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| Why Jon Stewart isn't funny | |||||
| 2006-03-06 | |||||
THE SELECTION of Jon Stewart as the host for Sunday night's 2006 Oscars undoubtedly marks a career milestone for the aspiring king of late-night comedy. Unfortunately, however, the ascension of Stewart and ''The Daily Show" into the public eye is no laughing matter. Stewart's ever-increasing popularity among young viewers directly correlates with the declining influence of progressive thought in America. Coincidence? I think not. Let me explain.
Many of Stewart's die-hard supporters might use this persona as proof that ''The Daily Show" engages disillusioned viewers who otherwise could not be reached. This argument, however, fails to consider the ultimate career path of Josh Goldberg: Upon graduation in 2004, he accepted a prestigious job as an analyst at Morgan Stanley. Although he no longer follows Washington's daily political squabbles, Goldberg gives a significant annual contribution to the Democratic Party. The tragedy of this portrait is not that investment banking corrupts young souls (although one could argue otherwise), but rather that the students who abandon politics out of a naive self-consciousness often represent our country's most idealistic minds. Stewart's daily dose of political parody characterized by asinine alliteration leads to a ''holier than art thou" attitude toward our national leaders. People who possess the wit, intelligence, and self-awareness of viewers of ''The Daily Show" would never choose to enter the political fray full of ''buffoons and idiots." Content to remain perched atop their Olympian ivory towers, these bright leaders head straight for the private sector.
Observers since the days of de Tocqueville have often remarked about America's unique dissociation between politicians and citizens of ''outstanding character." Unfortunately, the rise of mass media and the domination of television news give Stewart's Menckenesque voice a much more powerful influence than critics in previous generations. As a result, a bright leader who may have become the Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson of today instead perceives politics as a supply of sophisticated entertainment, rather than a powerful source of social change. Most important, this disturbing cultural phenomenon overwhelmingly affects potential leaders of the Democratic Party.
Although Stewart's comedic shticks may thus earn him some laughs Sunday at the Oscars, his routine will certainly not match the impact of his greatest irony: Jon Stewart undermines any remaining earnestness that liberals in America might still possess.
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| Posted by:Steve |
| #6 I like the Daily show and the Cobert report. But after the opening monologues I kind of lose interest and change the channel. Trust me, the first 10-12 minutes of every show are great but the interviews or skits fall flat most of the time. I didnÂ’t watch the Oscars (I never do) and the only winning movie I saw was Wallace and Grommet. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2006-03-06 17:25 |
| #5 Hmmm... Rather like Bill Cosby's humor, where the joketeller uses common experience and self-deprecation which allows everybody to identify with him - and laugh at themselves... versus Don Rickles' "humor" where someone else is always the butt of the joke - and half the audience laughs, while the rest cringe. |
| Posted by: .com 2006-03-06 17:25 |
| #4 1. Stewart's show gets very good ratings by the standards of the comedy channel - and it is relatively cheap to produce. 2. So what if Stewart's show has left wing demographics. It's a niche show. If it weren't it might get better ratings but then again it might not. 3. Stewart's poor performance last night wasn't the result of 'lefties can't sustain comedy'. It was the result of 'almost no one can sustain comedy at the Oscars; the big egos and the puffed up medocrities who get awards suck the energy out of any host'. The job of Oscar host is very tough; that's why it was tough to recruit anyone. |
| Posted by: mhw 2006-03-06 16:09 |
| #3 ...and doesn't Michelle sound like a fun date? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2006-03-06 15:26 |
| #2 maybe it is because only the Democratic party is such a joke. |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-03-06 15:19 |
| #1 To put it another way, sarcasm and arrogant naivete don't mix. In a way, it depends who you are if you think Jon Stewart is funny or not. It has been said both that humor has to have a grain of truth in it, or it is not funny; and that humor can have a lot of anger it in, but when it tips the balance and becomes more anger than humor, it is not funny. That being said, if you can accept that grain of truth, you can get the joke built around it. If you deny that truth, the joke will never be funny. Otherwise, the joke is constrained by the anger involved. Not just by the anger of the teller, but importantly, the anger of the listener. If either of them are filled with rage and hate, they have no room left for humor, and the joke will always fall flat. Unless it is not humor, just hate disguised. And this is the humor of much of the left: nothing more than bitter hatred that they call humor. To someone not consumed with rage and hate, such humor falls flat, be it on Air America or in a Michael Moore movie. And, not surprisingly, it also dies because it does not contain the essential grain of truth. And without that core, it is nothing from nothing. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-03-06 14:55 |