Gori the Grey
The Poster
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2009
- Messages
- 12,136
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.
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.
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