The Gospel According to Stewart

Now, I don't want to give the impression that I would give Jon Stewart a blow job in a dark alley if I could pay him to be there, but christ do I love the Daily Show. Remember when I thought they'd go to war against Glenn Beck? Well, not having cable does leave me out of the loop in terms of how Fox News covers Stewart's attacks. Really, I only get to see their retorts on The Daily Show itself. Does that skew my perspective? Sure. But I've seen enough of both Fox News programming and The Daily Show to know whom I'm going to put more stock in.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Bernie Goldberg Fires Back
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Canadian link here. Have I mentioned before how much I hate region blocking? But anyways.

My favourite part of that clip is when Bernie Goldberg calls TDS's audience unsophisticated and Bill O'Reilly laughs. Of course you know, O'Reilly has done research and knows that TDS's audience is predominantly stoned slackers so he's right right to laugh at us, we don't know our heads from our rumpholes. Thus, it's easy for Goldberg, O'Reilly, and anyone on Fox News to right off Stewart's derision. Really, his words don't escape the pot clouds of dorm rooms or mom and dad's basement that they enter anyhow.

But then why do so many Fox commentators feel such a need to strike back at Stewart when he pulls off his stunts? I know he makes salacious and sensational slams against them, but if his voice matters so little, why do you feel the need to volley back? Is it because he hurts your feelings? Is this a matter of pride? Or, maybe, you just need to fill some time on your forever long shows? Beck can only cry for so long before an audience will think they're watching a soap.

I think the real issue here is that Fox News uses Stewart's attacks as just another example of the, GASP!, liberal enemy/media. A huge reason for Fox's success is its ability to simplify every social or political issue in America down to simple black and white. Things are either American wholesomeness, or they are unamerican blank-ism. And Stewart can easily be constructed as the buffoonish liberal media element. Even more so because he's so wonderfully terrible at reporting the news. Indeed, he is neither fair nor balanced. This may be of course due to the fact that TDS is a comedy program that has an obvious political and social agenda. But fuck, that sort of complexity doesn't play on Fox. On Fox, everything is either Black, or American.

So maybe Stewart only plays into their hands when he does this sort of thing, provide Fox commentators easy material with which to juvenilize the liberal media. It is easy to undercut Stewart's argumental ethos when you show outrageous clips of him doing comedic stunts. This guy doesn't know shit, he's a jester. But by the midpoint of the above clip, Stewart shifts into a southern preach, and a full blown call and response by the end, culminating with him and choir singing "go fuck yourself." Now Fox could try to use this clip to show TDS's complete disregard for anything holy, of its out and out buffoonishness, but maybe that's the point. Can Fox News self-righteously show the clip of Stewart dancing in front of a choir singing "go fuck yourself" and have its audience still see him as a threat? He's obviously just being a ham.

If as a stoned slacker I can see this, surely Fox will respect its sophisticated audience enough to know they will too.

Star Wars S(h)itcom

Seriously!?

Apparently they're making a Star Wars sitcom. From the Variety article:

Daytime Emmy and Gemini Award-winner Jennifer Hill ("The Backyardians") will produce with Todd Grimes ("Back at the Barnyard") directing. Brendan Hay ("The Daily Show") will be among the writers and Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, creators and executive producers of "Robot Chicken," will have "creative involvement.

Man, this is such a dumb idea, I don't care who's involved. I read a bunch of the comments after the article on /Film (where I initially learned about this development) and not enough people are waving their hands wildly in the air and screaming for this to not happen. Let's examine why this is a bad idea shall we?

Robot Chicken's Star Wars parodies are funny. The Family Guy parodies are also funny (though I begrudgingly admit it). Spaceballs is also funny. Alright, lots and lots of Star Wars parodies are funny. AND!, Star Wars itself is funny. But a dedicated Star Wars sitcom, will not be funny:

1. Parodies are parodies. All of the Star Wars parodies mock Star Wars. Yes, they embrace the source material, usually with love (especially in the case of the Robot Chicken dudes) but they are still irreverent. These parodies extend characters and ideas from the show into absurd places, that cannot be cannon.
2. This is a sitcom. Sitcoms are not sketches like Robot Chicken has excelled at in terms of their Star Wars humour. Family Guy and Spaceballs tell a story, but they tell the same fucking story as Star Wars. Are we suddenly going to break off and have Han and Leia living on Coruscant, with Chewie dropping by as the obligatory, racist depiction of a minority neighbour? How is this going to be structured? I can't express how little I think of the idea of a situational comedy starring Star Wars characters, or in the Star Wars universe. Anytime I think of something amusing, it's because of irreverence, and it would not be congenial humour, the sort of humour sitcoms are based on.
   
3. Isolated instances. All the Star Wars comedies I can think of do their funny and then end. They're all specials, not long running shows. This is important for two reasons. A) the humour doesn't outstay its welcome. Parody is something that is difficult to sustain. Many would say Colbert has done it (I don't watch it myself because I've grown a little tired of the parody), but I think as a general rule, parody itself does not lend itself to longevity. The novelty of the superiority humour dwindles, and you're left with the same joke: isn't x silly? B) You're going to run out of jokes. Wait, you can't really run out of jokes, because they are like invention (inventio!), but the writers for this show are going to find difficulty mining for humour after a while. How many jokes can you do about the Millennium Falcon failing? And with Star Wars, let me tell you, the writers are going to need to be uber careful not to get too obscure because as a Star Wars comedy, they are already flirting with a small viewership.
   
4. Finally, is this for adult or kids. Star Wars has become progressively more and more childish. The original material was entertaining for all ages but as the movies went they skewed towards juvenile audiences. This is no more clear than in consideration of the humour. If you've watched the movies, you know it to be true. So, if the humour is for kids, I really don't want to watch a dumb, racist, and homophobic Star Wars saturday-morning-cartoon. I doubt its going to be adult-centric, since how do you suddenly tell the majority of your audience (ie kids) that this Star Wars isn't for you. So I imagine it would be in the middle, like a sitcom, and I seriously doubt that Star Wars can walk the line between adult and childish humour, all the while refraining from irreverency.
   

I think my problem(s) come down to this: a Star Wars comedy will necessarily be irreverent, and irreverent isn't funny when it's done by the people that own the source material. That statement may not be true in general, but I'm damn sure it's true of George Lucas. I don't want to watch George Lucas make fun of his own material. He has taken his shit seriously for so fucking long that for him to suddenly find some levity in his creation would be down right insulting. Where was levity when you refused to release the original cuts on DVD because they weren't your vision. Where was levity when you sued all the people you sued for stupid shit and/or stopped them from releasing their own stupid version of a Star Wars thing? I mean, you can't just one day stop taking yourself and your Star Wars seriously because it'll make you a couple of buck and not expect to look like a douche.

This show will suck because either it will be a bland generic sitcom with Star Wars template overtop masking the bland genericness, or it will be irreverant, possibly good for a bit, and a perfect example as to why I libel George Lucas.

Douche!

Crisis of Faith (that sounds so emo)

So I had a conversation with a gentleman on Friday in which my authority as a comedy critic was contested. The argument boiled down to whether I, as someone who has not watched Cheers or The Honeymooners extensively, had the right to be a critic regarding sitcoms. Obviously I argued that I did, but I may have also lost the argument.

My friend, who I'll call Tim, argued that since I was not well versed in the history of the sitcom, or at least the successes and thus formative influences, I would not be fully aware of what new sitcoms were doing inside the sitcom genre. This was likened to literature. Could a writer respectively analyse a work of literature without studying the works which were of direct influence, or even further could a writer respectively analyse a work without reading the major works in literature? Those studying literature are specifically taught surveys of canon so that they can (at least to some degree) better analyse/understand/contextualize any piece of literature. Tim did not deny me the right to have and support an opinion, but merely that I do not necessarily have the authority to offer an educated critique of sitcoms. This is a very strong point.

I, however, would still like to argue my case. This is of course unfair to Tim as he will not be able to offer a response or even clarify my potentially unintentional strawman-ed rendition of his argument. But I will anyways.

The problem with his argument to me is the requirement of a historical background of a genre to evaluate new instances of it. I don't disagree that a knowledge of the past can greatly help your analytical abilities, but I don't think this is absolutely imperative. I think you can construct an analyses divorced of a great deal of context (of course not all context, as would humour even work in a vacuum?). That said, Tim is very right in the quality variances in evaluations with and without context. In academic articles it is very important to discuss the context of one's arguments (why they're such a chore to read). The context provides authority. The author has read and engaged the historical and critical backing of the issue s/he is now writing about, thus his/her argument is proven to be (hopefully) well informed. There is no reason this concept shouldn't be applied to comedy.

But the issue comes down to this for me. I don't find Cheers all that funny. Neither do I find The Honeymooners too enjoyable. And I've seen enough episodes to make these judgement calls. More so, I am not writing my critiques in vacuums. I haven't ignored these foundational shows. And the pluralization is the key. This isn't a few writings, movies, or albums, this is multiple seasons of a television show. Cheers had almost 250 episodes. That's a lot of hours to spend watching a show I don't like so I can know a little more about the sitcom genre. And here's the thing--I don't think it'd matter. I've watched many other sitcoms, ones that weren't on when I was 7, that were heavily influenced by Cheers. And that goes even more so for The Honeymooners. Yes, Seinfeld is greatly influenced by The Honeymooners, but what aspect of the show have I not picked up on from other shows (in content and form) and from watching the freakin Flintstones?

Ultimately though, I think we need to consider critiques and analyses in terms of a conversation. When I engage a sitcom, a comedian, or a movie I offer my analysis, which is by no means definitive. And I would not expect any worthwhile critic to say otherwise. When we write about any topic we are engaging in a conversation (one that perhaps takes place over some length of time). When someone writes a book on Milton, s/he engages in a conversation about Milton. Other writers will then engage those ideas. This may not happen as much in comedy analysis, merely because there is yet to be vast academic work in the area, but this does not mean that the project is not the same. So Tim with his greater knowledge of Cheers could offer an argument about The Big Bang, and reveal elements of the show I, with my "ignorance" of Cheers, would miss. This would not at all be unlike the conversation that occurs about Milton. (Okay it's way different, but not in terms of project.) Anyone can be a critic here, it's merely how good of a critic. Tim might be a better critic about comedy, but he doesn't maintain a blog on the topic. I wish he would, then we could blargue until our fingers were raw. And the comedy community would be the better for it. If even slightly.

I don't intend this post to be about me winning an argument, it is supposed to be about me trying to figure out how I (or anyone) can discuss comedy on a critical level. Do the same issues of literature or music apply to comedy? This is a difficult question, even more so with this broad definition of comedy. Perhaps you can construct necessary canon pieces with comedy films, but in television, with shows involving more than an hour total watch-time, can you still construct that same idea about canon? And then certainly with the cultural pervasiveness of some of the television comedies you have to consider how viewers acquire a comedy education. Everyone, whether a comedy scholar or not, gets a great deal of I Love Lucy references. Further, so much of how sitcoms are made is built upon previous success--so by watching Home Improvement, I've watched Family Ties. And all this hasn't even begun to address how these issues relate to stand-up.

I don't necessarily have any concrete answers to the issues I've raised despite the lengths I've gone to above. Unfortunately these issues seem to be argued about at 1am in apartment buildings rather than in any written text, denying me that conversation I believe leads to better answers than the above. Bummer.

Here's a link to something actually funny.