If you haven’t seen Colbert’s roast at the White House Correspondent’s dinner, watch it at C&L. TMV has a good rundown of the various blogohedron responses to the performance- mostly positive, with much praise lavished on Colbert’s balls, and a smattering of “wow he totally bombed” comments from the right.
But Bloggledygook has one comment worth discussing, I think, apart from the political aspects of the roast. He says, in response to a comment on his (rather abstract) post:
BTW, if by poll standards 65% of Americans view Bush in a dark light, Colbert’s flame is burning at the wrong end. Scathing satire works against overwhelming public opinion, not with it.
I don’t think its at all clear, regardless of poll numbers, that Colbert is just giving voice to ‘overwhelming public opinion’. It surely isn’t the overwhelming opinion of the Washington media and various political hangers-on, who weren’t laughing much during the act. And if there is such a vast discrepancy between the media and ‘overwhelming public opinion’, then Colbert’s satire was exactly on target. Satire doesn’t just work against public opinion, it works against any established, dominant opinion, and in this case that opinion is the MSM’s, which happened to be represented by everyone in the room.
People forget that the novelty of TDS and TCR doesn’t come from mere topical and political comedy; people have been doing that for ages. The novelty is that these shows aim their satire at the media, which is a rather novel phenomena itself in its current incarnation. Almost all of Colbert’s jokes hit the government indirectly through attacks on the media; the policies themselves serve as throw-away punchlines to garnish the real target of his satire. And thats why people are so impressed with Colbert’s performance. It exposes both how much the government’s power rests on its control and influence over the media, and how willingly the media plays into the hands of the powerful.
Humor isn’t a numbers game. Its probably one of the few things left that isn’t. You can’t judge a joke by the number of laughs, and successful satire is not proportional to those who accept its sting.
Update: Colbert has been at the Correspondent’s dinner before. But Laura stole that show.
As usual you throw in a few assumptions without really elucidating your point. I agree that poking fun at the media the mainstream and offbeat is the angle that TDS and TCR take and it works many times (as it is usally a good way to just make fun of a subculture of people since FOX, NPR, etc have achieved such segregated audiences) and those times are when it’s funny. I recently wrote something where I talked about politics and humor in regards to South Park where I tried to make the point that people might declare a joke “not so good” simply when it goes after their personal politics. This sort of hypocrisy is probably what you are talking about. Colbert slams the powerful with his well honed insincerity and that can be pretty funny. I diagree though about your assertion that you cannot judge a joke by laughs. Certainly you cannot judge a joke by a single room. In this I think sampling size is relevant. Colbert might have very well intended to bomb. Given the company he would be keeping at this dinner, if he were to placate then he would certainly not be playing it safe as he would lose credibility with his bread and butter audience. Imus did the same thing years ago when he poked fun at Clinton at one of these dinners. He made a joke about the President and once the President didn’t laugh (because he wouldn’t allow himself to be made fun of I suppose) Imus just tore into him. Still, I’d have to say that you can judge a joke based on laughs since that is what humor is all about. Wait until Monday during TDS and TCR and you’ll get all the laughs you need. These shows have a large audience of like minded people that do seem to have this understanding about satire. So in the end the numbers will work out. Jokes are supposed to be funny. They can be downright sardonic but in the end a person with some levity and a good perspective can find the humor there too. Anyone who can’t needs to lighten up or risk becoming a patholigical hypocrite and worse yet a totally uncool person; like many of these “Washington types” from both the Right and the Left.
As usual, TC echos all the typical talking points. Every pundit and blogger on the right has 1) said that Colbert bombed, 2) compared his performance to Imus, and 3) said that Colbert was playing to his core audience for the sake of credibility.
My point about numbers is that you can’t judge the effectiveness of a joke by the percentages, which is what the Daniel on Bloggledygook was trying to do in the quote I posted. But I wasn’t trying to excuse Colbert from bombing, because he didn’t. He played his character, and he played it to a T. Some of his routine was recycled from his show (thinking from the gut), but most of the new jokes (Hindenberg) were dead on and hilarious.
The Imus comparison can be forgiven, I suppose, since they haven’t really done an all-out roast since then, but the comparison is totally off base. Imus was more or less a lefty shock-jock grilling one of his own, and it got offensive. Colbert wasn’t being offensive, he was being satirical, and the awkwardness in the audience was the result of it hitting too close to home.
But Colbert wasn’t doing this for credibility; he doesn’t have any, and I really don’t think he much needs it, either. He was just playing the character he’s always played, even back in his TDS days, a self-assured pompous asshole O’Reilly send-up. Its what he knows and does best, and its what his writers know how to do, and its what made him popular enough to get invited to speak at the dinner. I don’t know why anyone expected him to play it any differently, and I don’t know why people hold it against him, as if he were pandering to guys like me.
I did not say he bombed. I compared it to Imus based on an interview I saw with him years ago and not predetermined talking points, since I do not troll the net developing those. My concern in the comparison had to do with how people react to being made the joke and not some direct comparison in style or approach. Now my real argument is that you do judge a joke based on the number of laughs (in this context you seemed to be concerned with some kind of objectivity in humor). Colbert may not have lit up the room but he will no doubt get a high number of laughs, the last laugh if you will, once clips are shown on the TDS and TCR. Colbert played his character because that is his character and his style. I do not see a problem with that nor consider it a form of pandering to his audience since that is a circular argument (as a perfomer your audience will be those people that enjoy your performance ergo what you perform is enjoyed by your audience). That he didn’t pander by changing his act is a good thing. He would have lost credibility (however you want to define it he does have a core audience and they have expectations about a Colbert performance) had he pandered but this would be true for anyone. I was not slamming him for it, he maintained the integrity of his character.
So back to my actual point. Since it seemed you were trying to be objective about humor, what do you judge a joke based on if not the number of laughs? My prior comment was saying that if you are going to make humor an objective thing then the numbers are relevant and that Colbert in this case will get the numbers. Of course talking about humor with much concern for objectivity is kind of pretentious and absurd which is why most people analyzing this performance that find it super funny or consider it a “bomb” and talk as if everybody should agree with them are wrong. Those kind of extremist/reactionary people offend me as a person but amuse me as a comedian. They do make for great fodder as Colbert has shown many a time and that I think is the source of his “credibility”.
To see the entire video (3 parts, 25 minutes) in youtube version, click on my name/website.
For what it’s worth, I thought he bombed because his delivery mostly sucked. And the reason the delivery was so stilted, I think, was because Colbert had decided that he was really going to stick it to the President and, by doing so, do something important. Some great satirists can take themselves extremely seriously and get away with it. It just so happens that Colbert can’t.
On another note, TC raises (indirectly) an interesting philosophical point. Suppose that you just happen to have opinions that exhibit a one to one correllation with the talking points being advanced by one side in a debate. And, suppose further that your opinions were generated without your having compared notes with whichever body of consultants it was that generated those talking points. Are you: (a) a victim of circumstance; (b) tapping into the zeitgeist; (c) not to be confused with those maroons; or (d) a sucker.
I dunno. I watch his show almost every night, and his delivery even on his home turf is rather stilted. Part of the problem, I think, is that he is doing a character that I don’t think he is entirely comfortable doing. He’s a practicing Catholic, after all, and I think he believes most of the stuff he is mocking– which just reinforces my opinion that his target of ridicule is not the content of his performance but his delivery. Jon Stewart, on the other hand, can be a little more comfortable with his delivery, which is basically just jewy gen-Xer. I also think Stewart understands his social role (or whatever) a bit better than Colbert, who has been thrust into the spotlight rather quickly. I mean, his show has been on for just over 6 months. Thats a rather quick ride up.
As to your philosophical point: I don’t really see the difference between a, b, and d. But I don’t think it matters much anyway. These political ideologies are powerful because they so easily generate conclusions and opinions. Once you’ve adopted the ideology, you know the partisan positions before they even announce them, so when they do it comes off as a confirmation of your beliefs, thus reinforcing your own alliances. The problem, obviously, is that they are mostly empty and almost entirely ineffective, and highly recalcitrant to change. I suppose the cycle will be broken at some point, but i’m not holding my breath.
You still haven’t answered my question about humor. Also I did not echo the talking points. I’m not sure what they are specifically but you mischaracterized my comment possibly due to some political bloodlust that has led you to many tantrums lately (I don’t know what the polls say but I think you need to lighten up, not to be confused with lighting up, heh). Okay so we’ll go through this again I’ll enumerate: 1) I did not say he bombed, I speculated that he might have intended to do that but I did not say that he did. 2) My mentioning of Imus was simply to point out ways that have been approached towards satire when the President is in the room. I do not think it is “empty” I think it is apt. 3) As for the credibility issue I already addressed that. Simply put I was not attacking or dismissing Colbert’s performance.
My comment was asking you to clarify your bold statement about humor but you choose to make something else out of it which I have now refuted twice. So you and your group think can carry your talking points and proceed in the arrogant fashion for which you are being indoctrinated OR I suppose you can break the cycle. At this point I have to admit sometimes I feel like Short Round trying to burn you with a torch. Sometimes I disagree with you just to test your opinion (now who’s being arrogant . . . me, but I think there is wisdom in being skeptical) to see if it is outside of the realms of the echo chamber where you spend the majority of your time. In this case I was simply asking you to clarify your position about satire as it relates to numbers.
Heh, and then he goes and proves that a, b, and d all apply.
In any case, my point wasn’t that complex. It was just that Daniel says it can’t be effective satire when it reflects public opinion. I responded by saying that it doesn’t matter what numbers back a joke, either it is effective or it isn’t. A million people laughing at Larry the Cable Guy doesn’t make him funny. If you are asking me to give you an alternative metric, I don’t have one. I don’t think there is one, as I said in my first post.
Well I disagree but I won’t be disagreeable. I think you had already made up your mind about a,b and d a few days ago. Now thanks to some diplomacy I am reasonably certain that you understand that it is c for lack of better phrasing. Though I am still a bit unclear about the satire thing? Is it ineffectual satire because Bush’s poll numbers are low and so public opinion is behind Colbert ? I got the other impression that perhaps public opinion was irrelevant and that it had something to do with the content of the material. And as to people laughing at LCG is it not a funny joke because it is not “effective” what do you mean by “effective”? Or are you talking about what makes for effective satire? In that case the reference to Larry is out of place, since he is not doing satire. I can’t help but feel you are being pretentious about humor . . . unless you were to clarify that you don’t think it’s funny and that’s what you mean by effective that it is something you find to be funny. I think the Admiral Crunch joke in the second episode of Futurama is hilarious but that’s me others can disagree. I don’t see anyway to objectively convince them otherwise and furthermore don’t see much reason why I should.
Thanks for sharing