Wasn't that quite a week for Samantha Bee? On last week's episode of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, the comedian, annoyed at a Twitter post by White House advisor and daughter of the President Ivanka Trump, referred to Ivanka as a 'feckless c-nt'. This came just days after Roseanne Barr had been fired for racially insensitive tweets, which then saw right-wing commentators calling for Bee to be similarly dismissed.
Bee came back on this week's Full Frontal with an apology at the start of the show: "It is a word I have used on the show many times, hoping to reclaim it. This time, I used it as an insult. I crossed a line.
"I regret it and I do apologize for that," Bee offered.
It is a loaded word which has different levels of weight and meaning for different people. Acknowledging this, Bee rationally explained that "The problem is that many women have heard that word at the worst moments of their lives. A lot of them don't want that word reclaimed. They want it gone, and I don't blame them. I don't want to inflict more pain on them."
In what seemed almost like re-establishing a mission statement for the series, Bee declared that "I want this show to be challenging and I want it to be honest. I never intended it to hurt anyone, except Ted Cruz."
Bee concluded her remarks with a final statement that cut through a lot of the angry rhetoric that has enveloped the conversation around the comments on last week's show.
"I'm really sorry that I said that word, but you know what? Civility is just nice words. Maybe we should all worry a little bit more about the niceness of our actions," she said.
You can hear Samantha Bee's remarks in full on this week's episode of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee tonight on SBS VICELAND at 8:30pm and anytime at SBS On Demand:
