by Bruce Watson
Professors and pundits fretted. And in 2005, when The Colbert Report doubled the dosage, academic studies of Comedy Central’s late-night duo proliferated. Were viewers learning anything from “soft news?” Did nightly viewing of Stewart and Colbert lead to (gasp!) negative perceptions of politicians? Were the two shows deepening the cynicism that many adults lamented as the default mode in today’s youth? And in an age when John McCain appeared on SNL, side by side with Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, was there any such thing as “fake news”?
Initial studies warned that comedic news might alienate viewers from the political process. Gradually, however, a different consensus emerged. Rather than detaching their audiences, professors found that The Daily Show and The Colbert Report heightened political involvement. Regular viewers were better informed than viewers of other cable news and better able to discuss issues. More recently, media analysts have gone further, defining a “Stewart-Colbert Effect” that has changed how news is perceived. The distinction between “fake” and “real news” is meaningless, political scientists Mark K. McBeth and Randy S. Clemons argued. Both Stewart and Colbert interview real newsmakers. Both show clips of real events. Both have been guests on serious political shows, and both are in the news themselves. So what is real and what is fake? Various studies showed that viewers could not laugh at a Stewart-Colbert fake story if they did not know the real story.
Some academics have compared Stewart and Colbert to “court jesters.” Others see them as savvy purveyors of that most cherished commodity, “cool.” Being cynical and funny, they have become trustworthy, especially to the eighteen-to-forty-nine-year-old demographic whose loyalty they own, according to late-night ratings. Yet Stewart and Colbert also offer a constructive alternative to a media that is increasingly polarized, polemical, and sometimes just inane. They are not just ironic, they are intelligent; not just cool, but cerebral. No longer mere comics, Stewart and Colbert, one study said, “are rhetorical critics . . . who creatively guide audiences towards democratic possibilities.” And their work, another professor claimed, “can, arguably, be considered some of the most embracing and engaging commentary on the television landscape.”
But one academic saw disturbing shifts in reality itself. The Stewart-Colbert effect, said Professor Robert J. Tally, Jr., was “hyper-reality.” As defined by European theorists Jean Baudrillard and Umberto Eco, hyper-reality sets in when simulations are perceived to be no less real than the real thing. Disneyland, Las Vegas, wax museums, theme restaurants, faux castles and fake dinosaurs – all are part of the American obsession with the “Absolute Fake.” Stewart-Colbert and their “almost real” headlines are just another example of hyper-reality, Tally concluded. “Above all,” he said, “these programs impress upon the viewers the profound sense that the mainstream media’s real news is not much more real than its satirical or parodistic copies. Hence, the distinction between the real news and the fake news begins to recede.”
Academics posit, professors profess. Colbert viewers will have to decide for themselves whether they know the difference between the fake and the real, and whether they care. But the reality of The Colbert Report never got more hyper than during the 2012 presidential campaign. Expanding on his aborted 2008 run for the White House, Colbert obliterated the line between fake and real news. In the process, he bared the sheer hypocrisy of campaign finance, exposed the hype and greed, and won another Peabody.
It all started on Colbert’s birthday, May 13, 2011, when he formed his own Super PAC, an independent political action committee. These committees had been popping up since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010. What Citizen United did allowed unlimited corporate and union donations to the PACs, which could, in turn, funnel unlimited amounts of cash into any candidate’s campaign so long as the PAC remained “independent” (wink, wink) from candidates and their staffs. Citizens United was analyzed, protested, and embraced, but only Colbert took the hyper-real road of forming his own Super PAC.
As he had done in South Carolina, Colbert filed the necessary papers to participate in the process. Inside the Washington, D.C., office of the Federal Election Commission, Colbert faced down an official who thought he was joking. “Hadn’t he been kidding when he appeared before Congress?” Colbert stood his ground. His congressional testimony was “a completely different issue,” he said. “This is something I’m asking for. It’s a right as described by the Citizens United case. And I believe that the Citizens United decision was the right one. There should be unlimited corporate money, and I want some of it. I don’t want to be the one chump who doesn’t have it.”
After deliberating, the FEC ruled, by a five-to-one vote, in favor of Colbert. Colbert Super PAC, later re-named Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, began soliciting funds. The solicitation began on the sidewalk outside the FEC’s office. Standing on a platform, Colbert told a few hundred fans that he was not joking. Participating in democracy was not funny. But he did have one Super PAC joke.
“Knock knock!”
“Who’s there?” the crowd responded.
“Unlimited union and corporate campaign contributions.”
“Unlimited union and corporate campaign contributions who?”
“That’s the thing,” Colbert said. “I don’t think I should have to tell you.”
Why form a Super PAC? Colbert was asked. His answer: the American Dream. “And that dream is simple. That anyone, no matter who they are, if they are determined, if they are willing to work hard enough, someday they could grow up to create a legal entity which could then receive unlimited corporate funds, which could be used to influence our elections.”
Wrapping up his talk, Colbert said, “I don’t accept the status quo, but I do accept Visa, MasterCard, or American Express.” He then circulated through the crowd gathering credit cards that he swiped into an iPad. “Anybody else got a credit card?” he asked. “Is there any more cash? Just ball it up and throw it at me!”
Come August, when GOP candidates began stumping Iowa for its upcoming straw poll, Colbert was toying with reality as no comedian ever had. First, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow funded a TV ad urging Iowans to write in “Rick Parry, Parry with an ‘A,’ not Rick Perry, the Texas governor that other PACs were supporting. The ‘A’ stands for America and for IowA,” the ad said. Replete with images of dollar bills raining down on cornfields, Colbert’s faux ad ran on two TV stations in Des Moines.
No one knows how many write-in votes Rick Parry got, but Colbert’s Super PAC rolled on into the fall with 165,000 members. “I know of some of my peers whose first political contribution (and probably last) was to Colbert’s Super PAC,” a student in Florida said.
Taking the absurdity up a notch, Colbert formed a Citizens United hybrid that allowed him to accept anonymous donations. According to the latest campaign laws, “Colbert Super PAC SHH” could even divert anonymous donations into his regular PAC. Colbert insisted that his super mockery was “100 percent legal and at least 10 percent ethical,” but to make sure, he hired an actual campaign finance lawyer. Trevor Potter, former FEC chairman, began consulting Colbert on and off camera.
The press, as disgusted as Colbert by the billions flowing through campaign coffers, lapped up his every move. “It’s as though Jonathan Swift took his satirical suggestion about Irish babies one step further and actually cooked one,” The New York Times wrote. Media analysts were amazed that anyone could make politics seem more transparently absurd than it had become. “I am much taken by this and can’t think of any real parallel in history,” said Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution. “Yes, comedians have always told jokes about elections, but this is quite different. This is a funny person being very serious, actually talking about process. What comedian talks about process?”
In January 2012, as the primary campaign loomed, Colbert again targeted South Carolina. First, he offered a half-million dollars to the GOP if it would re-name the primary, “The Colbert Super PAC Sou
th Carolina Republican Party.” No one took him seriously, so he upped the ante. He entered the primary. This time he was allowed into the game, but with a catch. “You cannot be a candidate and run a Super PAC,” his lawyer told him on the show. “That would be coordinating with yourself.” “Right,” Colbert responded, “and I’d go blind.”
Needing a new Super PAC coordinator, Colbert turned to Jon Stewart. Early in January, Colbert traveled the few blocks from his studio to Stewart’s to make the move. Seated across a desk, the two men bumped fists, then pressed them together. Both shuddered as glowing, green dollar signs passed from Colbert’s body into Stewart’s. An announcer boomed, “Colbert Super PAC Transfer – ACTIVATE!” The “Definitely Not Coordinated with Stephen Colbert Super PAC” was open for donations.
For the next two months, Stewart and Colbert shredded Super PACs and their supposed independence. Appearing again on The Daily Show, Colbert called his lawyer. “Hello, Trevor,” Colbert said. “I’m sitting here with Jon Stewart.”
“Oh, but don’t worry,” Stewart chimed in. “We’re not . . . “ and both men chorused, “coordinating!” Stewart began suggesting campaign strategies. To each, Colbert, grinning or frowning, repeated, “I cannot coordinate with you in any way.”
The spoof concluded with the men agreeing it had been great “NOT coordinating with you.” The ongoing joke even charmed candidates – one, at least. GOP candidate Herman Cain did not mind when Colbert hopped on his bus to tour South Carolina. “Anyone who finds what Mr. Colbert is doing offensive should simply lighten up,” Cain said.
When Cain later withdrew his candidacy after charges that he had had an affair, Colbert became Cain. Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow ran ads in South Carolina, featuring Colbert campaigning as its voiceover and urging viewers to vote for Herman Cain.
By the end of January, Colbert’s Super PAC had raked in a million dollars in contributions. “To all the worrywarts out there who said Super PACs were going to lead to a cabal of billionaires secretly buying democracy,” Colbert said, “Wrong! They are publicly buying democracy.”
Evolving daily, Colbert’s Super PAC took political satire to new heights. Colbert, wrote Ad Age, had become the “greatest living cultural/media critic. . . . There is no funnier or smarter (or more heartbreaking or depressing) deconstruction of the American scene - particularly our fatally flawed political process, as signified by Colbert’s Super PAC - to be found anywhere else in the culture right now.”
When it was all over, Colbert got serious. Even after buying ads for Herman Cain, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow was left with more than $700,000. Colbert did what he always does with excess money, he gave it away - dividing the fund equally among Hurricane Sandy relief, Habitat for Humanity, Donors Choose, and two other charities. And in April 2012, Colbert’s spoof won the Peabody Award.
Stephen Colbert is contracted to continue his show through the end of 2014. By then, he will be a fifty-year-old father of three, patron of the arts, philanthropist, bestselling author, and New Jersey commuter who, for just twenty-two minutes a night on cable, is changing the way Americans perceive the truth. What then, is truthiness? Is it just, as Colbert once said, “a word I pulled right out of my keister?” Is it the human weakness of believing whatever half-truths one finds convenient? Is truthiness personal reality? Hyper-reality? Whatever becomes real because enough people say it’s real? Or are all attempts to pin down truthiness rendered futile by its nature?
Truthiness, it turns out, really did come from Colbert’s keister, because it describes his life. No ordinary word could sum up a life that turned tragedy into fantasy, fantasy into improv, improv into parody, parody into satire, and, finally, satire into comedic super-stardom. Likewise, no reality-based lexicon could explain how a kid from South Carolina could go from brooding nerd to comic foil, and from “high-status idiot” to “greatest living cultural/media critic.” Nothing but truthiness could do justice to the contradictions within Stephen Colbert. Nothing else could span the gap between his egomania on camera and his gentleness off, nor highlight the contrast between the tight-fisted politics he pretends to embrace and the generous principles he lives by.
Truthiness is not just the “Word of the Day.” It is the word of Stephen Colbert’s life. But let’s give him the last word.
“Knock, knock. Who’s there? The Truth. No joke.”
AdAge, Jan. 30, 2012.
“Air Accident Report 75-9,” National Traffic Safety Board, May 23, 1975; http://www.airdisaster.com/reports/ntsb/AAR75-09.pdf
Amarasingam, Arnarnat, “The Stewart-Colbert Effect: Essays on the Real Impacts of Fake News,” McFarland, New York 2011, p. 128.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 8, 2006
Brainyquote.com
Buffalo News, March 30, 2008
Chicago Daily Herald, Jan. 20, 2012.
Chicago Reader: July 9, 1992; April 14, 1994;
Chicago Sun-Times. Sept. 21, 1995.
Chicago Tribune, Jan. 18, 2006.
CNN.com, May 6, 2004;
Colbertnation.com
Daily Mail.co.UK
Dailyshow.com
Eco, Umberto, “Travels in Hyper-reality: Essays,” Harcourt, San Diego, New York, London, 1986, pp. 20-21
Hollywood Reporter, Oct. 31, 2005
Houston Chronicle, Nov. 7, 2005
http://www.notablebiographies.com/newsmakers2/2007-A-Co/Colbert-Stephen.html
Ibid, p. 54.
http://politicalhumor.about.com/cs/quotethis/a/reaganquotes.htm
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2011/05/stephen-colbert-federal-election-commission/37731/
http://splitsider.com/2011/06/stephen-colbert-on-his-relationship-with-jon-stewart/
http://www.squidoo.com/stephen-colbert-charity
Jezebel.com
Ign.com
“Interview with Stephen Colbert, IGN, ign.com.
Los Angeles Daily News, July 28, 2003, Oct. 31, 2005.
Montgomery County (CA) Herald, Oct. 30, 2007.
New York Daily News: Jan. 18, 2007; Sept. 25, 2010.
New York Times: Feb. 8, 1995; Oct. 25, 1997; Aug. 12, 1998; April 30, 1999; Aug. 27, 2004; Oct. 27, 2004; Oct. 12, 2005; Jan. 22, 2006; Nov. 5, 2 006; May 8, 2006; Nov. 2, 2007; May 7, 2009; Sept. 25, 2010; Oct. 13, 2010; Aug. 22, 2011
New York Times Magazine: Jan. 4, 2012.
Oed.com
Onion AV Club, Jan. 22, 2003.
Philadelphia Daily News, Oct. 18, 2005, July 1, 2011.
Philadelphia Inquirer, May 7, 2006.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Aug. 9, 2006.
Playboy, November 12.
Rogak, Lisa, “And Nothing But the Truthiness: The Rise (and Further Rise) of Stephen Colbert,” St. Martin’s Press, New York, NY 2011, pp. 32-33, 36, 41, 58, 64, 77, 80, 86, 94, 100, 107, 116, 119, 124, 145, 153, 156, 160, 163, 182, 187, 189, 200.
Rolling Stone, March 23, 1995, Nov. 16, 2006.
San Antonio Express-News, May 29, 2006.
San Francisco Chronicle, May 1, 2006.
San Francisco Chronicle podcast, Jan. 16, 2006.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Oct. 27, 2005, May 6, 2006.
“60 Minutes,” YouTube.com
Spolin, Viola, “Improvisation for the Theatre: 3E,” Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL, 1999, pp. xiii, xiv.
Tampa Bay Times, May 16, 2012.
“The Love of Stephen Colbert’s Life,” Oprah’s Next Chapter, http://www.oprah.com/own-oprahs-next-chapter/The-Love-of-Stephen-Colberts-Life-Video.
Ibid, p. 90.
Thomas, Mike, “The Second City Unscripted: Revolution and Revelation at the World-Famous Comedy Theater,” Villard, New York, 2009, p. xi, 200, 201, 208, 209, 210.
“Truthiness Voted Word of the Year,” American Dialect Society, http//www.americandialect.org/Words_of_the_Year_2005.pdf
USA Today, April 7, 1999, May 4, 2005, Oct. 14, 2005, Oct. 31, 2005, Nov. 21, 2008.
Vanity Fair, October 2007.
Variety, Jan. 20, 2009.
Washington Post, May 4, 2006, Aug. 6, 2006; Sept. 29, 2010.
YouTube.com
Published by New Word City, Inc., 2014
www.NewWordCity.com
© Bruce Watson
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ISBN 978-1-61230-757-2