Bill Carter of the New York Times has written an excellent article dealing with late night satire and the glaring exclusion of Barack Obama into the satirical jokes of the late night monologues. He’s also included discussions with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in his quest to find out why this blanket exclusion seems to exist.
Want Obama in a Punch Line? First, Find a Joke
By BILL CARTER
Published: July 15, 2008What’s so funny about Barack Obama? Apparently not very much, at least not yet.
On Monday, The New Yorker magazine tried dipping its toe into broad satire involving Senator Obama with a cover image depicting the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and his wife, Michelle, as fist-bumping, flag-burning, bin Laden-loving terrorists in the Oval Office. The response from both Democrats and Republicans was explosive.
Comedy has been no easier for the phalanx of late-night television hosts who depend on skewering political leaders for a healthy quotient of their nightly monologues. Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien and others have delivered a nightly stream of jokes about the Republican running for president — each one a variant on the same theme: John McCain is old.
But there has been little humor about Mr. Obama: about his age, his speaking ability, his intelligence, his family, his physique. And within a late-night landscape dominated by white hosts, white writers, and overwhelmingly white audiences, there has been almost none about his race.
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Mr. Colbert said in a telephone interview that a running joke on his show has been that Mr. Obama is a “secret Muslim”; the New Yorker cover, he said, was consistent with that. “It’s a completely valid satirical point to make — and it’s perfectly valid for Obama not to like it,” he said.
Mr. Colbert said he had been freer to poke fun at Mr. Obama than other late-night hosts because “my character on the show doesn’t like him. I’m expected to be hostile to him.”
Mr. Stewart, who is also an executive producer of “The Colbert Report,” said the Obama campaign’s reaction to the New Yorker cover seemed part of what is now almost a pro forma cycle in political campaigns. “Nothing can occur without the candidate responding,” he said.
Stephen is lucky that he can always blame his “Character” on everything he does and says. You know he really means some of the stuff he says, but he can always go back to saying “oh that’s not me it’s my character.” So he never has to get in trouble.
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I am really glad that TCR has the “secret Muslim” joke. I have used it in conversation before, because it really rolls off the tongue!
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Well, I do remember Jon Stewart poking fun at Obama for his flip-flopping on public financing about three weeks ago and his saying “You know you can laugh at the guy.”
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The New Yorker magazine cover was obviously deeply satirical, but I think part of truly being able to appreciating satire is to be able to put your personal convictions aside and just appreciate the joke for what it is. Considering how important this election has become, I can see how it would be for some folks to do that. I will say the cover was pretty edgy but I also thought it was just as funny.
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Even though Obama denounced the magazine cover, he added this, courtesy of CNN.com:
“It’s a cartoon … and that’s why we’ve got the First Amendment,” Obama said. “And I think the American people are probably spending a little more time worrying about what’s happening with the banking system and the housing market and what’s happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, than a cartoon. So I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about it.”
Seems to me the person this cover was aimed out is spending much less time thinking about it than the rest of the free world. Thank god somebody has their priorities straight.
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