Monday, October 30, 2006

Not funny

When recently asked whether or not he was going to miss mocking GDub and his cronies in the White House, Jon Stewart had a simple answer.

"No."

This may come as something of a surprise to a large number of people, especially given that Stewart has practically been able to reinvent his entire career by sitting behind The Daily Show newsdesk while doing exactly what he is saying he won't miss. I, on the other hand, tend to believe him, and the reasons why are very simple.

First off, every comedian likes to get new material. There's something about comedy that must remain vibrant, otherwise it dies. For example, the first three or four times you hear a good joke, you laugh. After twenty times, you need to move on, because it isn't as funny anymore. Consequently, eventually all the material possible about GDub and VeepCheney will be exhausted, and everything else will just be rehashing the same old standards. Some people think this has already happened.

Secondly, as incompetent and/or evil as they may be, nobody really wants to spend all of their time making fun of those that we're supposed to look up to. Sure, point out a failing here and there. Laugh at their misusage of the language. But, when one does that day after day after day, without fail, one almost has to start wondering if perhaps the joke isn't being played on the comedian instead. After all, nobody with that well-polished of a public relations department should be that open to being attacked for the things that they do or say. And yet, almost every day there's a new Bushism, or Snowism, or image of Cheney grilling kittens that comedians worldwide can attack.

Finally, Stewart knows what will happen to the show if there isn't a fairly regular change of hands for the seat of power. It's the same thing that will happen to this country (and, again, some are saying it's already too late). There will be moral degradation, and the overall malaise that will linger in everyone will make the telling of jokes impossible. Eventually, the only comedians that will be socially acceptable will be Carrot Top and Sinbad.

And, no matter how you look at it, that's just not funny.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice Blog...
:-)