So is Jon Stewart good or bad for democracy? That is, does his kind of humor make people—especially his prime audience, the young—more cynical? So cynical, in fact, that they are turned off from the political process? Maybe they don’t even vote, never will vote? Could a comedian really do that much damage?
Well, ideas are powerful. And powerful ideas, true or not, oft-repeated, have an effect. That’s certainly been proven across history. So it was interesting to see Joe Scarborough take up the question tonight on MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country.” Interesting, yes, but ultimately disappointing; somebody needs to explain to Citizen Joe that the essence of a good segment on cable news is some sense of conflict, or at least drama. To put it more simply, the talking heads have to disagree with each other. Not for the sake of having a food fight—although sometimes that’s fun—but for the sake of a spirited discussion that sheds light on the issues of the moment, or the problems of our time. That’s not too much to ask!
Meanwhile, plenty of academics and either Deep Thinkers are wrestling with the Stewart Question. And while some of these worthies are no doubt motivated by the spirit of legit academic inquiry, one can’t help but wonder if some of them aren’t in love with the idea of getting publicity for themselves by studying a hot topic. That is, it’s more fun to “examine” a TV show on Comedy Central than it is to examine, say, voting patterns among Scots-Irish in 19th century Kentucky. A professor who comes up with a hot study on Stewart can, himself, expect to get booked on cable news to talk about his findings.
But at another level, the complaint about Stewart has some validity. It’s been a criticism, not without merit, that the culture of mockingness, of knowingness, comes at a cost to the cultural fabric. Thirty five years ago, The National Lampoon burst on the scene, and it startled everyone with its raunchy nihilism. Then came “Saturday Night Live,” during which Chevy Chase was given to saying things like, “I’m Chevy Chase and you’re not.” Translation: “I’m cool, and you suck.” People thought that was funny. This style of humor was oftentimes superficially on the left, in the sense that it made fun of Richard Nixon or big corporations, but in fact, it was just as often making fun of minorities, bureaucrats, Third World peasants, and other liberal pieties.
Then came “Seinfeld.” Unlike The Lampoon and “SNL,” Seinfeld wasn’t nasty, but he was, without a doubt, a product of his mocking times. Above all, Seinfeld was amused with himself—that was the key to distinguishing him from the masses.
Today, like the Seinfeldians before him, Stewart is in on the joke, although he was willing to share that joke with his audience. But at the same time, it’s understood that dufuses and rubes will not “get” Stewart. They’re just not cool enough. And that was fine—that’s one reality of cable culture overall: the goal is a niche audience, and in seeking such a niche, it’s often seen as wise to “go negative” against other niches.
There’s been something of a backlash against all this “in” humor. A few years ago, a young man from West Virginia named Jed Purdy wrote a book in reaction to Seinfeld. It was entitled For Common Things: Irony, Trust and Commitment in America Today, and it went after the alleged “solipsism” and “selfishness” of the popular culture. It was easy to make fun of the Purdy book, and plenty did, but at the same time, it was obvious that he had something of a point. That’s not to say that we should all go out and vote for Walter Mondale or John Kerry, but we should go out and care for each other more. Caring, being caring, and being seen as being caring. Those aren’t bad things for people in either party—or for people in no party.
Stewart has all the solipsism of the “Seinfeld” crowd, and some but not all of the edge of the “SNL” crowd. And he has lots of impact. So Scarborough had the right idea in doing a segment on him. But, as we shall see, he needs better execution.
Scarborough put the “Is Stewart bad?” question to his panel: Mort Zuckerman, neoconservative owner of The New York Daily News, Rachel Sklar, liberal blogger for The Huffington Post, and Bill McGowan, a conservative commentator, and author of Coloring the News: How Political Correctness Has Corrupted American Journalism.
OK, OK, so a reasonably good crew. But here’s the problem: All of the talking heads, including Scarborough, basically agreed with each other. Yes, Stewart is kinda cynical, but hey, he’s talking about politicians—whaddya expect? And in any case, pols deserve the abuse that they get. That’s what Zuckerman said, first, to which Scarborough said, thinking like a Comedy Central producer, “It’s all about going after the demo…maybe this is a good thing.” OK, fine. But then Sklar said pretty much the same thing. McGowan was a little more contrarian; he allowed that Stewart was a “mouthpiece for the Moveon.org people,” but he didn’t hit the point that hard, and Scarborough barely picked up on it.
Once again, it’s fine to have a civil discourse, but it’s never fine to have a boring discourse. It wouldn’t have been that hard to put Purdy on the show, or someone from outside of the media world—say, a preacher—to really rip into Stewart. But evidently, Scarborough is too inside the elite for that. “Scarborough Country” consists, it seems, of NYC and DC.
