What Colbert and Stewart and Blumental do so well is exceptionally (0.00 / 0)

difficult: they are extremely informed, they listen really well, and they are quick to react with a sharp, albeit subtle retort to whatever inane ridiculous utterance which comes out of the mouth of the irony challenged, right winger --or maybe even a better word would be self-righteous blowhard.

9 times out of 10  whatever these masters of irony say goes right of the head of the person they speaking to/skewering.

And therein is the comedy.

It also helps that their targets are so often trumped up, "legend in their own minds" and are getting a well deserved come-uppance.

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by: Susan H @ Mon Aug 27, 2007 at 14:23:01 PM UTC

Laughter Is What They Fear Most (0.00 / 0)

They can deal with being taken seriously.  They come up with absurdity after absurdity, and taking them seriously actually validates them at one level.  Laughter, however, signals a complete break--and that they can never abide.

Here's a classic example, which I witnessed myself as a young teen.  I literally couldn't believe it was happening.  In the early 1960s, there was a prime-time political satire show called "That Was the Week That Was," (TWTWTW or TW3) first in Britain, then in the US.  To get an idea how cutting edge it was, they had a skit about the Vietnam War when we were still in the "advisors" stage, before the Gulf of Tonkin.  Wikipedis says:

An American version of TW3 was broadcast on the NBC television network; initially as a one-time pilot episode on November 10, 1963, and then as a regular series from January 10, 1964, to May, 1965. The pilot featured hosts Henry Fonda and Henry Morgan, guest stars Mike Nichols and Elaine May, and various supporting performers including Gene Hackman. The series had a recurring cast that included Frost, Morgan, Buck Henry and Alan Alda, with Nancy Ames singing the ever-changing lyrics to the opening theme song; regular contributors included Gloria Steinem, Tom Lehrer and Calvin Trillin. Also appearing as a guest was Woody Allen, performing some of his stand-up comedy act; the guest star on the final broadcast was Steve Allen.

Although Wikipedia makes no mention of it, key to the show's demise was the 1964 Goldwater campaign.  In the last weeks of the 1964 election, the Goldwater campaign pre-empted the show for hour-long tv commercials.  (I don't know for certain if they did this nationwide, though that is what I remember hearing at the time.)  This not only prevented TWTWTW from lampooning Goldwater, it took the wind out of the show, which had been a veritable sensation when it started the season before.

There was a gap of almost two years--it seemed like decades--before political humor returned to the national tv airwaves, first with the Smothers Brothers in early 1967, then with Laugh-In, a year later.  But I can't help thinking how different our history might have been if TWTWTW had just stayed on the air when the Vietnam War was being escalated.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Mon Aug 27, 2007 at 14:43:46 PM UTC

Culture leads politics (0.00 / 0)

Art is dissident by nature. Students of art and culture learn very quickly that, for several hundred years now, the art that "sticks" is the art that questions the prevailing social order. Art made in support of the state almost always sucks. Art that calls fundamental normative assumptions into question will alway last, because, as history has shown us, fundamental normative assumptions are anything but.

When I was growing up, the places I looked to find out what was really going on were almost all cultural in nature. Literature, music, sci-fi, poetry, movies, comic books, magazines (Mad), all of it, were both bellwethers and harbingers of change. They weren't the last place you looked. They were the first place you looked.

Politics, on the other hand, is all about consensus formation. It follows the changes that have already occurred or are occurring in the larger society. That is why the blogosphere is having a major impact on domestic and global politics. The Internet's structural dimensions are essentially democratic. For that reason, the Internet has become the principal means whereby contemporary art and dissident/progressive politics and values are quickly establishing themselves in the larger society.

We definitely need more Moores, Blumenthal's, Colbert's and Stewart's. These people are truth-tellers. They cause people not only to laugh, but to get angry enough once they finish laughing to fight for change. They are also satirists of the highest order. Satire is an age-old weapon in the neverending cultural war against social repression. (Have you seen the guys at Red State Update? Their satire is like a fine wine made from the finest ironies, laced with just a hint of Transformer and Star Wars action figures.) We need more progressive novelists, poets, performers, painters, and artists who wholeheartedly support the blogosphere and who are supported by the blogosphere. There should be so many of them that you can't keep track of them.

If there was ever a time for satire, this is it. I would hope that over time the political blogosphere will open its arms to relationships with those in the art community who share the same values and goals and vice versa.

One thing that progressive artists have to offer the blogosphere is this: a belief in participative democracy and the understanding that, for some, participating means forever ridiculing the obvious stupidity, inanity and insanity of the ruling class. In the culture wars, that is as close as you get to a WMD.

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by: Michael Harold @ Mon Aug 27, 2007 at 15:14:51 PM UTC

Laughing Liberally couldn't agree more... (0.00 / 0)

We definitely need comedy, as a compelling tool to communicate our ideas, as one of the weapons to undercutting our opponents, as an avenue to bring joy into our politics.

And others are making that argument in these comments very well.

I want to hit on Matt's other main point:  it's hard.

Comedians need to work their material to get it good, and that's why so many on the stand-up circuit (who go on to write sketch, then TV shows, and influence sit-coms, cartoons, evening talk shows and big screen flicks) need to perform countless times in front of live audiences to figure out what works.

But many comedy clubs don't want their comedians doing political material...thus the performers can't polish and perfect those subjects and politics can't become their A-list work.

Laughing Liberally -- among other goals -- is tackling that.  We provide comedians the stage to test out their C-list political jokes...until they evolve them into A-list material they can take into any room.  And we hear from comedians again and again that this is the only way to get good.

Some of the Laughing Liberally shows and videos are spot on; some are a little raw or unpolished...because we're not only creating humor, we're creating more open avenues to develop humor.

By the time our performers take the stage at YearlyKos or YDA, they've had a chance to make their political material their top work.  And this is one way we can help propel comedians -- whether stand-ups, writers, or guerilla videographers like Max Blumenthal -- into careers where there wit and intelligence can have political impact.

Good comedy is really hard.  We're delighted to have produced videos with James Adomian, or to have a relationship with Will Durst...two comedians who can make it look easy.

And as we keep trying new videos and posts, and keep touring our performers around the country, we hope there will be a growing number of Jon Stewarts and Stephen Colberts who can use the nuance, intelligence and punch of comedy to push forward progressive ideas.

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by: Justin Krebs @ Mon Aug 27, 2007 at 15:44:44 PM UTC

Comedy is also subjective (0.00 / 0)

I've been working at the Second City in Chicago for quite a while, and what kills with one audience will bomb with another (although it REALLY helps when people are drinking.)  This is especially true with political humor which is why I decided to try and thread the eye of the needle with the following video.  Democrats seem to like it because it points out the idiocy of Bush's comparison of Iraq to Viet Nam (for the wrong reasons.)  Republicans seem to like it because Bush comes off as a likeable guy (Homer Simpson IS and idiot -- but we still like him.)  I'd appreciate some feedback on this. 

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by: britethorn @ Mon Aug 27, 2007 at 17:33:19 PM UTC

on comedy (0.00 / 0)

comedy is the deft use of lies to expose underlying truths about the world.

this is why conservatives, as a rule, are so bad at it. their attempts at comedy only expose the truths about their own selves.

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by: rageahol @ Mon Aug 27, 2007 at 17:34:07 PM UTC