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Jon Stewart and the US media
September 22, 2006 - 8:33am
The previous posts I think pretty much summed it up - Stewart doesn't want to land up like Bill Maher. True.
But re: Maher. Although he's 'back' in a sense he gets invites now, I was distressed to hear him a few weeks ago on Larry King spouting such uber Zionist crap you had to hear it to believe it, i.e. 'so sorry Lebanon that your cities had to be razed and so many killed, but that's what happens when you let the nuts run loose in your country.'
I'm paraphrasing but that was his essential thrust - make peace with Israel or be annihilated. It was very jarring to see this 'funny man' with literally blood dripping fangs.
EVERY American humorist or TV show host knows by now or should that they operate under certain parameters beyond which they cannot stray. It turns a lot of them into cowards, yes, but at least to quote Phil Donahue, they aren't "dead heroes."
I guess the lure of being in the public eye and making all that cash overrides concerns over teling it like it is which is why I can't work in radio or the media in the US anymore.
Yesterday as I recount in my blog (http://frontrowseat.motime.com/) there was a genuine hate-on against Chavez in the US media - CNN and MSNBC - you had to see it and hear it to beleive it. i didn't watch Fox since I was already going hoarse and didn't want to risk a stroke.
At one point I had made dinner for my son and invited him to watch Lou Dobbs saying "you've got to hear the propaganda being fed to people as news."
At one point UN Ambassador John Bolton was introduced as one of the sane and level headed voices in the UN by Dobbs. Luckily my dinner didn't hit the wall at that point but I needed a break from it all.
The ghosts of Goebbels are alive and well and writing news copy for the major US news networks. The crazy thing is that most Americans either applaud it ('finally the liberal media is dead') or the changes have gone right over their head.
Only Keith Olbermann seems to stand apart, but its also doubtful you're going to get an honest assessment of the history of American foreign policy in Latin America even from him.
Everyone is running scared. Can you IMAGINE a Walter Cronkite getting on the CBS Evening News today and saying the war in Iraq is unwinnable??
Anyway, I've strayed a bit from the topic but even using humour as a vehicle, one has to be careful and know the rules in the US.
I have to say though, that the most jarring comedy routine I ever heard on TV was from RICK MERCER who told a Canadian audience that they had to toe the line with the Americans because 'they can give us an old school whipping.'
It was on some kind of comedy award or tribute show I saw when I was in BC. It was very discouraging to see Mercer telling Canadians - hey, don't piss off the US too much or they'll thump us.
So the street can run your way as well, unfortunately.
[ 22 September 2006: Message edited by: Amйricain Йgalitaire ]
It's rather discouraging. He can be just as xenophobic and Amero-supremecist as Limbaugh if he wants to be. Note how the show patronizes and belittles pretty much any other country on Earth. If it isn't American, it's quaint, comical, ridiculous, inferior, or just stupid.
The show's coverage of the UN is a prime example. Not only did they give GW a pass on his most insulting and fascist behaviour, they dutifully fall into the "Iran is an evil empire run by a lunatic who wants nukes" line peddled by the worst of the far right. Chavez's speech was ignored save for a insulting remark about his sanity (just like Fox). If it comes to a choice between the rest of humanity on one hand and a lunatic genocidal tyrant American President on the other, the Loyal Democrat opposition will always buy American.
They even had Clinton on the show. I'm sure they really took him to task over his Iraq war. [img]rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img]
THANK YOU! Succinct and well-put this has really irritated me about his show as well. With Colbert, you figure its lampooning the way the right views the non-American world. With Stewart its pandering to the yahoos.
remember, patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, and phony patriotism is easy to play at....see dubia bush
I don't know about his Jewishnesss impacting his approach to the "comic news", as the other night
I was watching him and at first, in the beginning of his skit, I would've thought that too. As he started out mocking those currently protesting against the Pope, but he went on to mock/bash all religions equally, including the Jewish one, his own so to speak.
Perhaps some want to silence even this little voice of moderate integrity?
[ 23 September 2006: Message edited by: remind ]
Perhaps I can make a helpful suggestion? Keep your mouth shut about celebrities' alleged religious affiliation, and you'll sleep better at night.
Sorry for the harsh words, but just think what I might have said...
Oh for the days when people used to appreciate balance!
[img]rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img]
Hasn't aired in my part of the world yet but I will definitely tune in.
The Colbert Report which follows will also survive since it mocks the Fox News format. Fox News won't disappear when Democrats control the White House and Congress.
I think we can't underestimate the impact he has had by his technique of playing the latest neocon buzzphrase in quick succession 30 times in a row. "Slow bleed" is one of the latest. Now if you watch CNN they ape that every week. Except for Olbermann who else makes fun of Bush and co on a regular basis on national US TV?
Tonight he told Bill Kristol he would have voted for John McCain in 2000 if he had won the Republican nomination.
Not that they are lazy. Most people want to work(maybe not a lot) but don't want to earn 200 a week working very hard. While the managers and worse the executives get a big fat million dollar paycheck, benefits (something a lot of these jobs don't have)stock options, business meeting in exotic locations, and the 'prestige' that the job gives them for self confidence. "I am better than you because I don't have to make decisions and make more money"
With all these things is it any wonder people don't want to work at macdonalds. To make matters even worse, many jobs only offer part time hours.This means having to get at least 2 jobs to make a regular 40 hour pay check.
While having 2 jobs doesn't sound two bad if you only work 40 hours it really means working a lot more. Consider transit time to the job, if you have jobs in different directions from your home, you would spend literally hours in traffic, even worse if you live rural or take a lot of public transit with transfers. Add to this the lack of pension and or benefits and one can easily see why someone would actually prefer 537 a month(thats right a month!!) to live on welfare. My aunt is on disability and my cousins deride her, I try to point out the problems of her getting a job(for one being disabled) and they think I am the one that is wrong. We have almost 11% unemployment, how does one go find a job when the people who haven't left(estimated at several thousand) still can't find meaningful employment.
The interesting thing about that interview is Kristol admitted that Obama is neither a socialist nor a radical but as President would simply be a "typical liberal Democrat". Stewart picked up on this saying that he's admitting that the GOP are just accusing Obama of being a socialist and a radical in order to scare people and Kristol basically just shrugged.
Earlier this week, Colbert rebutted the accusations that Obama is a socialist by having the Socialist Party's presidential candidate explain how that isn't so (Obama is a capitalist and doesn't want the workers to own the means of production).
[ 31 October 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]
Political entertainment, politics as entertainment, is just one more product marketed to flat-brained consumers. The market is a God that will have no other Gods beside it.
Yes. "The better to eat you with, my dear."
Entertainment is possibly the only good use for politics in America these days.
To the extent that entertainment even masquerades as political analysis, yes. One of the most shocking aspects of the success of the Stewart and Colbert shows is that viewers often look to them for a more honest analysis than what is available the usual suspects paraded before cable and network news.
Even more shocking is that they are right to do so.
Still more shocking is their viewers are the most informed on policy. Despite what, 4 all news channels over there.
Where else but on these type of shows, such as Real time With Bill Maher, can the voters find insight as to the motivations of the Religious right in America.
[ 04 November 2008: Message edited by: Slumberjack ]
So the medium is the message then? I guess we should be glad TV is on the way out... I hope Chomsky, Zinn and Albert are familiar with the net because I don't see printed books making a comeback; unless the internet is also an "entertainment" medium rather than an "analysis" medium.
Book consumption is actually up.
Report here I think people are spending more time reading on the web which of course leads to the need to read something more substancial than a lot of articles or forum posts. Plus Opra nevermind what I think of the books she promotes, at least she is getting her followers reading.
My young friends and I agree that there is just something about holding a book in your hand, a permanance about it. The ability to dog ear it, bookmark it, fold it back...I don't know I can get a lot of my books from torrents but I prefer to have a physical one in front of me. To be sure a lot of ebook will also be used, but regular books aren't going anywhere IMO.
Sorry about the drift
Daily Show and Colbert report are suppose to be on live at 10:00 est tonight for election coverage. Don't know if that applies to comedy network here though.
One should take a stop watch to any news broadcast and keep time what is actually "news". When you strip the witty reparte between the nicely coiffed hair stands, the bumpers, the health news about research that is a decade from actually affecting anyone's lives, there's not much steak amoungst all that sizzle.
There's a few constants in American culture. One of them-- and you can check de Toqueville out, is that while they cellebrate freedom of expression, they also cellebrate freedom of expression to dissagree with someone else's freedom of expression.
So, you gotta be tough.
Another is the role of the satirist and humourist illustrating the awful truths, which predates American itself in Franklin's "Poor Richard's Almanac.", and seems to surface around or at the result of social crisis.
I think Franklin and Stewart would like and understand each other, while Thomas Paine and Bill Maher are a natural fit.