It’s likely that you’ve seen flyers around campus featuring an anthropomorphic bulldog. His eyes are half-closed, he’s grinning, and he’s sitting at a talk show desk backset by D.C. at twilight. He’s pointing at a graphic that is visible in some lighting and not in most others. Trust me, this eats at my soul. Long story short, color contrast on Vistaprint flyers appears quite differently on a preview screen from what gets printed.
This flyer, which seeks to grab your attention via a cartoon character and a composition we hope looks like a “Weekend Update” screenshot, is advertising something called The Hilltop Show. What is The Hilltop Show, you ask?
The Hilltop Show is Georgetown University’s political comedy show, run by students with the goal of informing the Georgetown community and beyond about campus, national, and international issues through meaningful entertainment. I’ve written a version of that sentence in more emails than Hillary Clinton could ever imagine.
As of November 16th, we’ve published five episodes on our YouTube channel. Our team writes sketches and informational comedic monologues (i.e. that thing John Oliver won five Emmys for). We also conduct interviews of students and faculty about meaningful issues, programs, and events affecting students. In our fourth episode, I interview Mo Elleithee, Executive Director of GU Politics; we talk about things like a) how the Zuckerberg event came about and b) the gobstopping opportunities available through GU Politics that I’m frankly shocked more of us haven’t been ripping each other apart over. Michelle Obama’s speechwriter wants to have coffee with any and all Georgetown students, and, like, three people know about it.
And if you haven’t noticed, there’s near-unlimited material for The Hilltop Show to work with at the moment. This school slips up left and right, from Fabolous to the lead in our water. And I don’t even have to mention the political side of things—there’s unlimited real estate for satire. Our slogan, “capitalize on the chaos,” came about quite naturally.
Essentially, we know that students are much more likely to learn about and ultimately care about news if it comes in an entertaining package. There’s a reason why these political comedy shows are so popular, especially among millennials. As President Obama once said, “[I] could try to appeal to young people directly through a speech or a press conference, but young people don’t watch real news shows […] they watch comedy shows. And I don’t see [myself] going on one of those. It’s beneath [my] dignity.” Note: he said this on The Colbert Report.
The point is—so many millennials and Zoomers just don’t watch the news. Or, many of us just lost interest right when things started getting ugly and complex because they got ugly and complex. And this need to detach for those reasons could be understandable. But for anyone—especially young people—to back out just when their civic engagement is needed most, is a tragedy. And you can’t be engaged, or be guarded against lies from those in power, if you’re not informed. And if you personally don’t see yourself plugging into the mainstream news media, or struggle to understand what the mainstream news media is even talking about most of the time, political comedy can help. Think about all the millennials who understand the Mueller Report thanks to the likes of Stephen Colbert and John Oliver. Of course, any information gleaned from late-night comedy is coming through a biased filter. But many of America’s late-night comedians have crossed the threshold into journalism. John Oliver, for one, does his homework—for the sake of both telling the truth and getting the biggest laughs possible. He told NPR in 2016: “You can’t build jokes on sand. You can’t be wrong about something, otherwise that joke just disintegrates. You try to be as rigorous as you can in terms of fact-checking because your responsibility is to make sure that your joke is structurally sound.”
And there’s so much happening right on this campus relevant to students that most of us probably don’t know enough—or anything—about. The GU272 referendum, for example, is making waves nationally, even making it into a BBC News article last April. Not to mention, Georgetown club leaders are getting #MeTooed and dropping like flies, and that too is important for students to know about—not only to potentially learn from, but also to stay alert for similar problems within their own organizations.
But, politics aside, we also just want to be funny. We want to entertain by poking fun at issues that affect students, ideally with the goal of making a point, or even a tangible impact. But substantive humor is 100% not required. In short, you don’t need to “know about politics” to join our team. Have you written something you think is funny? We’ll help you produce it. Driving the point home: we need people who want to do actual journalism, but also people who just want to write jokes.
(My Vice President Chris Gold, who still isn’t 100% sure who Rudy Giuliani is, said he wouldn’t write his sketch for our next episode if I didn’t include that last paragraph. He brings what I call the “Reddit/eclectic/procrastination-enabling-YouTube-video” sense of humor to our Executive Board.)
So come one, come all, aspiring journalists, humorists, video editors, and anyone else. If you have a skill set and are at all interested in politics, comedy, both, or neither, we’d love to meet you. Besides, our show is the only available organization on campus for students who want to regularly write and perform comedy. Would you like to get résumé cred for writing jokes, while also helping keep your peers, your fellow young people, and anyone else who tunes in informed about the tidal wave of garbage going on in the world? Visit hilltopshow.com, and click the “Join Our Team” tab to apply. Our goal is to put on weekly live shows next semester, which will blend elements of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” “SNL,” and “Last Week Tonight.”
Or even if you don’t choose to apply to the show, we hope that you at least tune into the news and/or your late-night show(s) of choice. Being informed and educated on political issues is the best way for you to keep your head in these terrifying times.
Alexandra Bowman (COL ’22) is the Cartoonist for The Georgetown Review.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official or personal position of the Editorial Board, Contributors, or Business Staff of The Georgetown Review.
