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Notes on My Rewatch of ACS: The Monica Lewinsky Story
4 min readJan 11, 2025
- Once Mad Magaizne made a list of the most hackey things in the world of comedy (somewhere around 2004) and they talked about the habit of late night comedians to make fun of the same 8–10 celebrities in all their jokes. I always viewed that as particularly cruel, but I can imagine the intention was rather than making fun of every celebrity (and potential guests since being a late night host means you have to pretend to like everyone), you limit your damage by picking those few. When I was most closely watching Late Night TV, it was Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Jackson, Rueben Studdard (an obese American Idol winner), Brittany Spears, Paris Hilton, Jessica simpson and a few others. It really wasn’t any less cruel. That being said, I still object to the oversimplified “no punching down” rules of comedy.
- I still can’t figure out if the characters had any appreciation if they were in the grips of such an epic Shakespearean story. I’m sure Lewinsky and Paula Jones was too traumatized to think on those terms, but I wonder if people on the periphery were like “wow, this is such an amazing story”
- Monica Lewinsky is kind of among the most heroic and praiseworthy people in American history merely for surviving this intact. She went on to be an anti cyber-bullying advocate. Considering she was essentially patient zero for the cruelty of the 24–7 news cycle, this makes a lot of sense. Considering she was patient zero for the cruelty of the 24–7 news cycle, this makes a lot of sense. However, she also can…
