television climate. Despite the show being only half an hour long, it is well researched and will usually devote more than half of its running time on its main topic for the day.
Now, John Oliver’s main topics usually happen to be American, woefully-overlooked and yet important social or civic problems. But sometimes, the British comedian – or his brilliant writing team -will go out of their way to shed some light and humor on topics from the other side of the planet.
In just the first episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver dealt with the then-trending Indian general elections, asking Americans why they weren’t paying this election the attention it deserves. This is after all, the greatest democracy in the world on sheer numbers alone, he reminded them.
Last Sunday John Oliver again touched upon India, bringing to the fore a topic that has been the subject of a raging debate in the country for more than a fortnight: the porn ban. Reeling off some of the ridiculous names of the 857 websites that the Indian government has tried to ban, Oliver said, “How am I supposed to get excited watching this?” At another: “Does this really exist?”
Using the example of one particularly cringe-inducing website dedicated to/with pictures of septuagenarians and octogenarians (and no, we aren’t going to link to them), Oliver has one last helpful top for the Indian government: “If you want your population to stop looking at pornography, don’t just unblock these sites; make them mandatory, because, believe me, after looking at them, I never want to have sex again.”
John Oliver also takes a dig at BJP leader Subramanian Swamy in the clip, referencing a debate from an Indian television news show where the anchor asks Swamy how can anyone cause disruption to the public order by watching porn in the confines of his own room. To which Swamy responded: “You may get corrupted and become a sex maniac.”
Well, like Oliver reminds his viewers, this is the land of Kama Sutra, “a mix of sex, yoga and skiing accidents.”
