POLITICS IS EASY – COMEDY IS HARD
Mar. 16th, 2012 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogThis past weekend at SXSW (an event I have never been to but wish I could be every year), there was a panel discussion on comedy, and – if you believe CNN – the panel generally concluded that political comedy generally swings to the left.
This has come up before, either from conservatives who see liberal bias in anything that so much as questions their POV, let alone pokes fun at them, or from liberals who smugly point at Fox News’s failure to develop a fake news show for conservatives.
One panelist put it this way:
Personally I don't think that's necessarily true (except for the part about Christian rock bands, unless you count U2 as a Christian rock band). There’s a fairly long list of comedians or humorists who have declared themselves either Republican or Libertarian –Dennis Miller, Sam Kinison, Drew Carey, Jeff Foxworthy, Larry The Cable Guy, Adam Sandler, Yakov Smirnoff, Jackie Mason, Larry Miller, Ben Stein, Brad Stine, PJ O’Rourke, etc. And remember too that Rush Limbaugh uses humor all the time. You may not think he’s very funny – at least not intentionally. But his audience does. And odds are they don’t find Jon Stewart very amusing either. So it balances out.
Or not. Comedy is always subjective – what makes me laugh won’t necessarily make you laugh, whether it’s Jon Stewart, Monty Python or LOLcats. Most people I know insist that Friends is hilarious. I have no idea why. So it’s hard to say that what Limbaugh does doesn't count as humor just because he doesn’t make me laugh. The same goes for Jeff Foxworthy and Larry The Cable Guy, really.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t call Jeff Foxworthy and Larry The Cable Guy political comedians, either. They may vote Republican, but they don’t spend their entire routines making fun of liberals. In fact, I’m unaware that they do much political comedy at all. The same goes for several other comedians in that list. So there’s a distinction there. Still, Dennis Miller, Ben Stein, Brad Stine and PJ O’Rourke spend most of their time targeting the Left, and they make a pretty good living at it.
So no, I don’t really buy the premise that political comedy generally swings to the left just because Stewart and Colbert are doing well and conservatives don't have a successful equivalent format. That’s more the product of this modern post-9/11 dynamic of more and more people no longer having a sense of humor about their own side, where you can’t make fun of the President anymore without the people who voted for him accusing the comedian of being biased or unfair, instead of just not funny.
That said, it’s arguably true that conservatives complain about this more (at least in public). But that's really the product of three things: (1) Political comedy typically targets the people in power at the time, as well as whatever politicians make the headlines that day, (2) Republicans were in charge every branch of US govt for six years out of the 00s decade, and the White House and half of Congress for eight of them – it’s not like one of the perks of winning control of the govt is that no one gets to make fun of you, or that anyone who does is being unfair, which brings us to (3) that was the basic mentality fostered by the Bush Posse and its supporters, at least after 9/11 and Iraq War II – yr either with us or yr not.
That, to me, is what the question of political comedy is really about. I’m far less interested in whether it’s more left-wing or right-wing than the fact that it didn’t use to matter to people nearly as much as it does now.
Don't make me laugh,
This is dF
This has come up before, either from conservatives who see liberal bias in anything that so much as questions their POV, let alone pokes fun at them, or from liberals who smugly point at Fox News’s failure to develop a fake news show for conservatives.
One panelist put it this way:
"Comedy has a recklessness that doesn't lend itself to the conservative lifestyle," said Rory Albanese, an executive producer and writer for "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." "It's the same reason why Christian rock bands aren't as good as regular rock bands."
Personally I don't think that's necessarily true (except for the part about Christian rock bands, unless you count U2 as a Christian rock band). There’s a fairly long list of comedians or humorists who have declared themselves either Republican or Libertarian –Dennis Miller, Sam Kinison, Drew Carey, Jeff Foxworthy, Larry The Cable Guy, Adam Sandler, Yakov Smirnoff, Jackie Mason, Larry Miller, Ben Stein, Brad Stine, PJ O’Rourke, etc. And remember too that Rush Limbaugh uses humor all the time. You may not think he’s very funny – at least not intentionally. But his audience does. And odds are they don’t find Jon Stewart very amusing either. So it balances out.
Or not. Comedy is always subjective – what makes me laugh won’t necessarily make you laugh, whether it’s Jon Stewart, Monty Python or LOLcats. Most people I know insist that Friends is hilarious. I have no idea why. So it’s hard to say that what Limbaugh does doesn't count as humor just because he doesn’t make me laugh. The same goes for Jeff Foxworthy and Larry The Cable Guy, really.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t call Jeff Foxworthy and Larry The Cable Guy political comedians, either. They may vote Republican, but they don’t spend their entire routines making fun of liberals. In fact, I’m unaware that they do much political comedy at all. The same goes for several other comedians in that list. So there’s a distinction there. Still, Dennis Miller, Ben Stein, Brad Stine and PJ O’Rourke spend most of their time targeting the Left, and they make a pretty good living at it.
So no, I don’t really buy the premise that political comedy generally swings to the left just because Stewart and Colbert are doing well and conservatives don't have a successful equivalent format. That’s more the product of this modern post-9/11 dynamic of more and more people no longer having a sense of humor about their own side, where you can’t make fun of the President anymore without the people who voted for him accusing the comedian of being biased or unfair, instead of just not funny.
That said, it’s arguably true that conservatives complain about this more (at least in public). But that's really the product of three things: (1) Political comedy typically targets the people in power at the time, as well as whatever politicians make the headlines that day, (2) Republicans were in charge every branch of US govt for six years out of the 00s decade, and the White House and half of Congress for eight of them – it’s not like one of the perks of winning control of the govt is that no one gets to make fun of you, or that anyone who does is being unfair, which brings us to (3) that was the basic mentality fostered by the Bush Posse and its supporters, at least after 9/11 and Iraq War II – yr either with us or yr not.
That, to me, is what the question of political comedy is really about. I’m far less interested in whether it’s more left-wing or right-wing than the fact that it didn’t use to matter to people nearly as much as it does now.
Don't make me laugh,
This is dF
