Jon Stewart and the Ruination of American Comedy

[Gori the Grey]

I myself think of this entire enterprise as an analysis of the zeitgeist.

My starting interest in the topic depends heavily on Lex's using the word "ruination." Now, remember, he later said he was being hyperbolic. But for all that, what that did my mind (in conjunction with the Melber, Steele, Carville commentary from the night before) was make me think of Stewart's reputation in his heyday and the large number of followers he's spawned. That made me think that, with him, one particular kind of comedy became ascendant in the US and has stayed so. But if that represents a "ruination," then there has to be something that was ruined: some other, better form of comedy that was crowded out when Stewart did his thing and was admired so highly for that thing. It's that that I'm trying to get at. If we follow Lex and schlaufuchs following Chapo, we say that that form of comedy, though praised for being politically meaningful, either has become or always was inert. Here a post I didn't carry over is meaningful: Lex pointing out that however funny Stewart's treatment of Trump's family changing their name from Drumpf, it didn't do anything to stop Trump in his tracks. Would some other form of humor have done so, or is it crazy to think any form of humor could do so? But preliminary to that is just the question "what other forms of humor did Stewart drive off the cultural stage (out of the zeitgeist)?" That's why I was so intrigued by your mentioning rom coms, because they had been a part of the American zeitgeist, and saw their decline at roughly the time that Stewartesque comedy saw its rise.

So yes, the overall cultural landscape (politics and what kind of pop-cultural productions prevail (here forms of humor specifically), zeitgeist in a word, is exactly central to what I hoped we might all, with our various takes on comedy, spin out of Lex's comments.

 

[Farm Boy]

I guess I'm not sure to the extent they do, but I think they do. The WW2 vets, man I miss those guys, had a lot more "get on board and stfu, arguments later." The flower children have a lot more I'm a Mystical Creature Endpoint of the Universe. And other moments seem to have altered the national personality for periods of time:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Granted, those are presidents with powers behind them. I'm less sharp with pop icons, but I'd pull out Stewart as a moment where when my friends started watching him around college, they started getting stupider politically. But that's a lived life, not an article. And it's more the genre, as you guys have defined it(basically, a news-y: "HEY, look at this crazy n!"), than Stewart himself(even if he's no treat).

I'd say it's self-evident, but I'm not sure you want me to link that video of people clapping syncing up again. Sommer might have more metronome nightmares.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

So my intention in the OP is to ask both, @Angst.

I'll give you the td;lr on the Chapo podcast that has been linked. The podcasters' claim is that Stewart to an extent, and all of his progeny, don't really make jokes. They just hold up some crazy thing Trump did the day before and blink their eyes in amazement. The audience gets satisfaction (at somebody on TV recognizing the absurdity) but without actually getting a joke. The podcasters are connoisseurs of comedy; comedians themselves, I think. They are faulting contemporary political-humor writers for being lazy, and Stewart for starting the trend. Listen to the shorter of the podcasts. It's a focused excerpt from the first one (which has a roundabout way of getting to it's point).

But what you'd learn in the longer version of the podcast is that they have a second focus, and that is the pretention that humor can do important political work at all. Stewart in his heyday is regarded as being funny, but as having an inflated sense (or his audience having an inflated sense) of what humor can contribute to battling right-wing ideology. His followers (Colbert, Oliver, Bee, etc) are faulted for retaining that self-importance but not bothering to be funny any more.

The claim that Stewart doesn't make jokes is absurd. The claim they just hold some crazy thing Trump did the day before is really odd. Trump didn't feature much in the show, and he had left when Trump became president. The main target in his shows had been Fox News. The podcasters may be called connoisseurs of comedy, they have little knowledge about the show itself.

I'm not listening to the podcast, so I don't know if you present it accurately. But hey, they didn't watch the Daily Show with Stewart, so that's fair.

I can relate to the pretention that humor can do important political work at all, and the claim that Stewart was aiming to do that. It was shoved in his shoes many times, and he always denied it. Remarking that he had been going after Fox News for decades and it didn't make an impact. In an interview with Chris Wallace he explained that being a comedian means taking politics through a process to create comedy, the process is why he did the show. It's more than just sitting an narrating.

I just looked it up and his quote was "I'm not an activist, I'm a comedian first and my comedy is informed by ideology".

Do these people also explain how humor can contribute to battling right-wing ideology? How does that work? Trumpists wouldn't watch his shows. Trump is ridiculed left right and center right now, and that only strengthens the idea that he's a victim and the deep state is using all those talking heads to get to Trump because they're afraid of them truths.

Those podcasters are comedians themselves. So how come they are not using their comedy to battle right-wing ideology?

heh, I couldn't resist, 1:20 in, that's the exact same argument Stewart has been making, "I have not moved over to news reporting, news reporting is moving closer and closer to me".
And I do agree with their opinion on late night show "comedy", especially the opening monologues are cringeworthy non-comedy.

"Dr Aids and the Diarrhea boys." Hahahahahaha! Yeah, stick it to them normies, connoisseurs of comedy!!

 

[Farm Boy]

I think, having paused longer on your post, Gori, Stewart is an example of the impact of a tool on the spirit of the age. Newspapers were fading hard with the rise of the internet. Sitting a reading a whole daily multi-page analysis of local issues? Wow, boring. I'd need to be pooping or something, and I have my phone for those moments. I have the whole world in yesterday-recorded-footage to peruse! Why would I watch the G-team when S+ is on the offer all of the time? I have the stupidest thing that people I don't really like have said constantly available. It's like a perpetual recording of interviews with shell shocked residents looking at the tornado-wreckage of their park and expecting them to look put together and not sound beaten about the neck and shoulders. Think how Rush changed radio, it wasn't Rush really, it was the times. Well, this was cable news and the 24 hour news cycle on the rise, it was Stewart's time.

Romcoms have a spirit contrary to what we see now. There is always some crushing misunderstanding that threatens to make fear and hate win over love, but through understandable human foibles(the funny part), love wins out. I'm going to put the reason for their death as the same for Stewart's rise, both spawned out of the same mud, which was globalization, really. One actually needs to invest effort into cultural understanding to get Chinese(for example) romance. Or German romance. Or British romance. There's tons of inside jokes you don't get and you can't tell what's noise. Much easier to just watch Iron Man punch somebody. Bad gets punched. Good wins. No cultural outreach or understanding of any sort, really, necessary. Steppenwolf is a lot simpler than Alan Rickman in Love Actually.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Trump didn't feature much in the show, and he had left when Trump became president.

And I do agree with their opinion on late night show "comedy", especially the opening monologues are cringeworthy non-comedy.

The target of their criticism is Stewart's followers. The case they give of an un-funny non-joke is from Jordan Klepper's show (which I never saw). So you align with them, because their main targets are the present late-night comedy shows, and if you put "comedy" in scare-quotes, you're making their point.

Those podcasters are comedians themselves. So how come they are not using their comedy to battle right-wing ideology?

When it comes time to critique the critique, I'll ask a question a lot like this. We don't need to wait for me, though; you've done it fine yourself.

Trump is ridiculed left right and center right now, and that only strengthens the idea that he's a victim

This was my first point when this discussion started over on Clown Car (but I also didn't carry it over to the OP here). Contra Michael Steele saying "mockery is exactly what we need to fight Trump's fascism," my own belief is that Trump's popular appeal, and thus his power, derives from his followers feeling themselves to be mocked by various elites (here prominent TV stars). Let's say Stewart turns out to be at his most incisive and funny ever: 1) Trump's supporters won't hear it and 2) insofar as it does make its way into their zone of attention, it will be as a "see how these people regard me as a boorish idiot; they hate me just the way they hate Trump. Go Trump!"

But then that takes me back to my big question: is there some other form of comedy that could be effective against Trump, and if so, what? Or is it too much to expect that comedy could have a significant impact on politics?

Much easier to just watch Iron Man punch somebody. Bad gets punched. Good wins.

Cool that you weave the MCU into our considerations, since it had its rise at roughly the same time.

 

[Lexicus]

I think comedy can serve a social purpose but I'm nowhere near enough of a comedy head to begin to construct a theory of how or why. In general I think the major failing of a lot of the comedy around Trump is that it seeks to make him into this singular phenomenon rather than trying to indict the society that produced him.

 

[Farm Boy]

since it had its rise at roughly the same time.

Just after Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter made big sweeping epics of clear good vs clear evil a (more than usual) dominant narrative again(also, 2001). Which was coinciding with the first years of massively losing the WWII vets in both this country and the country where those tales were written*. The ebb and flow of living human memory. The widespread pain of war has been fading from our collective consciousness for a while. Eventually, conflict seems cool again. Or, maybe depending on how cynical you are, the peace has ossified things to the point where they start to look in need of breaking again.

*which seems to usually come with a wistful pain and a desperate urge to tell the story before it's gone. Also about the same time as Band of Brothers, Letters from Iwo Jima, the Navajo code talkers movie, and sorta off topic but in the times We Were Soldiers. All clustered releases. Lots around then.

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

the Navajo code talkers movie

that movie sucked

 

[Farm Boy]

We forget about most of them, but they were there.

Then again, you're comparing them up against things like the blue bandana bandage. Ouch. And it even managed to be funny.

 

[Angst]

So my intention in the OP is to ask both, @Angst.

I'll give you the td;lr on the Chapo podcast that has been linked. The podcasters' claim is that Stewart to an extent, and all of his progeny, don't really make jokes. They just hold up some crazy thing Trump did the day before and blink their eyes in amazement. The audience gets satisfaction (at somebody on TV recognizing the absurdity) but without actually getting a joke. The podcasters are connoisseurs of comedy; comedians themselves, I think. They are faulting contemporary political-humor writers for being lazy, and Stewart for starting the trend. Listen to the shorter of the podcasts. It's a focused excerpt from the first one (which has a roundabout way of getting to it's point).

But what you'd learn in the longer version of the podcast is that they have a second focus, and that is the pretention that humor can do important political work at all. Stewart in his heyday is regarded as being funny, but as having an inflated sense (or his audience having an inflated sense) of what humor can contribute to battling right-wing ideology. His followers (Colbert, Oliver, Bee, etc) are faulted for retaining that self-importance but not bothering to be funny any more.

So I'm asking, most broadly, for commentary on the relation between comedy and the political health of a nation, and most precisely just about Jon Stewart. And, of course, anyone can go anywhere they want with the broad topic.

Your last point represents one way of addressing the topic: we shouldn't particularly expect humor to have any political effect; the point of it is just to be funny.

so ok, basically what i think to this is like

(with timestamp; we're a bit in, so the throughline joke of the HOUSE COMMITEE OF SCIENCE, SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY has escalated a bit in volume)

this is a bit before trump, and the target of the joke is very much stupid stuff said by republicans, but how is this not comedy? "are you --- kidding me" is holding up a sign, the rest isn't. i don't think it's necessary to deconstruct the joke and outline how it's not just pointing, no? i understand the point about satisfaction over humor, but i think it's more present in people that aren't stewart, more of some people in his aftermath. and even then, i'm not sure.

another jonny stewie.

like, i don't really see it.

 

[Birdjaguar]

that movie sucked

The movie may have been bad, but that in no way diminishes the reality of what they did. the movie Titanic didn't reflect the reality of the actual event. It was just a movie to stir one's emotions. Just like The A Team.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I'm watching his return. It's pretty funny. He hasn't changed one bit. Ended his first segment (on Biden and Trump's age) by referencing what he learned when he took on a political cause of his own, and that that kind of grind-it-out work is more what the success of our country depends on than which of two old codgers we pick as president.

 

[Core Imposter]

Well, the problem is that we never watched (watch) any of these comics. So, what can it accomplish really.

And we always end up getting our share of the votes when the kids grow up anyway.

 

[Crezth]

There are other comedians.

 

[Kyriakos]

Watched Stewart's return. It was very good

 

[Gori the Grey]

There are other comedians.

Yeah, the OP invites people to share any such. Who else could (or should) we be watching?

Regarding Stewart's re-debut: I was more aware of the criticism the Chapo video levels, so I mean to re-watch it carefully to make an analysis of which jokes weren't really jokes. I was more aware of the extent that a lot of Stewart's jokes are just his own facial and bodily and inflectional reactions to a clip. But it isn't as simple as that, either, I don't think. He does a lot of set-up of a clip so that when it does come, you're prepped to find the exact absurdity in it that he wants you to find and then his reaction seals that absurdity. It may not seem like a traditional joke, but I think that's because the humor is a function not just of what he says but of the whole production that puts what he says in a multi-media context that collectively supplies the humor.

Edit: edited as per Gorbles suggestion.

 

[Gorbles]

You're reading a could into a should?

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

I think they’re all mostly not great but all mostly harmless. The reality is that my experience with politics and comedy is very different from how 95% of people engage with it, which is ‘funny’ clips and covfefe mugs.

The one I will give kudos to is Oliver - I know a surprising amount of people online whose route to left wing politics started with watching him. He goes more in-depth than others and covers subjects others won’t touch.

 

[Kyriakos]

Imo Stewart and Oliver are nice, but Colbert lost it ever since he got the big show.
Though I never was into Letterman, so I won't be surprised if he is better than his predecessor.

 

[danjuno]

Imo Stewart and Oliver are nice, but Colbert lost it ever since he got the big show.
Though I never was into Letterman, so I won't be surprised if he is better than his predecessor.

Sums up my late night views pretty good. If Colbert was back on Comedy Central that would be a godsend.