Entertainment

On His New HBO Show, Wyatt Cenac Addresses His ‘Problem Areas’

It may not seem like television can currently accommodate one more topical late-night comedy show, but “Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas” is ready to make the case.

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On His New HBO Show, Wyatt Cenac Addresses His ‘Problem Areas’
By
DAVE ITZKOFF
, New York Times

It may not seem like television can currently accommodate one more topical late-night comedy show, but “Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas” is ready to make the case.

“Problem Areas,” which makes its debut Friday night on HBO, has a laid-back energy that’s very different from other late-night programs, but will be familiar to those who recognize the subdued Cenac, an alumnus of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” and a star of TBS’s “People of Earth.”

A test episode screened last week for reporters had no studio audience and no canned laughter. There was just Cenac, 41, alone on a set resembling a groovy 1970s rec room, holding forth on topics like the interstellar aspirations of Elon Musk, the SpaceX chief executive, and the scientific uses of human excrement.

The show will also feature longer field pieces reported by Cenac, and will spend multiple episodes of its debut season delving into policing in America and the many issues it brings up.

The goal of the new program, he said, is to spend time exploring less familiar stories, rather than running down the headlines of a given evening.

At “The Daily Show,” Cenac said, his focus was on widely known news events where he could “go in with a pretty formed, arch opinion that we can then use irony to explode out the ridiculousness of it.”

On “Problem Areas,” he said, “I’m not going in to try to be right. I’m going in to try to understand. Sometimes, I might be right.”

In a news conference with reporters at HBO’s headquarters in Manhattan and in a subsequent one-on-one interview, Cenac talked about his vision for “Problem Areas” and why its focus matters so much to him. These are edited excerpts from those conversations.

Q: It’s immediately evident that the aesthetic of “Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas” is different from other late-night shows. How did you arrive at it?

A: At “The Daily Show,” we were satirizing a news program. You put somebody in a suit, you put ‘em behind a desk, and they become an authority figure. What you’ve seen since are other shows in a similar mold. If the idea of my show is to be a little more curious about things, it felt like stepping away from that newsy look would be key. I don’t know if I convey that same sort of gravitas. For me, it was like, lean into what you are, which is a sleep-eyed guy who rambles.

Q: Why did you want to cover the subject of policing throughout the entire season?

A: We thought, let’s do something easy. (laughs) We could talk about Trump and the presidency. But a lot of people do that. Policing is one of those things that you see — a man got shot and killed in Crown Heights the other day. These stories keep happening. It felt like we could talk about something that, while it seems intractable, there are ways to make a difference that don’t just involve saying, “We’re going to wait for the midterms!” It would be very easy to just stay in New York and tell these stories, but the problems of New York aren’t necessarily the problems of Ferguson, aren’t necessarily the problems of Miami. To really tell this story, it was good for us to go to all these different places.

Q: Do you feel a personal stake in this topic?

A: My cousin’s been to jail. My little brother got arrested over parking and traffic tickets, driving through one of those small towns in Texas where they just make revenue. I was arrested when I was 19, for inciting a riot. And you’ll ask, what entailed inciting a riot? It was (uttering a vulgar phrase to a mall cop). That was it. And I got arrested, thrown in cuffs and everything. And had to get it all expunged from my record. Every time I see a story (about police misconduct), it creates a touchstone to an aspect of my life.

Q: How were you able to secure the participation of the police departments that appear on your show, like in St. Paul, which is still grappling with the aftermath of the death of Philando Castile?
A: A lot of law enforcement agencies were skittish. In early conversations, there was a lot of talk of, what are you going to say on the show? We didn’t want to say too much because we were still locking in interviews and we didn’t want them to rabbit on us. But what’s interesting is, everyone was willing to communicate. People do want to be understood. People within the community, lawmakers, law enforcement — they all want to talk. We were able to come in and talk to everybody individually and get them to tell us their story. How they want to see things done and how they want things to be better. We’re not speaking for anybody. We’re just getting people to speak to us, and we get to be this odd mediator of the conversation. Q: You were very outspoken, after you left “The Daily Show,” the frustrations you’d faced there — coming into conflict with Jon Stewart and feeling the burden of being its only black writer at the time. How do you navigate these feelings when you’re in charge of your own show?

A: I walked into this job with every memory of every job I’ve had. You watch a boss do something and you’re like, (mutters) “If I was in charge, I wouldn’t do that.” But I also walked in knowing I’m going to screw it up. I always found myself feeling that happiness rises and frustration trickles down. If the people at the top are frustrated, then everybody down the line feels that. But if the people at the bottom are happy and fulfilled, then they do their jobs a little better, and it goes up that way. For me, that’s been the biggest thought. That idea that, even as I get frustrated, I need to look, not just at myself internally, but look at everyone down the line: What’s going on in the PA’s world? In the writers’ world? In the researchers’ world? I’m still not a master at it. But everybody’s committed to the show and everybody’s passionate. They all want to feel heard, and my job is to take all that and conduct that into something that we can put on the air.

Q: In the weeks to come, other “Daily Show” personalities, including Michelle Wolf and Hasan Minhaj, are getting their own topical comedy shows. Is it starting to feel like the market is oversaturated?

A: There’s definitely a bubble, but it also feels like it’s a content boom, whether it’s the growth of podcasts or the various television networks and platforms. There’s definitely some concern of, like, how do you get found in this sea? But you can make a movie like “Moonlight” and you can make a movie like “Black Panther.” Those two things can exist in the same world, and there is an appreciation of both. I don’t know if we’re going to be “Black Panther” or if we’ll be “Moonlight,” but if we’re either of them, we’ve done something great.

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