'Who the f*** do you think you’re talking to?': John Oliver responds to Arnab Goswami's remarks

When comedian and TV-show host John Oliver took on the touchy subject of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the British-American host was assured a dose of controversy in India.

Not only did streaming service Hotstar, responsible for distributing his content in India, choose not to upload the episode, but Republic TV anchor Arnab Goswami devoted several minutes to namecalling Oliver. In the segment, Goswami attempted to shame Oliver, calling him an “ignoramus of exceedingly global proportions” and a “third-rate TV host” who had “embarrassed himself”.

Now, in his latest episode, Oliver has responded both to Hotstar’s decision to censor his content and to Goswami’s personal attacks. Responding to Goswami’s claim that Oliver had “embarrassed himself”, Oliver joked that he had no capacity to shame himself any further than he had already, repeatedly done in the past. “Who the f*** do you think you’re talking to?” he says, after airing a clip of Goswami’s segment. Oliver also called him the “Tucker Carlson of India”, referring to the conservative Fox News anchor.

Oliver then said out that he was “beyond the capacity for shame,” pointing out that he had released embarrassing pictures of himself to the public on a regular basis, even paying to have one displayed in an ad on Times Square. “You can’t irk me,” a defiant Oliver says in the episode.

On February 24, Oliver had released an episode looking at Modi in the light of Donald Trump’s visit to India.

The episode featured several critiques of Modi’s actions as prime minister as well as those of BJP party members like Amit Shah and Yogi Adityanath. It accused Modi of harbouring anti-Muslim sentiments and challenged Trump’s statement calling the PM ‘the father of India’.

However, while Indian audiences normally see The Late Show With John Oliver on Tuesdays on Hotstar, the episode never appeared on the platform. The streaming platform did not respond to queries by THE WEEK as to why this was the case.

Now, Oliver himself has raised the issue in his latest episode, pointing out that the segment was pulled and saying that this was not the first time Hotstar had censored his content in India.

“A lot of our viewers in India alerted us to the fact that Hotstar, the streaming service that broadcasts us in India, never uploaded that episode. There is no evidence that the Indian government made them do that. As far as we can tell, Hotstar just decided to self-censor, which is still not good,” he said.

Oliver went on to show examples of Hotstar censoring his content in the past, showing cases where obscene references to Disney were removed from the show. Clips where he joked about Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck were removed from Hotstar episodes streamed in India, according to Oliver.

Hotstar was purchased by Disney in 2019 after the latter bought 21^st Century Fox for $71 billion. The streaming service will soon be rebranded as Disney+ Hotstar, as the American mass media giant plans to begin its streaming service in India on March 29.

Oliver then goes on to say that he will continue to make Disney references in his shows. Calling them his “Disney facts”, Oliver issued a challenge to Hotstar.

“I frankly resent that factually accurate joke being cut out almost more than I resent our Modi episode being pulled...And let me say this to Hotstar right now. If you think that you have to remove anything that reflects poorly on Disney from this show, I have some bad news for you, my friend. I’m f***ing Zazu right here.”

Zazu was a character Oliver had voiced in the 2019 Disney film Lion King. Oliver added that he would continue dispensing “Disney facts” on his programme. “And for the foreseeable future, Hotstar, you can look forward to learning a lot more of them on this show,” he said.

Hotstar claims to have the largest market share in the India over-the-top (OTT) space thanks to its cricket broadcast rights.

It is noteworthy that streaming services in India such as Netflix, Hotstar, Amazon Prime and others in January agreed to a voluntary self-censorship code, the “Code for Self-Regulation of Online Curated Content Providers”, wherein they would agree to regulate themselves, and ensure that they do not make available the following categories of prohibited content:

• “Content which deliberately and maliciously disrespects the national emblem or national flag

• Content which represents a child engaged in real or simulated sexual activities or any representation of the sexual parts of a child for primarily sexual purposes;

• Content which deliberately and maliciously intends to outrage religious sentiments of any class, section or community;

• Content which deliberately and maliciously promotes or encourages terrorism and other forms of violence against the State (of India) or its institutions

• Content that has been banned for exhibition or distribution by online video service under applicable laws or by any court with competent jurisdiction.”

It is not made clear at present which of these regulations Oliver’s show could have violated.