the whole colbert thing

[rone]

Amidst the fawning of the moonbats and the shrill criticism of the wingnuts over Colbert's performance, the point is lost that satire isn't necessarily funny.  I thought Colbert's speech was really well delivered and hit all the spots it wanted.  Chutzpah, yes.  Courage, no.  Biting satire, yes.  Funny, rarely.  To claim that Colbert "was hilarious" or "bombed" is to misunderstand what he was doing; it wasn't stand-up, it was put-down.

And while one person thinks that "it's a failing prospect to attempt to direct satire at those who are beyond it," i say that perhaps he's confused about who the satire is directed at.  While Bush and the media were the subjects of the satire, that doesn't mean that they're the targets.  The target is, as always, the American people.  (Yes, i know, "But they're beyond satire!"  I disagree.)

Comments

[paracelsvs.livejournal.com]

I really haven't the tiniest bit of a clue what the hell this is all about.

The fact that I haven't bothered to watch the actual video or whatever doesn't really help, but the whole thing is too bewildering for me to even want to try that.

So far, I've gathered that this is about people arguing if the court jester is funny or not. Is that it?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

That's an oversimplification. Obviously, the funny/not funny line is mostly even with party/ideology lines. My contention is that, by arguing the funniness of the performance, both sides aren't properly appreciating what happened. Of course, it's worse for the president's supporters, who are simply taking the president's position of impervious obliviousness in the face of reality, and thus changing facts to suit their outlook by any means necessary.

[paracelsvs.livejournal.com]

Sitting over here, what I see is:

1. Person gets invited to hold satirical performance in front of the president.
2. Person holds satirical performance in front of the president.
3. The internet goes, "Whoa! That guy totally held a satirical performance in front of the president!"

And then I go "?".

[paracelsvs.livejournal.com]

(That first post was mostly facetious. This one is measurably less so. In case you were keeping track.)

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

1) is incorrect, as far as i can see. I'm pretty sure people were expecting comedy (more of a roast, as in years past), not a punch in the face.

[paracelsvs.livejournal.com]

I got the idea that satire was what the guy usually does. Of course, I have no idea who these people are in the first place.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well, these people have shown a remarkable imperviousness to reality, so they probably figured Colbert would do what they wanted him to do.

party lines

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

You're coming awfully close to spilling the truth here.

It's not that successful satire isn't necessarily funny or that Colbert's satire was less than successful. It's that one side of those party lines has in the past 15 years or so become swarming with people unashamed to laugh out loud at photos of a girl soldier pointing at tortured brown-skinned prisoners' exposed genitals, people who think that masking their own self-aggrandizement in ostensibly self-mocking expressions like "dittohead" is wickedly funny while the humorist's tool (regardless of political stripe) of masking self-mockery in self-aggrandizement is just boastful, people whose sense of humor is on the level of chuckling at the schoolroom bully bashing the nerd in the face. Satirical humor from their own side would be just as lost on them.