In 2005, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart explained to Gary Younge (Guardian) why their comedic targets were Republicans as opposed to Democrats, "I don't mean in the sense that we're equal opportunity offenders -- we're not. I think we consider those with power and influence targets and those without it, not." Picking up on this theme the same year, Stephen Colbert told Elana Berkowitz and Amy Schiller (Campus Progress), "Um, we are liberal, but Jon's very respectful of the Republican guests, and, listen, if liberals were in power it would be easier to attack them, but Republicans have the executive, legislative and judicial branches, so making fun of Democrats is like kicking a child, so it's just not worth it." That's pretty clear cut and basic comedy. Or as David Letterman explained the humor targets of Latenight with David Letterman to Rolling Stone in 1985, "We're a gnat trying to sink the Love Boat."
Humor is targeting the powerful, the ones in charge. Everything else is just catty. And there's a lot of catty to be found in supposed humor. Take Saturday Night Live who thought Tsutomu Yamaguchi's death made for a 'funny' punchline on Weekend Update last night. Who was Tsutomu Yamaguchi? The only known survivor of the US bombings of of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki (link is audio and text, NPR's Weekend Edition). There is something very sick about Saturday Night Live and Seth Meyers. The only viral skit they've had since the start of the new season was when they actually dared to poke fun at Barack. You might think such a skit would have them stepping more bravely but you'd be wrong.
In 2005, when Democrats did not control the House of Representatives, the Senate or the White House, when they were the minority political party (of the two dominant political parties in the US), they were to be spared scrutiny by comics because, as Stewart and Colbert explained, they didn't hold the power.
It's 2010 and where are the 'humorous' attacks aimed? Republicans.
Republicans who are now in the same position Democrats were in 2005.
On Weekend Update, Seth opened with a joke about Barack . . . Well, Barack was in the joke. Of course Barack campaign donor Seth couldn't find the guts to criticize his wet dream. Instead, he tried a 'systemic' joke that flopped. He then went after Rudy G (Mayor of NYC during 9-11). Fine, except he blew the joke by stepping all over the punchline. (It should have been an observation as the set-up was. Instead, Seth changed the punchline so that he was speaking directly to Rudy. It threw the audience and lost the laugh.) He then quickly noted that there were Republicans laying blame at Barack for the December 25th near-bombing. That's all he said because, he explained, now it was time for James Carville to deliver a Democratic response.
If you're scratching you hear, you're not the only one. As an original Not Ready For Prime Timer told us (he called us, we didn't seek out a comment), when the show "mattered," Jane Curtain would take one side of the coin and Dan Ackroyd the other and they'd have responses. Instead, Seth wanted to provide a 'response' to a position the sketch 'forgot' to establish.
The 'comics' refuse to take on Barack and they instead think they're brave for attacking Republicans -- a point driven home last week when Terry Gross couldn't stop giggling at John Oliver's catty remarks (January 5ths broadcast of Fresh Air on NPR).
First off, regardless of what an American may or may not think of the Tea Party Movement, most Americans hopefully would agree that the last thing the United States needs to hear is a British citizen telling America what tyranny is. (And getting it wrong on top of that.) We hope most people would agree that England lost the right to ever lecture about tyranny somewhere around 1776.
But there was John Oliver (of Comedy Central's The Daily Show) mocking the Tea Party Movement and saying he'd tell them what tyranny really was. The only real response to that is: Go back to England.
Really.
John Oliver, for those who don't live on basic cable, is a minor player on The Daily Show, he's not on every episode, you can watch a string of episodes and, in fact, never see him (that's what's known as "a lucky streak"). He was a minor comedian in England and is even less so in the US. An English major, he's got no real training in politics and really isn't a political observer.
So though Terry Gross couldn't stop finding him amusing -- she's been on a streak of laughing at attacks on Republicans in the last few weeks, we're not all that sure her audience was as amused.
He referred to the Tea Party activists as "crazy," as "the pure gold of nutcases," "beyond the point of being able to process rational thought," and much more. But don't think he just attacked the Tea Party Movement (which we would characterize as a conservative and libertarian movement, for those unfamiliar with it), he also had to go after . . .
Who?
Who do they insist is unimportant . . . . while never being able to shut up about her?
Yes, Sarah Palin.
Palin and McCain were "cancerous," they "were putting" "poison" "out there". Has the losing side in a presidential election ever been attacked like this before? We're having a hard time thinking of a past equivalent. Usually, the losing campaign, having lost, isn't in the news, isn't in the focus. Usually, after election night, the losing campaign is forgotten.
1997 in Humor, for example, was not all about Bob Dole. Nor was 1993 in Humor all about George H.W. Bush.
The winner of the election becomes the target because he or she is now the one in power and the class clown in every comic is naturally geared to throw the spit balls at the authority figure.
But that's not how it works today, is it?
Republicans aren't funny.
That's considered to be a comedic axiom.
Is it true?
We don't know. We'll fess up to having repeated it in our own lives.
But we've never lived through a year like 2009 before (and 2010 doesn't look any better) so we're examining observations and beliefs in ways we might not normally.
Why did we say that Republicans aren't funny?
One reason: We're Democrats and as caught in the partisan back and forth as anyone else.
But let's go beyond that.
What is comedy? It's subversive, it's taking on the powerful. It's, as David Letterman said, being the gnat taking on the Love Boat.
Dennis Miller, last decade, did not strike us as funny. Why? He was a little suck up. He was the establishment. He wasn't cutting edge, he wasn't out on a limb. His entire act was about telling you how wonderful things were and how great those in power were.
The coin has flipped, the power changed hands (at least in terms of political parties). And yet the target is still the Republicans?
Saturday Night Live and all the rest have become the establishment. Tearing apart at the party out of power while ignoring the comedic gold to be mined from going after the powerful.
And all the rest.
Jon Stewart talked brave in 2005. He's also personally proud of a few Barack skits he did in 2009. But what we saw in random viewing wasn't bravery. What we saw was the laughs came not from holding Barack accountable (the way he'd hold Bush accountable), but from morphing into Professor John Frink on The Simpsons and uttering gibberish for the punch line. For our alleged comedic leader, that's damn embarrassing. He can take comfort in the fact that, as weak as his attempts have been, he walks like a giant when compared to his peers.