my qualifications as mufti: i was a devoted Daily Show follower from the den of our house senior year. ah, the smarm, the bite, the snarling snit of a show not afraid you might miss the joke. a towering parody of a thing that, when the show started, still existed: american journalism. and how was such a perfect thing crafted? by making us, the somnambulant public, the butt of the joke. to this end, the writer/producer of the show employed the douchiest wannabe-class-president windbag she could find: craig killborn. he gave a pitch-perfect performance as a vapid news reader oblivious to the irony coming out of his own mouth, only a slight exaggeration of the talking heads already dominating the trade. he gave this performance not because he was a talented comedian, like jon stewart, but because he really was such a douche: before coming to the daily show, he was a sportscaster in san antonio.
Mufti WMR and i once had the pleasure of seeing the funniest play ever put on a stage. it was called "The Amateurs," and was about a cast of minimally talented, very amateur actors at a community college putting on a play. in a masterstroke of casting, the actors playing these parts were actually chosen from such a community college. in a further masterstroke, so were the director, scene designer, and stage builders. to give an example: one scene called for an actor to soliloquize while looking out a window, so the set builders actually constructed a frame version of said window in the direction he was to speechify...middle of downstage, right in front of the audience. they actually built the fourth wall! get it? because they're amateurs! the act was so complete that, even today, neither Mufti WMR or myself is completely sure if we were watching a work of genius, or just the happy accident of a bunch of amateurs putting on "The Amateurs." or if the distinction is even meaningful.
in terms of its' sense of humor, this was the Daily Show. but killborn, being a douche, left to host the super-late-late-i-hope-conan-gets-bumped-up-so-i-can-have-his-slot show, and the daily show replaced him with a far more talented comedian: jon stewart. that's why it's called "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." he wanted you to know he wasn't just going to plug himself in where killborn had been. "5 questions" was phased out, "moment of zen" became less funny, and the show began to lose its' sting.
to be clear, i am not arguing that killborn was more talented or brighter, at all. he wasn't. but the show was funnier then, because it didn't care if you laughed. that's something comedians care about. the daily show then was more like that "Abortionplex" article in the Onion, that got forwarded all over the internet by idiots who believed there really was an abortion megaplex with multiple theatre screens, a latte bar, and sushi. that sort of absurdity is half the fun of a joke like that. it still happens occasionally with the daily show, that a joke gets mistaken for a real news item, but less than it used to...and even that seems mostly to do with the chinese press' longstanding problem obtaining weapons-grade ironium.
as mufti, it is my duty to safeguard the growth and spiritual well-being of the people (you idiots) in my care. in the old days, the Daily Show was a vicious, snarky show where guests would actually beg to be treated nicely...and get denied, every time. like the Onion, it was so sharp it made you cry. which, if you are going to make jokes about the corporate sellout of our democracy or the hijacking of our foreign policy or the wholesale abandonment of the rule of law, is the appropriate reaction. you should laugh, and then cry...and then be really, really, angry.
but stewart waters down that anger. he mugs, he does impressions, he tells a few nun jokes. worse, he makes phony comparisons between corporate whores and psycopaths and the spineless so-called "liberals" supposedly guilty of equal, but diametrically opposed, craziness. they aren't, of course. it's just that introducing the idea that one, pretty-well-defined, group is consistently fucking people over might kill the mood, create some moments of awkward tension between the laughs. pretending there's some kind of balance involved is good for the act.
however much we like jon stewart, however gifted he is, the appropriate reaction is not, "oooh, burn! i'd love to see what glenn beck thinks of THAT! hah!" the appropriate reaction involves a fair amount of anger that is NOT diluted at all by our enjoyment of the joke. sometimes, we do indeed need to laugh, or we'll be overwhelmed. but, if you don't have to choose between them, you should do both. laugh and cry. and then get angry, and then do something. as your Mufti, it is my duty to remind you that if you don't, you're not laughing at the joke.
you are the joke.
fatwa against the daily show with jon stewart. bring back the Daily Show.
As a jurist I endorse the spirit of Mufti Dor's opinion on The Daily Show. The bite just isn't really there, and the bite is where it counts.
ReplyDeletePeople these days watch Charlie Chaplin trying to eat his shoe and laugh at the antics. They forget that the audience watching it consisted of a lot of people who understood the implicit criticism of a society where someone would have to eat his own shoe. The people who laughed back then were laughing because they needed a laugh, but they needed that laugh because some of them had been close to eating that shoe themselves. And the laugh wasn't meant to rob them of their anger, just to let them know they weren't alone.