According to a study from Ohio State University, lots of conservatives seem to not understand the intrinsic, underlying joke of <i>The Colbert Report</i>.
www.huffingtonpost.com
i decided to look deeper into this and started reading the study myself
they used a single three-minute clip of the colbert report in which he interviews communist amy goodman:
it was difficult to track down the original clip because comedy central has purged it from youtube and no longer makes it available through their own website. from what i could gather, the clip is no longer available anywhere for streaming (excluding paid services).
i found a torrent of every colbert report episode and downloaded the one that has the clip.
then i clipped the clip out of the episode myself and uploaded it to catbox:
i will joke-explain each major colbert remark and skip over the minor quips like "yeah, to right and wrong" because there isn't much to say about them.
JOKE 1: Colbert calls Goodman a communist
The satire: Conservatives call everyone communists.
Why the satire doesn't work: Amy Goodman is actually a communist.
The result: Amy Goodman gets awkward and dodges the question.
JOKE 2: Colbert questions Goodman's claims about troops wanting to leave Iraq
The satire: Conservatives disregard any evidence that contradicts their views.
Why the satire doesn't work: Goodman did not provide scholarly evidence, but rather an unreliable anecdote from an activist.
The result: Amy Goodman pivots away from his joke skepticism, making her initial claims seem like they were actually bogus.
JOKE 3: Embedded journalism is actually good
The satire: Embedded journalism is obviously bad, not good.
Why the satire doesn't work: No one knows or cares what
embedded journalism is.
The result: This segment probably just flew over a lot of people's heads.
JOKE 4: Conscientious objector deserved to go to jail
The satire: Conservatives don't understand that law =/= morality.
*I think this is the one bit that I'd call proper satire.
...but the study seems to have actually cut the clip right before this bit. INTREDASTING.
i won't analyze the last 2 minutes since the study does not seem to have shown anything else to the study participants.
overall, it seems like the researchers picked the most "ambiguous" bit they could find, which is ambiguous because the communist being interviewed is a dishonest person so even joking disagreement makes her start acting shifty (this applies to 2 out of 3 parts of the clip). the third part is just kind of confusing for people who don't know what embedded journalism is.
i will say that he was actually "playing a character" in this bit -- having to disagree with a leftist rather than monologuing kind of forces him to commit to this. this is quite a bit different from "the vax scene," and also different from saying obviously inverted liberal talking points (or just straightforwardly liberal talking points, like the famous "reality has a liberal bias.")
when i was trying to find the clip online, i came across an article by a liberal who seemed to be somewhat distraught that goodman performed poorly despite the show being liberal and colbert as person actually agreeing with her on everything.
Amy Goodman, host of "Democracy Now!" , was on "The Colbert Report" (Comedy Central) recently. Of course it's on YouTube . She is truly a firebrand, as Colbert called her. I saw her speak at a Green Festival in DC last year and was moved, nearly to tears. She should be pres
www.antidotecollective.org
She is truly a firebrand, as Colbert called her. I saw her speak at a Green Festival in DC last year and was moved, nearly to tears. She should be president.
But watching this segment (and a recent morning show appearance — don't remember which one — filmed outside with an audience in which her approach was pretty much the same), I couldn't help but feel for her.
so is this libtard being le epic ruse'd like the dumb conservatives?
or could it be that amy goodman just sucks ass and got felted by arguments that were intentionally as fallacious as possible
