From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

Political humor has conquered American TV. Comedy shows are replacing the news because they work on the same principles, but are more straightforward.

The set is caustically decorated on the subject of flag-waving patriotism: Eagles, stars and stripes are adorning every conceivable surface. It looks as if the insides of a nominal ultra-right brain have blown up all over the place. This is Steven Colbert’s show. The object of his satire is an inflated patriot with a picture of Reagan in his wallet and a messianic complex the size of Texas, where he’s either from or wishing he were. Every morning he pledges allegiance to the flag, and of all the amendments to the Constitution, he cherishes the second one the most. He suspects Obama of being Muslim, liberals to be gay, gays to be atheist, atheists to betray the State. In Russia, this parody would probably be directed at the journalist Michael Leontiev, but in the U.S. it’s the star of Fox News, Bill O’Reilly.

In recent years, humor has replaced and improved the news on American TV. More and more viewers get their political news update from the satiric “Daily Show” — where Colbert started out — than from the actual evening news. The humorists now don’t just scoff anymore; they hit all the sore spots of American identity: patriotism, free market, equality, the American dream. Lucky for them, the current info-glut is an endless source of satire material: the creation of the ultra-right tea party, Wall Street panic, new pictures of Obama’s dog Bo.

Comedy “news” gradually lost the quotation marks, and humorists started doing the journalists’ job: Carry out their own investigations and build a string of logical facts. Of course, their logic can be absurd, but it seems to only raise the popularity of the comedians while undermining the reputation of serious television. And it also forms the attitude toward politics and the state in general — the irony has finally replaced the awe.

Beyond the Snowman

The history of contemporary American politics is the history of humor. The first presidential candidate to deign to appear on an entertainment show was Richard Nixon. He briefly appeared with one line in a sketch comedy show, “Laugh-In,” in 1968. His progressive move may be explained by the fact that he had personally experienced the power of television eight years earlier, when he lost the first TV debates in the history of the USA to John Kennedy, only because he wasn’t much to look at. His single line in the show — “Sock it to me!” — he managed to blow.

But this brief symbiosis of politics and humor launched a chain reaction. It has grown even stronger in the last decade. By the 2004 elections, every self-respecting politician made sure to include a tour of five-six flippant late night television hot spots in his campaign. John Edwards went as far as announcing the beginning of his presidential campaign in a comedy show studio. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was running for California governor, did the same thing. The pinnacle happened in 2008, when SNL comedian Tina Fey’s mercilessly accurate impersonation of Sarah Palin made a considerable contribution to the Republicans’ defeat.

The new age on American TV began in 2000, when George Bush became the 43rd president of the USA, and New Jersey-born Stuart Leibowitz (Jon Stewart) became the host of “The Daily Show” on the second-grade cable channel, Comedy Central.

“The Daily Show” has been around since 1996 as a relatively feeble mockery of defenseless geeks. Its specialty was something like mock interviews with snowman hunters. At first, Stewart played along. But the elections changed everything. It all started with a series of stories called “Indecision 2000.” With each of those stories, Stewart moved further and further away from mocking the farmers who had seen UFOs, and sunk deeper and deeper into politics. His disliking of Bush was becoming more obvious. Over the next few months, “The Daily Show” would be mastering a new role: the voice of the opposition that had become speechless from the injustice of what had happened.

And then there was 9/11. All the major news channels swore allegiance to the White House. CNN, Fox News and MSNBC displayed the American flag in the corner of the screen for a long time. Any skepticism would qualify as treason. “The Daily Show” turned out to be not just an opposition, but virtually the only opposition.

Comic Opposition

Then came 9/11, which defined the picture of American political humor for many years ahead. Dennis Miller, an intellectual comedian from HBO most famous for his effervescent monologues laced with frequent references to classics, suddenly launched into almost fascism and switched to cheap jokes about Arabs. On the contrary, Bill Maher, whose show “Politically Incorrect” used to adhere to libertarianism, stroked away to the left. In the atmosphere of universal post-traumatic hysteria, he managed to lose his show. ABC shut it down after he said that the description “cowardly attack” didn’t suit 9/11 because the assault on the skyscrapers was anything but cowardly. The next morning, Maher woke up a liberal.

Meanwhile, Stewart found his main topic: aversion to not just stupidity, but to simplify the people making life-altering decisions. “It’s easy to make fun of Bush like he’s an idiot or four years old,” he explained. “I don’t think that Bush is four years old. I think he thinks we are four years old.”* His caustic attacks on the president and the main pro-government channel, Fox News, made him the most influential entertainment show host. Little by little, he became a critic of his own colleagues for their not wanting to criticize the government.

Stewart’s show baffled the right wing. The very hosts of Fox News, led by Bill O’Reilly, whom he attacked on a daily basis, couldn’t decide whether or not to respond in kind and thus lower themselves to the “clown” level, or to proudly ignore him. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that his attacks were increasingly confirmed by serious journalistic investigations. The changes were happening behind the scenes, where Stewart used humor as a cover-up for building a competent news organization with Comedy Central’s money.

Think With Your Gut

The more serious he got about this, the more O’Reilly and company got angry. The next step naturally suggested itself — a direct parody on O’Reilly. The first half-hour episode of “The Colbert Report” aired in November 2005. Steven Colbert’s very first monologue contained his character’s credo: “I don’t trust books. They’re all fact, no heart. And facts are known to have liberal bias. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your stomach than in your head? Now somebody’s gonna say, ‘I did look that up and it’s wrong.’ Well mister, that’s because you looked it up in a book. Next time, try looking it up in your gut. I did. And my gut tells me that’s how our nervous system works. Anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news at you.”

In 2006, Colbert was invited to speak at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. This dinner is an old tradition, something like the Valdai**, where prominent journalists are entertained by the president himself. The presenter usually makes a couple of harmless jokes about the government (for example, during Clinton’s administration, an appropriate topic would have been his love for fried food, but not for plump women), and everyone goes home satisfied. Colbert used the opportunity in a different way. Looking Bush straight in the face, he read out an amazingly daring text, repeating the postulates of his first monologue. “We’re not so different, he and I. We’re not members of the “factinista.” Right, sir? Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32 percent approval rating. But guys like us, we don’t pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in “reality.” And reality has a well-known liberal bias … ” Almost no one laughed. After the speech, Bush refused to shake his hand and turned away angrily.

Colbert always stays in character on the show. “Why does Barack Obama pretend that the country is not at war?” he yells, banging his fist on the table. “How many more people have to have their balls blown up?”* At the same time in Fox studio, Bill O’Reilly is yelling something very similar, but without even a hint of irony. By the way, Colbert’s show airs at the exact same time as Fox airs reruns of the “O’Reilly Factor.” And Colbert’s rerun the next day airs simultaneously with the new [episode of the] “O’Reilly Factor.”

According to last year’s sociological study at Ohio University, there are a lot of Republicans out there who don’t think Colbert is joking. To be more precise, they realize that they are watching a comedy show. But they think the host “secretly” believes in what he is saying. In other words, they think he is a conservative who pretends to be a liberal who pretends to be a conservative.

Dominant Influence

These post-modernistic mind games lead to very real consequences. In 2008, Tina Fey tripped up Sarah Palin and the Republicans. Fey is a writer and creator of the show “30 Rock,” and one of the most prominent writers for “Saturday Night Live,” the main comedic foundry on American TV. Politicians willingly take part in this show. Just like Obama and Hillary Clinton, Palin appeared in the studio during the election campaign. And although she didn’t say anything witty, the very fact of her presence was interpreted as a hint of a sense of humor. Considering that SNL has had a long life and a family audience, even this kind of light satire can have great influence.

In contrast with SNL, Bill Maher’s show, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” seems to be an intellectual crusade against people’s stupidity. Maher, who’s been kicked off of “Politically Incorrect,” continues to slap public opinion in the face on his talk show on HBO. He invites prominent writers and thinkers (for example, Salman Rushdie is a frequent guest) to discuss the latest events. Maher usually sets the pace for these discussions with two domineering topics: 1) Is man — pitiful, venal, envious as he is — really the highest point of evolution?; and 2) If there is a God, why did we need evolution in the first place? Bill Maher is a militant atheist. He mocks the clergy probably even more than the bureaucrats. And it’s not always subtle humor.

Comedians treat Barack Obama somewhat with leniency: In the beginning, it was clear that he was just cleaning up the mess after Bush, so all the jokes were still directed at the latter. After a while, they started to rebuke Obama for his lavishing the voters with unrealized promises. However, all the fuss about the health care reform tired everybody to a point that they gave up on the promises. At that very moment, new victims for people’s rage came along — big corporations like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.

Obama doesn’t give as much cause for jokes as Bush did. Besides, it’s not really appropriate to mock the first dark-skinned president of America. While it was quite normal to joke about Bush’s origin and habits, it’s a taboo topic about Obama. Only black comedians like Chris Rock have a license for skin color jokes.

Of course, Republicans are trying to attack Obama and Democrats any chance they get, but their jokes seem kind of flat. Usually, Obama is shown either as an elitist, a socialist, or an aboriginal with a bone through his nose. Even before Obama’s election, Fox News tried to launch a show in response to Colbert and Stuart, called “The Half Hour News Hour,” but it tanked. The reasons are simple: It’s very difficult to make jokes oriented on conservative and family values. After all, humor presumes a certain freedom of thought.

The popularity rate of liberal comedians breaks all the records. Colbert’s name was given to an eagle in San Francisco’s zoo, a Virgin Atlantic plane, a hockey team mascot, an ice cream, and a wing of the International Space Station. Is this army of fans capable of anything more serious, like, for example, unanimous voting for one candidate? This question torments many politicians.

The peak of political humor popularity coincided with the establishment of the blogosphere: It turned out that comedians and bloggers were united in an attempt to mock lazy and pretentious newscasters. Comedians have already damaged the reputations of certain TV figures quite a lot, while their own status keeps growing stronger. American magazine “Newsweek” recently put Jon Stewart in second place on the list of “dominant influence” over Generation Y, between Steve Jobs and a tandem of Sergei Brin and Larry Page. Not too bad for a comedian who started out with puppet shows in a retirement home.

*Translator’s Note: Quotation could not be verified.

**Translator’s Note: Valdai is an international discussion club where Russian and foreign journalists and experts talk about Russia’s foreign and home policies, attended by high members of the administration and sometimes the president.