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4B —Thursday, October 25, 2018
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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Marc Evan Jackson only plays 

a demon on TV, or so he told me. 
The man behind the all-knowing 
judge of all matters in the afterlife 
is Marc Evan Jackson. Despite his 
role as the devil in charge Shawn 
on “The Good Place,” Mr. Jackson 
is anything but evil and, like me, a 
self-professed, incurable, devout 
improv nerd.

In a phone call with The 

Daily, Jackson described his first 
exposure 
to 
improvisational 

comedy as “life-opening.” He 
discovered improv by playing 
piano at rehearsal for River City 
Improv, a group formed by his 
former Calvin College classmates.

“I was there for 10 minutes,” 

Jackson explained, “and I was like, 
‘Oh man, we got to find someone 

else to play piano because I want to 
do what you’re doing for the rest of 
my life.’”

There was something about 

improv that drew him in. It was 
magnetic, it was energetic, it was 
everything he loved but he didn’t 
know it yet. He recalled about that 
first rehearsal: “They were the 
smartest, funniest, kindest, most 
empathetic people and I was like, 
‘Oh, I would like to be among you 
please be my friend.’”

After his initial introduction to 

the wonderful world of improv, 
Jackson went on to join The Second 
City in Detroit where he spent four 
years. Although his time in Detroit 
was short-lived, Jackson said that 
he was intoxicated by the city and 
that “Detroit became home far 
more than Buffalo ever was, or even 
more than Grand Rapids.” In 2001, 
he moved to Los Angeles where he 
joined a long-form improv group 

made up of former Detroit residents 
at Second City Hollywood called 
“The 313,” named after the area 
code of the city. The 313 still 
performs today and includes the 
likes of Tim Robinson and Sam 
Richardson (“Detroiters”), Keegan 
Michael-Key (“Key and Peele”), 
Larry Joe Campbell (“According 
to Jim”) and Maribeth Monroe 
(“Workaholics”).

Hanging out in Los Angeles 

with 
his 
cohort 
of 
Detroit 

expatriates, Jackson and his wife 
Beth 
Hagenlocker 
(co-founder 

and secretary at Detroit Creativity 
Project) wanted to know what they 
could do to help revitalize the city 
they loved.

“It became clear immediately,” 

Jackson said. “The thing that made 
us all good at what we do, made 
us all agreeable, nice, interested, 
interesting people and gave us 
careers is improvisation and the 

Why Marc Evan Jackson 
teaches kids to ‘Yes, and’

BECKY PORTMAN

Senior Arts Editor

ARTIST
PROFILE

IN

I tried Trump’s TV diet 
and it almost killed me

Students from The Improv Project / COURTESY OF JACKSON

Donald Trump and I don’t 

seem to have much in common. 
He takes his steak well-done, I’m 
a lifelong vegetarian. His father 
hails from central Queens, mine 
from northeastern Queens. He is 
overseeing the dismantling of our 
democracy, I’m … you know, not. 
But one habit we share has been 
gnawing at me: Despite having 
better things to do, we’re both 
known to watch an obscene amount 
of television.

The consequences of my TV 

watching are — I’d like to think — 
pretty minimal (maybe a gratuitous 
“Seinfeld” 
reference 
here 
and 

there). But his is a different beast 
altogether. It’s now a defining 
feature of his presidency and shapes 
his politics in real, fascinating ways.

What could a medium I love 

teach me about a president I don’t? 
In a quest to better understand 
our 
enigmatic 
Commander-in-

Chief, I challenged myself to an 
experiment: a week of watching 
everything Trump watches on TV 
and nothing else.

Thanks 
to 
some 
shrewd 

reporting (and the president’s own 
tweets), we have a general sense of 
what Trump’s TV schedule looks 
like — it’s anywhere from four to 
eight hours per day, and heavy 
on morning shows (he watches 
about three hours of them before 
beginning his official workday at 
11:00 a.m.) and the Sunday political 
talk shows.

My 
weekdays 
began 
with 

the 6:00 a.m. hour of MSNBC’s 
“Morning Joe,” a show that decided 
what Americans would most like to 
watch first thing in the morning is 
a bunch of Beltway-types gloating 
about that Red Sox win last night. 
Guess again, Joe and Mika.

It’s followed by an hour or two 

of “Fox & Friends,” so notorious 
for its influence over the president 
that The New York Times TV 
critic James Poniewozik called 
it “the most powerful TV show 
in America.” When the Martian 
anthropologists descend on the 
wreckage of our climate-ravaged 
planet in 20 years, they should 

take a look at “Fox & Friends,” a 
beguiling cultural artifact that’s 
now the most-watched cable news 
morning show in America.

It 
operates 
so 
innocuously, 

with fluttering pop music and 
chipper hosts, that it’s easy to 
forget what the show really is: a 
daily Macy’s Thanksgiving Day 
Parade of conservative talking 
points, all served with a preening 
smile. “Hmm, Steve, seems like 
immigrants are going to kill us 
all, doesn’t it? Anyway, next up, 
Charlotte Pence is here to talk about 
her new book!” And despite their 
millions of viewers, the hosts are 
keenly aware they’re performing 
for an audience of one; a few times 
over the course of the week, Trump 
tweeted out headlines scrolling 
across the “Fox & Friends” chyron.

To their credit, the “Fox & 

Friends” gang was very much on top 
of the week’s biggest news story. No, 
not the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, 
but that Keira Knightley will not let 
her daughter watch “Cinderella.”

If Trump’s morning TV is 

designed to slowly rile him up, his 
evenings are designed to leave him 
seething and stewing. It’s a vicious 
lineup: “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” 
“Hannity” and “The Ingraham 
Angle.” Oh, how I long for those 
naïve days when I thought being 
subjected to an hour of “Hannity” 
was the worst thing that could 
befall me. The one thing worse than 
an hour of “Hannity,” I learned, 
is an hour of “Hannity” featuring 
special guest Rush Limbaugh, who 
joined us — oh joy — for the full hour 
Thursday night.

The big story the primetime 

shows were following this week 
was a caravan of Central American 
migrants headed for the southern 
border. Never mind that the caravan 
is at least a thousand miles from the 
U.S., Fox News covered it like CNN 
covering a hurricane: flustered 
reporters on the ground, ominous 
breaking news graphics, alarmist 
headlines ticking across the screen.

And it worked. On Thursday, 

with a prideful grin, Tucker Carlson 
played a clip of a Trump rally in 
Missoula, Montana. “Remember, 
it’s going to be an election of the 
caravan,” Trump said. “You know 
what I’m talking about.” At the same 

rally, he presented his slogan for the 
midterms: “Democrats produce 
mobs, Republicans produce jobs.” 
It was a clever line, if a familiar one: 
Jesse Watters had coined it earlier 
that afternoon on Fox News’s 5:00 
p.m. roundtable show, “The Five.”

A week of pandemonium ended 

tamely. A rerun of “SNL,” some 
empty punditry on Sunday’s “Meet 
the Press.” And finally, a low-key 
“60 Minutes,” which featured 
segments on genealogy websites, 
falconry and the shoddy state of the 
New York City subway system. Ah! 
Here’s an issue where I’m happy 
to bash Democratic politicians. 
President Trump, I’ll even write 
the tweet for you: “Under Governor 
Andrew Cuomo of New York 
(Highest Taxes), the failing NYC 
subway system (very important) is 
a disgrace. Totally out of control — 
BAD deals!”

It was a week that left me angry, 

stressed and anxious. And it was a 
reminder that, for all the unifying 
power of television, it has as 
much power to leave us miserable 
and outraged. Trump watches 
television 
like 
Jim 
Harbaugh 

might watch old game footage, as a 
measure of past performance and 
as a playbook for the next week. 
It’s good to want to improve, and 
natural to care about what others 
think. But it’s unhealthy to spend 
eight hours a day doing so. It makes 
Trump a worse person and a worse 
president. And if he’s going to spend 
all that time watching television, 
he might as well watch something 
good. We’re in the golden age of TV!

One 
consequence 
of 
my 

television 
habit? 
Plenty 
of 

unsolicited recommendations at 
the ready. The President might 
try NBC’s “The Good Place,” a 
chronicle of the frustrating human 
struggle to be better. Or maybe 
The CW’s “Jane the Virgin,” full of 
the twisty backstabbing he seems 
to relish, and with — fittingly — a 
hotel business in the backdrop. 
There’s always Netflix’s sumptuous 
“The Crown,” about the perils of 
mixing governing and family. If 
scripted TV is really a no-go? I’d 
recommend the delightful rebooted 
“Queer Eye,” which reminds us of 
the importance of empathy — and 
proper tailoring.

tenants of that, the yes and, the 
collaboration and the agreement.”

And 
so, 
in 
2012, 
Jackson 

and Hagenlocker formed The 
Detroit Creativity Project (DCP), 
a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization 
that provides improv training to 
Detroit middle and high schoolers 
by partnering with schools and 
community organizations.

What does bringing improv 

into Detroit public schools do? 
According to two years of research 
conducted by the University to 
determine the program’s impact, 
some really good stuff. Jackson 
explained that it’s “legit science.” 
Kids 
participating 
in 
DCP’s 

flagship program, The Improv 
Project – a semester-long course 
and summer workshop series 
that fosters social and emotional 
learning – do self-assessments 
at the beginning and end of the 
program. Jackson reports that 
many of the students at the start of 
the program self-identify for social 
anxiety, social phobia and even 
depression. However, at the end 
of 10 weeks of one hour of improv 
a week, those numbers were 
significantly reduced, attendance 
increased, test scores improved 
and – Jackson’s personal favorite 
anecdote –“students who have 
otherwise skipped school that 
day are sneaking into the improv 
classes.”

Detroit 
Public 
Schools 
are 

underperforming and students are 
constantly reminded that their low 

test scores mean they are “at risk.” 
For most kids, it seems easier to stay 
under the radar, to not raise their 
hand, to not get involved. However, 
Jackson said, “Improvisation is the 
opposite of that because in order to 
improvise you have to be involved.”

Therefore, these kids who are 

told again and again that they will 
fail, that their schools will fail, that 
they don’t matter are reminded 
that their voice matters. Improv 
reinforces 
positivity, 
creativity, 

collaboration and agreement.

“Improv teaches such good 

and respectful give-and-take and 
language 
and 
communication 

patterns that just makes life go 
better,” Jackson added. “It makes 
you a better person.”

Improv is not only for wannabe 

actors or people like me; it is for 
everyone. “Everyone should do 
it whether you have any interest 
in being on any stage of any 
kind,” Jackson said. “If my family 
improvised, I’d go home for 
Thanksgiving.”

“Improv is good for everything,” 

Jackson reiterated. “It truly is 
great for not only finding one’s 
voice and finding what you care 
about and what matters to you but 
also breaking down that barrier of 
defensiveness about there being 
only one answer and it opens you 
up to hear and to listen to and to 
accept other people’s points of view 
as well. Improv is so wonderful in 
that regard, and I think it can be a 
launch point for activism and for 

getting people involved.”

“It’s one little parenthesis in 

their (the kids’) day where what 
they say matters and they’re getting 
laughs, they’re having fun and they 
are finding their voice,” Jackson 
added. “And they are being told not 
only what you say is important, we 
need you to be here, we need you to 
participate and it’s your mind, your 
body, your voice that is creating 
this work and without it, without 
working together, without one 
another, we have nothing.”

The Detroit Creativity Project 

reminds kids that their voices 
matter, their ideas matter and most 
importantly, they matter. Because 
when you create a scene out of 
thin air, you do the impossible and 
suddenly, anything is possible.

“When you step off the back 

line in improvisation you enter 
a white room with nothing in it 
and then you paint such vivid 
pictures,” Jackson said. “It’s simply 
impossible except that it’s not if you 
do it together.” 

You can catch Marc Evan 

Jackson wreaking havoc on “The 
Good Place” as head demon Shawn 
or as Captain Ray Holt’s husband 
Kevin Cozner on “Brooklyn Nine-
Nine.” You can also tune into a 
behind-the-scenes look at “The 
Good Place” on “The Good Place: 
The Podcast” hosted by Jackson 
with guests like show creator 
Michael Shur and cast members 
like Kristen Bell, Ted Danson, 
D’Arcy Carden and more. 

MAITREYI ANANTHRAMAN

Daily Arts Writer

TV NOTEBOOK

Marc Evan Jackson / NBC

Politics & Kanye language

Spending 
most 
of 
my 

childhood 
in 
the 
mid-to-

late aughts, Kanye West was 
perpetually a figure within 
my peripheral understanding 
of pop culture. I couldn’t tell 
you who sang the song “Gold 
Digger” when it burned up the 
charts in 2005, but a VHS tape 
somewhere in my mom’s closet 
plays to reveal a six-year-old 
me popping and locking to it at 
my then 16-year-old cousin’s 
birthday party. Fast forward 
to the 2009 VMAs, and I could 
identify him as the guy who 
stormed onto the stage and said: 
“Yo Taylor, I’m really happy 
for you, I’ll let you finish, but 
Beyoncé has one of the best 
videos of all time.” From the 
beginning, I knew people loved 
him for his music and people 
hated him for his actions.

By the time the internet 

became an integral part of my 
daily teen life, West fascinated 
me not in his creative potential 
as a musical artist, but in his 
contributions to meme culture. 
My brothers and I laughed 
ourselves to tears, spilling hot 
popcorn on the floor when 
he infamously announced his 
decision to run for president in 
2020 at the 2015 VMAS. When 
he broke into a monologue 
on “The Ellen Show” in 2016, 
justifying his appeal to Mark 
Zuckerberg for $1 billion in 
funding for creative enterprises 
by 
proclaiming 
“Picasso 
is 

dead. Steve Jobs is dead. Walt 
Disney is dead.” I used the 
phrase for comical effect in my 
high school speech class. These 
events were parallel to my first 
encounters with rap music on 
a less-than-radio-single level, 
as artists like Kendrick Lamar 
and Travis Scott began to pique 
my interest — in no way could I 
have envisioned West as these 
rappers on an artistic level when 
his antics spoke louder than his 
music to the public.

My relationship with Kanye 

West has changed since high 
school. After a semester’s worth 
of Shazam-ing my roommate’s 
playlists during my freshman 

year, I caved in and downloaded 
The Life of Pablo, “Highlights” 
and “Fade” making frequent 
appearances on my playlists. I 
then downloaded The College 
Dropout, and Late Registration, 
and Graduation and — well, you 
get the picture. The point is, I 
saw Kanye for the artist he is 
for the first time, with his bold 
storytelling, profound skits and 
dynamic and influential sound. 
It is near impossible to find 
a popular hip-hop artist that 
has risen after Yeezy who is 
uninspired by him.

It’s for this reason I consider 

2018 more the polarizing year 
for Kanye West than the year 
of his downfall. His outbursts 
were unhinged enough for my 
mother to call me two weeks ago 
and ask, “Diana, what is wrong 
with Kone-yee West?” But his 
three main music projects of 
2018 — Daytona, Kids See Ghosts 
and ye 
 — rank amongst my top 

20 albums of the year.

I couldn’t care less about 

what celebrities have to say, 
even when they are about the 
president. However, I’d be lying 
if I said I didn’t think Kanye 
being Kanye was a bit too Kanye 
this time around. His claim that 
400 years of slavery “sounds 
like a choice” is reprehensible, 
especially given the platform 
he used to speak on behalf of 
Black rights in the past. His 
recent conversation with and 
in support of President Trump 
was haphazard and chaotic, to 
say the least — it struck me that 
he had a lot to say, but couldn’t 
coherently communicate it. It’s 
also eerie how an SNL parody 
got away with borrowing lines 
directly from this conversation 
in their recent skit.

Kanye West’s visit to the 

White House, ostensibly to 
discuss criminal justice reform, 
was a hot mess and further 
defaced his already polarizing 
image in the media. Several 
people have spoken out on 
the meeting, calling it West’s 
betrayal of a Black community 
that looked up to him as an artist 
and does not feel supported 
by the policies of our 45th. He 
has faced severe backlash and 
repercussions: 
Charlamagne 

Tha God canceled a discussion 

he was meant to have with 
West on mental illness and 
its intersection with race. To 
many people, these antics are 
perceived as departures from 
an “Old Kanye” that famously 
declared “George Bush doesn’t 
care 
about 
black 
people” 

following 
mismanaged 
relief 

efforts after Katrina wiped out 
much of New Orleans. A Kanye 
that was proud and Black. This 
was not the same Kanye that 
rapped “racism is still alive, we 
just be concealing it” on The 
College Dropout.

Perhaps there is some validity 

to these claims: Even West 
says that his opinions have 
changed over the years. But he 
perceives it as something more 
fluid, his thoughts evolving 
rather than him losing touch 
with his past. After all, this 
isn’t Yeezy’s first time flirting 
with alt-right imagery; in 2013, 
he unsuccessfully attempted to 
re-appropriate the Confederate 
flag by selling it on his Yeezus 
tour merch. This also isn’t his 
first 
time 
showing 
support 

for 
Trump: 
In 
2016, 
West 

announced he would’ve voted 
for Trump in the presidential 
election at the tour for an album 
in which he raps “Hands up we 
just doing what the cops taught 
us / Hands up, hands up then 
the cops shot us.”

As 
ostensible 
and 
brash 

as he may be, Kanye West is 
more complex than we give 
him credit for. He shows this 
in his response to criticism, 
claiming that the divisive power 
of 
political 
parties 
doesn’t 

help to solve racism, hence 
his acknowledgment of praise 
for Trump — it’s worth noting 
his non-album single “Ye vs. 
The People” explores the same 
idea. Though far-fetched, the 
rapper’s ideas by no means stray 
from nobility to the roots that 
shaped him. Perhaps things 
stand out more now than before 
because they come from a time 
where we listen to what Kanye 
says because he’s Kanye, not 
because The College Dropout 
is performing well. At a time 
where his personality earns 
more critique than his music, 
it’s not hard to misunderstand 
the musician.

DIANA YASSIN

For the Daily

MUSIC NOTEBOOK