Colbert whores for the U.S. empire

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Al Franken entertains the troops all the time, and writes about it - even suggesting to a General that he would get the cheerleaders who were also on the bill to do their NFL routine in full hijab (which the General thankfully vetoed) - but no one jumps on him or calls him a "whore of the empire". At least, not to my knowledge.

Is he only loved because he stood against Norm Coleman? Or is he a right-wing shill and imperialist as well now?

If Lenny Bruce was alive, I believe he would entertain the troops - partly because it's a paying gig, and satirists are necessarily cynics - but also because they are his people. They are basically manual labourers except their job is to kill people (and, even more importantly) to keep each other alive.

That's all Colbert is doing. Keeping them alive, mentally at least, for a short while. He hasn't picked up a gun and joined in the fighting. Anyone with a brain can see who he's really gunning for.

I wish they weren't over there, you wish they weren't over there, and they wish they weren't over there. But they are. They are an occupying imperial force, true, and the rules of engagement they operate under allow them carte blanche to terrorise and murder people if they feel the need.

But only the terrorists and murderers among them do that. The rest are just trying to survive.

[vigilant]

fresno-layshaft wrote:

I've tried to bring this point up before. It seems like every critique of film, TV etc. around here comes from that petulant position, ( ie. 'such and such doesn't mention what I think is important- so the whole thing is CIA misinformation'). In the ridiculous "MLK movie" thread awhile back, there were many people who had totally made up their minds about a movie that doesn't even exist yet- and may never get made.

A very salient point. Exclusion of material does not necessitate a hidden reverse agenda. Many public figures steer away from certain material for various reasons such as, 'fear of reprisal, not their specialty area, etc...' They do what they can with what they feel comfortable with and leave some things alone that they fear treading on. Family names of fed. res. owners are not uttered by television commentators with good reason...'its not healthy, and its dangerous'...I do recognize that exclusion can absolutely be purposeful misdirection, but purposeful misdirection is not mandatory agenda for people that exclude subject matter.


which leads into another salient and cogent observation below...


OP ED wrote:

indeed. freedom isn't free.

as i suggested above, it wouldn't be useful if he was radical. no center-right person would listen to him, at all because he wouldn't have a tv show, if he was an outright radical. Without someone to introduce a sanitized radicalism to the center right, they'd never be prepared when the real thing hits them. Colbert is better than 4 years of university in that regard. I've personally seen this, his effect on the centrists and floaters, have positive benefits. Of course, someone has to be willing to talk to them, as he does, to achieve anything.


The machine desires that citizens become cheerleaders of the rights that freedom (sic) guarantees, as long as they cheer from the sidelines, and realize that exercising them can be fatal to their freedom. People are trained to see people that refuse to sign a speeding ticket, which is legal, as..."oh, one of those beligerant types that will likely get deservedly tazed"...These people have to be approached carefully with small spoonfuls that are not identical in appearance to the truth they contain, or they will immediately tune out, and consider the speaker a radical jerk.



To paint Colbert as a "sell out" would be tantamount to painting combat nurses and doctors as sellouts. Most of the ground troops are innocent dupes that were tricked into carrying out the actions of greed and brutality. They believe they are protecting "you" and they do so at great price to themselves. They deserve to be treated with respect and dignity by the citizenry. Yes, I do see that aiding the troops aids the greedy machine and allows it to operate, but to deny the troops aid and comfort would be wrong, as they are like most of the citizenry, "duped" into action by falsely planted beliefs.


The soldiers who acted as henchmen for United Fruit Company, initially, had no idea they were doing so, and sick at heart when they slowly discovered that 'freedom' for the citizenry wasn't even on the list of reasons they truly fought for.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

The cover of CIA-Newsweek now on the racks has a headshot of Colbert with "Iraq" shaved into the side of his head.

Domestically, this is bad.

Just when Killer McChrystal is being confirmed for Afghanistan and Obama is singing 'Why Can't We be Friends' overseas, Americans are getting the equivalent of Doonesbury to smirk at.

[Col. Quisp]

Haven't read this thread al the way through so apologies if someone already commented on this...

I just saw a clip of last night's Colbert Report on "hardball." It showed our President joking along and ordering the general to shave colbert's head. For some reason, this offended me deeply. Making a joke out of war...sickening.

[Avalon]

Maybe Colbert's the "loss leader" -- the deeply discounted product that gets the customers into the store (late night Comedy Central), where they can be induced to buy Jon Stewart's news program.

[kristinerosemary]

this new colbert-stewart turn of events is all very disappointing. original post withdrawn.

[compared2what?]

Haven't read this thread al the way through so apologies if someone already commented on this...

I just saw a clip of last night's Colbert Report on "hardball." It showed our President joking along and ordering the general to shave colbert's head. For some reason, this offended me deeply. Making a joke out of war...sickening.

First of all, my apologies to Mac for being such an intolerable snot-nosed cranky bitch in my prior post. Which I'd like to extend to the rest of the thread, in a more general way. Please forgive me. I don't know why I suddenly had a character-changing snit, but I very much regret that I did.

Second of all....The thing about Stephen Colbert is that he's not really a satirist. Or a comic, in the way that Jon Stewart -- who comes out of traditional "I'll-be-here-all-week" touring stand-up world -- is a comic. He's a (sorry) performance artist working in longform improvisational theater in keeping with the principles of Del Close, with whom he trained.

Although he wasn't solely making a joke out of the war, I agree with Col. Quisp that making a joke out of the war -- or, more precisely, making highly offensive, very superficial jokes about the expendable people who fight them from the POV of someone who's selectively blind to every aspect of those people's humanity and, indeed, existence, except insofar as it validates his own view of himself as honorable, brave, and morally infallible -- was indeed one of the things he was doing. And it was indeed sickening. As well as discomfiting.

And all the more so because he wasn't breaking character sightly to be charming or likable or quick-witted (as he is, but his character isn't). Which he doesn't do very often under any circumstance, actually. But both the written and physical structure of the show kind of automatically do it for him when he's broadcasting from home base. Given that the fundamental ground-rules for the long-form improv call for almost everything he does on the set or on-camera -- whether it was received well or poorly and, for that matter, whether it was intentional or a fuck-up -- is instantly incorporated into the legend of the character's towering greatness, which is the only legend he appears consciously ever to have heard.

Anyway. We're all heavily conditioned to expect the third act of every half-hour of television entertainment to end with a tidy and redemptive resolution to whatever tensions have been raised and explored in the first and second acts, and equally heavily conditioned to expect each part of a comedic set-up to build toward a punch-line, where it comes to a stop. (As comedic set-ups on The Colbert Report usually do, in fact.) He's a very skilled performer, as well as an exceptionally good actor in the larger context of the medium. And he was going out of his way to come across as genuinely fatuous and hokey in a referentially specific, puerile, and hoary (plus, I guess, whore-y) USO performing tradition for which Bob Hope is the iconic standard-bearer. Which he was also subverting throughout. However, he was doing that pretty much exclusively with flatly delivered jokes that he was neither telling nor peforming as if they were funny. Whereas he was playing the golf-club carrying, well-moisturized-and-exfoliated, self-involved and unthinkingly kow-towing part of the schtick so excessively broadly and peppily that it was not only not funny, but actively off-putting.

I seriously doubt anyone's going to agree with me on this, but all of that was and is one-hundred percent consonant with long-form comedic improvisation according to the principles taught by Del Close. I'm not saying anything as demented as "He was aiming to be not-very-funny." Because he's a professional, and also a professional entertainer. But it wasn't very funny. And what I would maintain is: That wasn't simply because the act was offensive. It was because of to whom it was offensive. Because although he kept it compatible with the jingoistic character he plays for a living, fundamentally the attitude he was representing wasn't just any shallow, self-serving, Western-culture-centric and docilely selective comprehension of a war fought by others and overwhelmingly only ever considered by those who aren't parties to it within the context of what's important to them rather than what's important to the people and the unfamiliar-to-most-of-us culture that it's snuffing out and otherwise devastating.

Rather, it was a distorted reflection of the selectively comprehending, prior-agenda-favoring, Western-culture-centric, and whinily complicit but nevertheless comfortably-spoils-of-war-enjoying attitude that we may not all preach but that with very, very few exceptions we sure as hell do practice. Without acknowledging it. With inexcusable moral passivity, not to say complicity. As if it were the most natural and blameless thing in the whole wide world for us just to go about our business with every bit as much faith that we're totally right as character-Stephen-Colbert was doing. And of course that's not a very funny joke when it's a joke that's on you.

That's how I received it, anyway. Which wasn't a whole lot of fun, although I'm not complaining. It's not a very flattering depiction, certainly. But it's not like it's umerited, imo.

Incidentally, I am almost certain that I read somewhere recently that the hardcore, O'Reilly-Factor-right part of Colbert's natural demo are equally as devoted to the show as their more liberal and/or radical peers are. Which is very devoted. The only difference is that they don't realize he doesn't mean or is making fun of stuff that's not really very noticeably outlandish in the context they inhabit.

Although in my experience, as in OP ED's, he serves more as a proximate occasion for radical-ish politicization on the part of the formerly apolitical than he does anything else. But the context that I inhabit probably naturally trends that way to begin with, even when I'm not in it, doing what I can to nudge it in that direction. I have no idea how representative of the larger culture that is or isn't, and to be honest, it's not very meaningful to me either way. I appreciate what he does on its own terms, and therefore neither want nor need for him to be the political savior of the Western world, too. I mean, I can't really fault him for not being something no single individual can be, ever has been, or ever will be. He uses the resources at his disposal to empower We the People of whom he is one, to the best of his ability and judgment, which is as much as anyone can do. Not to mention more than most, present company excepted.

[bks]

thanks for the information on Colbert's background, c2w. I didn't know most of that.

[OP ED]

thanks for the information on Colbert's background, c2w. I didn't know most of that.

btw, it might be entertaining to spend a couple days following the wikitrails.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Del_Close

besides comedians, his writings and etc can be considered relevant also to students of alchemy, art, nietzsche and/or information warfare.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvisational_theater

Guerrilla improv is a form of comedy usually done in a crowd or on the streets, as opposed to in a studio or a comedy club. The term makes an analogy to guerrilla warfare.

[edit] Approach
A style of street theater pioneered and championed by Improv Everywhere, guerrilla improv aims to entertain bystanders in public spaces when they are least expecting it. Each unique performance is termed a mission. Missions are similar to pranks, but are not at the expense of non-performers.

The scenes created in guerrilla improv are developed using the techniques of improvisational theatre.

[this entire line of thinking wrt to intersection of art with reality is central to my lifestyle on almost every level. after all, OP ED is only an ARG which accidentally "went live" about seven years ago when one of my false flag incidents false flagged itself. this intersects with outright sorcery on many not-necessarily-tangents. they share historical roots, so this is to be expected]

The only difference is that they don't realize he doesn't mean or is making fun of stuff that's not really very noticeably outlandish in the context they inhabit.

Although in my experience, as in OP ED's, he serves more as a proximate occasion for radical-ish politicization on the part of the formerly apolitical than he does anything else.

The Fool's task is not to confront YOU [the body politic as manifested in the literal body of the King] but rather to force you to confront yourself.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Op Ed said: after all, OP ED is only an ARG which accidentally "went live" about seven years ago when one of my false flag incidents false flagged itself. this intersects with outright sorcery on many not-necessarily-tangents. they share historical roots, so this is to be expected]


Methinks thou art taking the piss.

And methinks that's your point. It's a good one, well made.

[stickdog99]

Why do I get the strange feeling that more than half of the people commenting here don't watch the show and more than half of those who do don't get it?

[Penguin]

Why do I get the strange feeling that more than half of the people commenting here don't watch the show and more than half of those who do don't get it?

Heresy!

[AhabsOtherLeg]

I've only ever seen bits of it on Youtube, but I think I get it. It's not complicated. A man states the views of extremists, vehemently and without dpubt, but in such language that even the extremists are forced to think about what they believe. It's not fail-proof. A lot of people think he's serious. But that's not his fault.
.
.
Bobby D.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I6Sa4zmoKE


The big fascist!

[chiggerbit]

I have to admit that it's one of Colbert's un-funniest skits. Can't put my finger on it. Not sure, but I think it's because something real is coming through in Colbert's attitude towards his intended audience, which is not us, and I think that something is pity or something, and not intended to show, because that would be out-of-character, literally. The camo-suit is probably the highlight of the entire thing. Maybe I need to go back and watch it again to see if I'm missing something.

[compared2what?]

I've only ever seen bits of it on Youtube, but I think I get it. It's not complicated. A man states the views of extremists, vehemently and without dpubt, but in such language that even the extremists are forced to think about what they believe. It's not fail-proof. A lot of people think he's serious. But that's not his fault.
.
.
Bobby D.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I6Sa4zmoKE


The big fascist!

It actually is more complicated than that, although it doesn't have to be. I mean....What I mean is: It works fine as entertainment in its not-more-complicated-than-that form. But it also works well as what you'd have to call art-with-a-capital-A. And in that form it's a pretty intricate and sophisticated commentary on, inter alia, American political culture in general and the psychology of the far right male in particular, with an emphasis on the role played by sexuality, celebrity, fear of personal inadequacy, and the will to power (and much, much more) on both of those things.

He's kind of a cerebral artist, as an artist. However, as I kind of already said, noticing that isn't essential to the enterprise. A case could be made that the enterprise is conceptually predicated on the assumption that most people won't notice, in fact. I'm not sure I'd make that case, personally. But I could! So let's pin a rose on me! Whee!