The Entertainment Divide - Colbert's Candidacy and the possibility of it being taken seriously
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert represent a steady shift in the convergence of news media and entertainment and as they grow more relevant, their messages begin to overwhelm those of the men and women they lampoon.
The world has become increasingly less aware of the gap between entertainment and actual news, only driven along by the advancement and growth of the new generation of Internet technology and new media. News channels have become the butt of a much larger joke in American culture, that of the faux media, the Jon Stewarts and Stephen Colberts of the world.
And while these two men are the figureheads of a new era devoted to lampooning everything we once respected and listened to without question, the effect has not stopped at the one hour block of programming on Comedy Central four nights a week.
Rather, it has only continued to spread. After all, the original concept for the Daily Show - if anyone can remember it -was very much unlike what we now see in Jon Stewart's nightly showcase. It was a farce for sure, but no different than the weak, pandering jokes we see every week on Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update. The original host, Craig Kilborn, was able to take his act on the road and play it out for a few more years on CBS's The Late Late Show, but it hasn't been seen since.
In the meantime, Jon Stewart has created a second career for himself - one well above and beyond the comedy and acting career he was previously stuttering through in the 1990s. He is a household name, a college campus hero, and the voice for a growing generation of cynicism. With a college degree in psychology and a career devoted to comedy, few would suspect Stewart as being capable of shaping national opinion in the way he has in recent years.
But, young people look up to him and with the Government's failures increasing at a daily rate, and the promise of a new congress slowly whittling away to nothing, the country needs that sharp-witted reality check to remind it every night that the world is not defined by the Hannitys and Coopers of the world or the close-lipped Presidential Press Secretary.
And while the joke was all well and good for the first four or five years of his late night career, Jon Stewart has taken an increasingly important position in the stations of national politics in recent years. World leaders, presidential candidates, and Nobel laureates now visit his show in greater numbers than the actors schilling new goods. He reads books by the great thinkers of our time and combatively confronts the faces of the government and the administration.
All the while, the "real" news media watches and wonders if they are in trouble - if what they say could end up at the tail end of a particularly sticky barb that evening. And often, it does as Stewart does his best to point out just how ridiculous our culture has become in recent years.
The Line Officially Wavers
And while news media continues to script encounters and sensationalize their reporting to raise ratings, entertainment continues to lampoon their efforts and become increasingly credible as a result. Stephen Colbert's recent presidential run is a prime example of the effect this cross germination of information and entertainment is having.
Playing the part of the over pompous pundit for two years now on his Comedy Central show The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert has long since played the part of the overzealously, aggrandizing shock journalist who attempts to make every story into as big a deal as possible. His antics have created a devoted following and a slew of public recognitions.
When he announced he would be running for president in South Carolina's Democratic Primary, the typical deadpan delivery almost felt real. Sure there was the same humor and goofing around that has always infused his show, but he was really doing it. Underneath the book publicity, Doritos jokes, and backhanded puns at the state of the race, he actually put in his paperwork and paid his fee.
Never mind that his presidential run fell flat at the hands of South Carolina's Democratic Party Committee. And in the end, the world was starting to take him seriously. He pushed the joke so far that he landed air time on Meet the Press and Larry King, he visited South Carolina to campaign, and pollsters started including his name in telephone polls. One national poll sat him at 12.5% if he were to run as a third party against Clinton and Guliani. The number was much higher among 18-29 year olds.
In the end, the breakdown between entertainment and politics was almost complete, cut short only by the cold reality that not everyone can run for President - they need to have the money and the skills to pander to a state enough to be placed on a ballot.
Whether Stephen Colbert's purpose was to entertain with his humorous run, sell more books by taking up newspaper headlines (which he did in spades), or to point out the ridiculous process of presidential politics and campaigning, he managed to do all three, and only in a matter of two and a half weeks.
His biting satire will surely persist and the country will continue to eat it up, but the one thing I think we can all take away from both Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart is that nothing in life needs to be as serious as some people try to make it out to be. Politics, Government, News Media, and Entertainment all have the same goal in mind - to create a devoted audience. It is when they start to blend into each, that the world gets slightly more confusing.
And while these two men are the figureheads of a new era devoted to lampooning everything we once respected and listened to without question, the effect has not stopped at the one hour block of programming on Comedy Central four nights a week.
Rather, it has only continued to spread. After all, the original concept for the Daily Show - if anyone can remember it -was very much unlike what we now see in Jon Stewart's nightly showcase. It was a farce for sure, but no different than the weak, pandering jokes we see every week on Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update. The original host, Craig Kilborn, was able to take his act on the road and play it out for a few more years on CBS's The Late Late Show, but it hasn't been seen since.
In the meantime, Jon Stewart has created a second career for himself - one well above and beyond the comedy and acting career he was previously stuttering through in the 1990s. He is a household name, a college campus hero, and the voice for a growing generation of cynicism. With a college degree in psychology and a career devoted to comedy, few would suspect Stewart as being capable of shaping national opinion in the way he has in recent years.
But, young people look up to him and with the Government's failures increasing at a daily rate, and the promise of a new congress slowly whittling away to nothing, the country needs that sharp-witted reality check to remind it every night that the world is not defined by the Hannitys and Coopers of the world or the close-lipped Presidential Press Secretary.
And while the joke was all well and good for the first four or five years of his late night career, Jon Stewart has taken an increasingly important position in the stations of national politics in recent years. World leaders, presidential candidates, and Nobel laureates now visit his show in greater numbers than the actors schilling new goods. He reads books by the great thinkers of our time and combatively confronts the faces of the government and the administration.
All the while, the "real" news media watches and wonders if they are in trouble - if what they say could end up at the tail end of a particularly sticky barb that evening. And often, it does as Stewart does his best to point out just how ridiculous our culture has become in recent years.
The Line Officially Wavers
And while news media continues to script encounters and sensationalize their reporting to raise ratings, entertainment continues to lampoon their efforts and become increasingly credible as a result. Stephen Colbert's recent presidential run is a prime example of the effect this cross germination of information and entertainment is having.
Playing the part of the over pompous pundit for two years now on his Comedy Central show The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert has long since played the part of the overzealously, aggrandizing shock journalist who attempts to make every story into as big a deal as possible. His antics have created a devoted following and a slew of public recognitions.
When he announced he would be running for president in South Carolina's Democratic Primary, the typical deadpan delivery almost felt real. Sure there was the same humor and goofing around that has always infused his show, but he was really doing it. Underneath the book publicity, Doritos jokes, and backhanded puns at the state of the race, he actually put in his paperwork and paid his fee.
Never mind that his presidential run fell flat at the hands of South Carolina's Democratic Party Committee. And in the end, the world was starting to take him seriously. He pushed the joke so far that he landed air time on Meet the Press and Larry King, he visited South Carolina to campaign, and pollsters started including his name in telephone polls. One national poll sat him at 12.5% if he were to run as a third party against Clinton and Guliani. The number was much higher among 18-29 year olds.
In the end, the breakdown between entertainment and politics was almost complete, cut short only by the cold reality that not everyone can run for President - they need to have the money and the skills to pander to a state enough to be placed on a ballot.
Whether Stephen Colbert's purpose was to entertain with his humorous run, sell more books by taking up newspaper headlines (which he did in spades), or to point out the ridiculous process of presidential politics and campaigning, he managed to do all three, and only in a matter of two and a half weeks.
His biting satire will surely persist and the country will continue to eat it up, but the one thing I think we can all take away from both Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart is that nothing in life needs to be as serious as some people try to make it out to be. Politics, Government, News Media, and Entertainment all have the same goal in mind - to create a devoted audience. It is when they start to blend into each, that the world gets slightly more confusing.
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