Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Stewart and Colbert - I Begin to Get It
I still struggle to find Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert funny - they always seem to be explaining their jokes - but I now realise I've been watching them in the wrong way. They're not comedians, they're commentators and rather brilliant ones. These are current affairs shows which are, in fact, the most reliable guides to what's going on in America. When I'm here I watch them both and I understand. This, in the maelstrom of US politics, is saying a lot. Stewart's riff on torture, for example, is not funny but it hits all the right spots.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Strange no mention of the dogs and women hurling their menstrual blood around, or acdc played too loud (how can you play acdc too loud?)
ReplyDeleteBut hey if AQ and their mates in the Pakistani army manage to slip them a A Bomb,(you know the ones with the miniaturized delivery systems) we will be sure to ask them nicely where they might have mislaid them.
Perhaps if you smoked a little ganjia and remembered what it was like to be young and full of angst, it would all fall into place for you?
ReplyDeleteSomeone needs to show the MSM and pols what real fun-balls look like.
Stewart is actually a failed b-movie actor. Check his credits on imdb. Former actor. That's all you need to know.
ReplyDeleteActually a few of his movies were successful and/or cult classics, the most successful one released around the same time he started hosting the show. He was also doing stand-up comedy earlier. And the show is so successful, I'm sure lots of people would put movies on the side -- he's become an icon.
ReplyDeleteTheir commentary is just that, but it is comedy, too. The thing is, it may be something that is just so completely American that people who aren't from here or who don't spend enough time here need to watch it from a different angle. Someone unfamiliar with Bill O'Reilly, Colbert's "Papa Bear", and other far-right "news" people and commentators, may miss a lot of his jokes. Both Colbert and Stewart use a very American, and contemporary American, style of humor, and frequently make references -- either directly in their language, or in their tone or in their puns -- to the smaller parts of American culture or habits, things that don't always receive international exposure.