The Colbert Report did real work to normalize a specific right wing framing to politics. I don’t think of it as a net positive the way I do The Daily Show. It might have been satire and I too might have enjoyed it from time to time, but it was also part of a normalization of the “both sidesing” of things.
It is only both sidesing if you don’t understand satire. He is pretending to be a right-wing pundit but rephrasing what they say in such a way as to point out how bad the right-wing talking points are.
‘You just don’t understand it’ doesn’t change the effect it has when it’s put out in the world. Archie Bunker as a character was intended to be a criticism on American racism, but to many viewers he just normalized it.
The fact is that this character played an role in normalizing this shift we saw, across the board, towards accepting this kind of right wing framing of politics. The fact that it was satire is irrelevant. The normalization is damage done.
I upvoted you because you’re making an interesting argument, but I’m definitely more in the Charlie Chaplin camp on political satire, and that ridiculing fascism is a productive thing to do - The Great Dictator was released before the US entered WW 2. Although Chaplin put a lot of work at the end of that movie to make sure everyone knew it was satire and Colbert was a bit less diligent.
Hm. A bunch of media illiterate conservative dingdongs watched the Colbert report and politics now visually looks like that… but nationalism to it’s extreme tends to look like that and Colbert’s team knew that. Fascism and nationalism look like that and I’m not sure satirizing it normalizes it (in general) but neoliberalism and that ‘working across the aisle’ politics (and journalism) that was also trendy at the time did actively normalize it.
He was really more of an absurdist than just someone doing satire in my opinion. I get you didn’t like his character, but he didn’t normalize anything despite your insisting he did.
The Colbert Report did real work to normalize a specific right wing framing to politics. I don’t think of it as a net positive the way I do The Daily Show. It might have been satire and I too might have enjoyed it from time to time, but it was also part of a normalization of the “both sidesing” of things.
It is only both sidesing if you don’t understand satire. He is pretending to be a right-wing pundit but rephrasing what they say in such a way as to point out how bad the right-wing talking points are.
‘You just don’t understand it’ doesn’t change the effect it has when it’s put out in the world. Archie Bunker as a character was intended to be a criticism on American racism, but to many viewers he just normalized it.
The fact is that this character played an role in normalizing this shift we saw, across the board, towards accepting this kind of right wing framing of politics. The fact that it was satire is irrelevant. The normalization is damage done.
I upvoted you because you’re making an interesting argument, but I’m definitely more in the Charlie Chaplin camp on political satire, and that ridiculing fascism is a productive thing to do - The Great Dictator was released before the US entered WW 2. Although Chaplin put a lot of work at the end of that movie to make sure everyone knew it was satire and Colbert was a bit less diligent.
Hm. A bunch of media illiterate conservative dingdongs watched the Colbert report and politics now visually looks like that… but nationalism to it’s extreme tends to look like that and Colbert’s team knew that. Fascism and nationalism look like that and I’m not sure satirizing it normalizes it (in general) but neoliberalism and that ‘working across the aisle’ politics (and journalism) that was also trendy at the time did actively normalize it.
No the fact is people like you are too dense to understand satire.
Lemmy seems to be more interested in worshiping its heroes than it is addressing their flaws.
Go look up what the word normalization means.
He was really more of an absurdist than just someone doing satire in my opinion. I get you didn’t like his character, but he didn’t normalize anything despite your insisting he did.
https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/does-satire-soften-the-blow-of-criticism
In fact, according to modern research he was using the most effective tool we have to destroy their reputation.
Tbf, hindsight is 20/20.
Nuh uh
Are you saying wingers didn’t accept this right wing framing of politics long before?
They were openly satirizing it. Was that somehow not obvious?