Colbert Report Paper

Xanat Hernandez COGN 20: what is your tas name? 11/6/08 The Colbert Report: Election Coverage and Satire Comedy Central’s Colbert Report entertains its viewers by providing jokes lampooning politics and the media during the workweek. However, the Colbert Report team delivers much more than laughs, mercilessly satirizing personality based news shows, media representations of political candidates, and the way public opinion is interpreted and disseminated by the major networks. The premise of the Report revolves around its host, Stephen Colbert, and the caricature he portrays on the show. Colbert takes up the mantle of portraying a right-wing news pundit, and the jokes on the show are based around the antics of the character he plays. Colbert’s constant usage of logical fallacy, direct confrontation, and faux controversial accusations, parody similar behavior on shows hosted by Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity. In this manner, the Colbert Report is able to exaggerate aspects of these shows it deems absurd or questionable. The show has obtained critical and popular acclaim, and its audience is overwhelmingly in the younger sector of society, with over ____% of it composed of people _____ and under (find where you put these stats and cite it). Furthermore, it is closely associated with Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, a fake-news show hosted by Jon Stewart. Both shows are owned by Viacom, a media conglomerate which is also the force behind MTV, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon (citation Viacom.com). On its website, Viacom describes the Daily Show/Colbert Report as “Innovative. Irreverent. Clever. Smart. Just Like Our Audience.” Thus, the target audience of the Report can be described as young and at least moderately politically informed, willing to watch a late night show composed of humorous political commentary. It can be shown that election coverage produced by the Colbert Report caters to its target audience, enthusiastically ridiculing other network’s efforts at coverage —the way they present candidates, discuss “the issues,” and perform analysis. Specifically, the Report criticizes sensationalism present in personality-based election coverage, and thus characterizes candidates as one dimensional caricatures, and their respective platforms as simplistic sound bytes and wars of rhetoric.

The Colbert Report covered the 2008 election primarily by exhibiting the opinions and personal causes of Stephen Colbert’s alter ego. In order to satirize characteristics of the personality-driven news format, the Report team hyperbolizes existing components of shows like The O’Reilly Factor. A quick discussion of aesthetics can demonstrate how The Colbert Report picks aspects such as patriotism, ego, and excessive confrontation to exaggerate and poke fun of. Colbert’s character is a narcissistic megalomaniac, interested in inserting self-glorifying commentary into as many of his segments and coverage as possible. Thus, the set of the Report can be shown to follow this theme. The desk in which Colbert operates is shaped like a “C” for Colbert. A painting of Colbert is also featured, in which Colbert is depicted next to a portrait of himself, which in turn stands next to another portrait of him, which stands next to another portrait, etc. This painting within a painting currently stands at five levels. Furthermore, the set is littered with Colbert’s many Emmys and Peabodys. The Colbert Report is also interested in highlighting excessive displays of patriotism. The set’s color scheme is entirely red, white and blue, and the intro sequence emphasizes the motif of flags as well. This intro also features constant eagle screeching sounds, and of course, Stephen Colbert himself in several poses. This patriotic imagery is reinforced by words such as “megamerican” and “Lincolnish.” Colbert often refers to his set as a “No-Fact Zone,” a clear reference to O’Reilly’s “No Spin Zone.” Thus, the Report implies that such excessive displays of self-effacement, patriotism, and disregard of fact is the cornerstone of personality-driven news coverage, undermining the credibility and objectivity of such shows. These techniques are important to keep in mind when discussing how the Report then utilizes Colbert’s persona to criticize election coverage of fellow news networks. During the time I studied the Report, it was clear that one of the main objects of satire was the media itself; I encountered overt criticisms to Fox, MSNBC, TIME, People Magazine, and CNN analysis. In regards to FOX, the network’s purported preference for conservative ideologies and candidate John McCain was the object of ridicule. Colbert based two debate results on FOX coverage—declaring John McCain the winner of both debates since the FOX news poll showed 86% and 82% of the public believing Obama lost. Stephen Colbert thus sarcastically declared Senator John McCain “President of Fox News”. Similarly, in the October 7th episode, Colbert quipped “Obama has his own channel now, it’s called MSNBC.” Thus,

perceived impartiality at the hands of major news networks became an object of satire on the Colbert Report. Furthermore, the Report is interested in laughing at the media’s obsession with VP candidate Sarah Palin’ s looks. In another episode, Colbert “criticizes” People Magazine when it neglected to photoshop Palin’s facial hair off of its cover, comparing it with TIME’s heavily retouched cover of the VP candidate. In another instance, Colbert shows clips of CNN analysts discussing the upcoming Vice Presidential Debate. In these clips, analysts basically argued that while Palin just needed to sound competent and informed to be successful in the debate, Joe Biden had to act like a gentleman and avoid sounding condescending to the governor. With his punchline, “Palin proved she could speak,” Colbert heavily criticizes the media’s unbalanced expectations of each candidate. Throughout its election coverage, the Report made sure to include a variety of these criticisms of the media. This type of satire reached its absolute peak during his coverage of election night. In a joint special with John Stewart, Indecision 2008: America’s Choice, Colbert was able to unrelentingly mock the traditional election night specials of other networks. First, Colbert immediately suggests to John Stewart that they change the name of the special to “The Final End Game Alpha Action Go Time Lift Off Decide-icidal Hungry Man’s Extreme Raw Ultimate Voteslam Smack Down ’08: Judgement Day ‘08”. Here Colbert is critiquing other networks self important, overly dramatic titles in attempts to outdo each other. Another object of Colbert’s satire is the use of comprehensive technology found in election night specials. At one point, he begins typing furiously on his laptop computer, and when Stewart asks him what he is doing, Colbert responds with a declaration that he’s live blogging and Twittering, instructing the audience “While you’re watching me, read me”. Here he condemns the inundation of information by different media forms on the public. This saturation of information is characterized as excessive and ineffective. CNN’s election night coverage included several guest appearances via hologram. Thus, in order to mock this newest technological addition, Colbert periodically touches Stewart and their guests to make sure they’re“not holograms.” More specifically however, Colbert serves as a comedic foil to John Stewart—Stewart is the rational one while Colbert is erratic and like usual, “conservative”. His mock conservative viewpoints are utilized here to poke fun of right-winged presentations of their disappointing election results. To achieve this, Colbert introduces constant stalling techniques to avoid announcing

Barack Obama’s wins in swing states like Ohio and Florida. In one of these stalling techniques, Colbert invites a wild life expert to discuss cockatoos. The results Stewart forces him to announce are thus delivered in a disappointed, angry manner. Here, Colbert is laughing at conservative’s reluctance to admit Obama’s likelihood of winning. Colbert also critiques the fact that right-wing pundits take sensationalist rumors about Barack Obama seriously. He introduces the rumor that Barack Obama has formed an alliance with flesh-eating bacteria, and calls Stewart “mainstream” for immediately dismissing it, insisting that the issue needed to be “Fox and Friended.” His sarcasm here makes two important claims. He is mocking the idea that a news network has a liberal, mainstream bias for not reporting outrageous rumors about Obama (example: Obama is a secret Muslim). Additionally, he is disparaging personalitydriven political shows like Fox and Friends for in turn taking these same accusations seriously. Thus, it can be shown that Colbert utilizes his pseudo-right wing persona to criticize not just personality-driven shows, but media coverage of the election in general. Colbert showed this approach throughout his coverage of the Democratic ticket during the last weeks of the election season, constantly undermining the credibility of shows like the O’Reilly Factor. Obama is often the butt of Stephen Colbert’s jokes, but in the end, Colbert’s strategies of criticizing Obama through a faux-right winged perspective only serves to mock real conservatives and support Obama and his platform. Although this does not necessarily make the Report a “liberal” show, it can be interpreted as an appeal to its target audience, as Obama has been shown to have a significant level of support from the young demographics of society. Colbert’s regular usage of logical fallacy to undermine Obama implies that criticism of the candidate was irrational. That being said, Colbert does not hesitate to genuinely “laugh at” Obama when deemed necessary. An example of this is when Colbert mocks his 30 minute “infomercial,” especially his use of a background similar to the Oval Office. Colbert jokes “he already thinks he’s President!” However, Colbert usually employs logical fallacy to “insult” Obama in order to make fun of conservative pundits. The Report consistently whittles down Obama’s platform to sound bytes and labels. Colbert often calls Obama a socialist because of his economic plan to increase the taxes of the rich. In the Oct 28th episode, he invites the real Socialist candidate on the show, Brian Moore. Although Colbert consistently accuses him of supporting another “socialist,” Obama, Colbert gets his

guest to say “Obama is the furthest thing from a socialist,” in essence, defending the democratic candidate. Another label the Report utilizes is that of a radical, or terrorist. The show condemns the rightwing strategy of judging Obama by his associations, mainly Bill Ayers and Revered Wright. To accomplish this, Colbert decides in the Oct. 9th episode that his personal actions also affect Obama’s character, since the candidate had been on his show. He then pulls out his gun begins to “shoot” an audience member, six times, in an attempt to tarnish Obama’s reputation. In the case of the Republican ticket, the Report uses similar strategies. In the Oct 22nd episode, Colbert reduces John McCain’s economic plan and appeal to the everyman into an elaborate joke about “Joe the Plumber.” Here, he plays back all the times McCain mentions “Joe” during the debate. Instead of seriously analyzing McCain’s ideas, he turns the whole thing into a Bob the Builder joke. Thus, the Colbert Report condenses campaign issues into labels in order to parody opinion-based news coverage.