Political Satire and Postmodern Irony in the

Age of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart

L I S A C O L L E T TA

ATIRE IS ONE OF THE MOST CAPACIOUS AND MOST MISUNDERSTOOD

literary terms. This may be because it is applied broadly to any

art formin any mediathat mocks or sniggers at convention;
or it may be that its humor rests on irony, which is a term that is even
more misused and misunderstood than the term satire. We have Alanis
Morissette to thank for most people thinking that rain on your wedding day is ironic, and sports reporters, who claim that it is ironic
when basketball players are also good golfers, do not help much either.
Ironically, though, much of the humor in popular culture is ironic,
but it is the postmodern irony of cynical knowingness and self-referentiality. Traditionally, irony has been a means to expose the space
between what is real and what is appearance, or what is meant and what
is said, revealing incoherence and transcending it through the aesthetic
form and meaning of a work of art. The irony of postmodernity denies
a difference between what is real and what is appearance and even
embraces incoherence and lack of meaning. It claims our interpretations of reality impose form and meaning on life: reality is constructed
rather than perceived or understood, and it does not exist separately
from its construction. Awareness of constructions has replaced awareness of meaning, and postmodern irony replaces unity with multiplicity, meaning with appearance of meaning, depth with surface. A
postmodern audience is made conscious of the constructed nature of
meaning and of its own participation in the appearance of things,
which results in the self-referential irony that characterizes most of our
cultural output today. Television, the dominant media of postmodern
The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 42, No. 5, 2009
r 2009, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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culture, continually refers to itself, quoting other constructed forms in

the form of pastiche. Postmodernity is characterized by pastiche, and,
according to Frederic Jameson, pastiche is a different form of imitation
than parody, which is often satiric. Pastiche is a neutral practice of
mimicry, without satirical impulse, without laughter (114). Often,
television programs also ironically acknowledge that life they represent
is not real, that watching television is a waste of time, and that it can
lead to a dangerously oversimplified view of the world. Despite the fact
that television frequently mocks itself and its power in our lives, itat
the same timekeeps us entertained by the mockery and delivers us
up to advertisers as enthusiastic consumers of products. The audiences
sophistication, or awareness of its status as both consumers and products sold to advertisers, matters very little because televisions spectacular assault on value, whether in the form of rant debate shows,
reality programming, or edgy situation comedy, plays as easily into
the hands of a sophisticated viewer who is critical of [its] putative
values as it does into the hands of the unsophisticated viewer who
accepts the imagery without question (Camfield 26). Postmodern
irony does not aim to get us to turn off the television, but to entertain
us into staying tuned and to be consumers of all cultural product, all
the while reassuring us with a wink that we are in on and somehow
superior to the giant joke that is being played on us.
The writers of the The Simpsons are some of the best tellers of this
particular joke. The Simpsons are the television familyeach episode
begins with them elbowing for a position in front of the TV, and the
manipulation of Bart and Homer into wanting something they have
seen on TVusually with disastrous resultsis a major plot device
throughout the series and the point of much of the shows ironic satire.
But to what end? According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average
American watches more than four hours of TV each day (or 28 hours/
week, or two months of nonstop TV-watching per year). In a sixty-fiveyear life, that person will have spent nine years of his life watching
television (qtd. in Dettmar 87). This, despite the fact that most
people feel watching television is a waste of time and keeps them from
doing other things. The creators of The Simpsons ridicule the seductive
and manipulative power of television with both the jaded cynicism of
Krusty the Klown and the naive gullibility of Homer. The shows
denigration of its own medium keeps us watching because it is extremely funny, and because our desires, the best and the worst, are

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mediated by television in the same way the characters desires are; we

are seduced by the medium and comforted by the idea that we are
aware of the seduction. Television! as Homer Simpson put in it one of
his moments of ironic clarity, is a Teacher, mother, secret lover (The
Simpsons Treehouse of Horror V). This is as true for us as it is for
Homer, but the self-reflexive irony allows us to feel superior to him.
This kind of irony is especially evident in the social and political
satire we see on television, but in a more subtle form it has come to be
the defining aesthetic of politics itself. Politicians perform their roles
with a smirk and wink aimed at a television audience, knowing that
saying something is true is the equivalent of its being true, that appearing is the same as being. They play a role we all expect them to
play while they act in their own self-interest, and the media reports on
the competing roles of the performers as if they were the storynot
the effects of their political self-interests. Using the narrative and imagery of the most cliched of television shows, we have had a president,
as satirist Stephen Colbert asserts, who stands for things, not only for
things, but on things: things like aircraft carriers and rubble and
recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message: that no
matter what happens to America, she will always reboundwith the
most powerfully staged photo ops in the world (White House Correspondents Dinner).
When political activity is reduced to a photo op and staged like a
television show, it becomes part of the same imaginary, unreal discourse
that television itself is, with, unfortunately, very real consequences.
However, the staged quality of postmodern politics suggests that it
really does not matter who is in power, because the opposition is just as
fake as the party in power. It argues that the choice is really between
fakes, which is no choice at all, and that only the very nave would
think that they can really affect change. In this context, the ironic,
sophisticated voter is encouraged to let the powerful rule, because the
powerful always rule or risk seeming hopelessly gullible (Wilkie 609).
As Rob Wilkie has noted, this logic leads to a cynical lack of engagement and a stifling of real and meaningful debate; it is simply another
way of enunciating democracy itself with a wink and a nod (609). Just
as we can feel superior in our ironic awareness of the unreality of
television, as we watch four hours of it a day, we can also feel savvy in
knowing that true democracy is always ironic, as our democratic
freedoms and those of others are eroded (609).

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My goal here is not to analyze postmodern politics, per se, but rather
to examine the role of satire, particularly television satire, in contemporary political humor. Can the social and political satire of television
shows such as The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and The Simpsons really
have any kind of efficacy beyond that of mere entertainment? Or does
the smirky, self-referential irony that makes all of these shows so popular actually undermine social and political engagement, creating a
disengaged viewer who prefers outsider irreverence to thoughtful satiric critique and ironic, passive democracy to discerning, engaged
politics?
In a 1946 article for Life magazine, the curmudgeonly trenchant
Evelyn Waugh stated,
Satire is a matter of period. It flourishes in a stable society and
presupposes homogeneous moral standardsthe early Roman Empire and eighteenth-century Europe. It is aimed at inconsistency and
hypocrisy. It exposes polite cruelty and folly by exposing them. It
seeks to produce shame. All this has no place in the Century of the
Common Man where vice no longer pays lip service to virtue. The
artists only service to the disintegrated society of today is to create
little independent systems of order of his own. (304)
Leaving aside Waughs distaste for the Common Man and the complex of associations he meant by this term, his observations about satire
are quite true. Not only does satire depend upon a stable set of values
from which to judge behavior, it also rests upon engagement, the
satirist and the viewer need to feel that something could possibly
change. If this is not the case, then the satire exists only to further
itself; it becomes self-referential, independent systems of order,
breaking down faith in the efficacy of any kind of activity other than
criticism.
Satire is defined as a form that holds up human vices and follies to
ridicule and scorn. It is an attack on or criticism of any stupidity or
vice in the form of scathing humor, and it is also a critique of what an
author sees as dangerous religious, political, moral, or social standards (Cuddon 202). M. H. Abrams notes that satire differs from the
comic in that comedy evokes laughter mainly as an end in itself, while
satire derides; that is, it uses laughter as a weapon, and against a butt
existing outside the work itself (166). Although it dates back to
Greek and Roman times, satire became especially popular during the

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Enlightenment, that Age of Reason in which it was believed that folly

could be corrected by using art as a mirror to reflect society. Trusting in
the reason and rationality of humans, artists felt that when people saw
their faults magnified in a distorted reflection, they could see the ridiculousness of their own behavior and then correct that tendency in
themselves. In both Horatian satire, which is somewhat genial and
mocks imperfection while finding amusement in it, and Juvenalian
satire, which is characterized by invective, insult, and withering attacks, the primary objective is to improve human beings and our
institutions. Satire is therefore a hopeful genre; it suggests progress and
the betterment of society, and it suggests that the arts can light the
path of progress.
However, satire achieves its aim by shocking its audience. As George
Meredith described in An Essay on Comedy, satire is like the beak of
the vulture, and he calls the laughter of satire a blow in the back or in
the face (14, 47). In order to shock its audience out of complacency
and sentimentality (which is often the companion of convention and
hypocrisy) satire is usually aggressive and most often subversive toward
power structures and the status quo. In itself, satire is not a comic
deviceit is a critiquebut it uses comedic devices such as parody,
exaggeration, slapstick, etc. to get its laughs. Humor is satires art and
its power and what saves it from the banality of mere editorial, but its
wit, as Meredith noted, is warlike (7).
Most importantly, though, satires efficacy relies on the ability of
the audience to recognize the irony that is at the heart of its humor.
Injustice, vice, or polite cruelty have to be recognized as the object of
the attack, and they need to be judged against a better moral standard.
The satirist may use irony with vicious anger, but it always has a
deeper meaning and a social signification beyond that of the humor. If
the irony is missed, or the better moral standard is also ironically
presented as just another construction, then satire is no longer an
effective social critique and may even be misunderstood as an example
of the very thing it sets out to critique. Any English professor who has
ever taught Jonathan Swifts A Modest Proposal to a group of horrified
freshmen is familiar with this experience. A surprisingly large number
of students miss the irony completely and believe that Swift is earnestly proposing that the Irish sell their babies as the newest tasty
delicacy to the devouring English public, thereby alleviating starving
Irish parents of another mouth to feed and providing them with a bit

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of income, while creating a new market niche to sate the ever increasing English appetite. On students first reading of the Proposal,
Swift is most often seen as immoral and perversenot the English
policies in Ireland.
Granted, there are numerous reasons why students might miss the
irony, and therefore the object of Swifts attack; an ignorance of the
historical facts might be one, but another might be that in the current
social and political landscape moral oppositions become less about
analysis and more about perception and differing opinions. Because an
opinion cannot be proved right or wrong, the focus is on the person
who holds the opinion. Additionally, Swifts comic device, an argument
reductio ad absurdum, is not that uncommon a sight nowadays in our
mainstream media. The comic device of exaggeration comes from the
traditional rhetorical strategy of showing how an opponents argument
can lead to absurd conclusions if taken far enough. This is the stock-intrade of Stephen Colbert, whose Colbert Report is a symphony of absurdity as he parodies Bill OReillys anti-intellectual rant on Fox
Television. For example, taking OReillys cynical pitting of ordinary
Americans against elitist intellectuals to its ridiculous conclusions,
Colbert gives viewers his opinion about books:
Im sorry, Ive never been a fan of books. I dont trust them. They re
all fact, no heart. I mean, theyre elitist, telling us what is isnt true,
or what did or didnt happen. Whos Britannica to tell me the
Panama Canal was built in 1914? If I want to say it was built in
1941, thats my right as an American! Im with the president, let
history decide what did or did not happen.
(White House)1
The unsettling problem is that OReilly himself uses this kind of
rhetorical strategy in his noncomedic news show, blurring the distinction between absurdity and politics as usual.
The point of Colberts humor is to mock this fuzzy state of affairs,
often inhabiting his OReilly persona so perfectly that, for left-leaning
viewers, he can be difficult to watch at times. Colberts satire takes
conservative positions and spins them out to their most ludicrous
extreme, submitting every topic to the highly charged elitist thinker
vs. common-sense American debate OReilly popularized on Fox.
For example, Colberts comment on school redistricting in Omaha,

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Nebraska, which was described by some as being racially motivated,

turns logic and ethics on its head:
All the Nebraska legislators are saying is, We dont see whites,
blacks, and Hispanics. We see children, who would be a lot happier
sticking with their own kind. These districts will still be equal, but
separate. That takes courage. Being the first legislature to re-divide
races in the face of opposition could well make them the Rosa Parks
of re-segregation.
(Colbert Report, episode 82)
The sophisticated viewer recognizes the parody of the self-proclaimed
objectivity of Bill OReillys No Spin Zone, which is not objective
and is all spin and does not refute with facts but with emotional, anecdotal language that appears to appeal to common sense and not identity politics. Colbert ironically spins a potentially racist move as
courageous and caring, likening an act of injustice to the truly courageous action of civil rights activist Rosa Parks. However, looking at
transcripts from The OReilly Factor complicates this technique. In an
interview with Representative Silverstre Reyes (D-Texas) about putting
US troops on the border with Mexico to deter drug trafficking, it is very
difficult to see any difference between Colberts satire and OReillys
news show. Reyes argues that deploying US troops to patrol both the
northern and southern boarders (obliquely addressing the racist undertones of OReillys argument) is a misuse of the armed forces and too
expensive, but before he can finish he gets cut off by OReilly, who states:
But Ill tell you what. Ive talked to the commanders, and they tell me,
Look, you deploy us down there, we stop the drug traffic dead. Wed
save lives because Mexican wetbacks, whatever you want to call them,
the coyotestheyre not going to do what theyre doing now, so
people arent going to die in the desert. So we save lives, all right, and
we seal it down and make it 100 times harder to come across.
(The OReilly Factor)
The rhetorical strategies of OReilly and Colbert are identical: reference
to anecdote not facts, appeals to emotion rather than reason, use of
everyman language and syntax (including a racial slur), and the
spinning of a probably racist agenda into something that appears
caring and courageous (if we do this Mexicans wont die). Because

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OReillys argument is reductio ad absurdum, and he is such a parody of

himself, it is easy to see why some might have a difficult time identifying the differences between Colberts satire and OReillys political
ranting. The only clues that we are not watching Comedy Central are
visual, and OReilly would be hilarious if he were not so dangerous.
The distinction between parody and politics is so erased that even the
guests on Colberts show often do not get it, and the interview segments
on The Colbert Report make for some of the most cringe-making television around. In the largest sense, his satire is against the television
medium itself and what it does to the state of political debate on
television, and he submits both liberal and conservative guests to
the same ironic treatment. As a result, his irony, like all good postmodern irony, can be seen as confirming whatever angle of vision a
viewer brings to the show at the same time it confirms the viewers
cynical reading of all political argument. This raises questions about
whether or not his satire is actually efficacious, as the viewer does not
have any better standards against which to judge this kind of debate.
I am not interested in reading against the grain here, nor am I suggesting that his satire is not committedI do think Colbert is attacking
the conservative agendabut it does seem that the irony which is necessary for satire to succeed is undercut by the very form of television
itself. Irony is not merely a quality belonging to the texts, or the creators
of those texts. It requires a reader, and as Stanley Fish argues, Irony . . .
is neither the property of works, nor the creation of an unfettered
imagination, but a way of reading, an interpretative strategy that produces the object of its attention, an object that will be perspicuous to
those who share or have been persuaded to share the same strategy (91).
In other words, if one agrees with him politically, she will get the satire,
if one disagrees with him politically, she wont. Or, as I have noticed
with so many students when we examine Colberts comedy in my humor
courses, viewers will find his brashness funny but miss the object of his
attack entirely. Awareness of irony is essential to understanding satires
point, but as Kevin Dettmar claims, Satire is only a step from farce, and
while satire might have some political potential, farce primarily reinforces prejudices rather than challenges them (104).
Colberts challenge to cant and spin makes him appealing, and my
students, many of whom have conservative political orientations, respond favorably to his in-your-face irreverence (perhaps the same reason
viewers like Bill OReilly) and laugh at his parody of the news.

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However, after examining his use of irony and parody and locating the
butt of his jokes, a number of students responded with something no
comedian wants to hear: Thats not funny. Part of this might be that
they miss the irony, as Fish argues, and part of it might be the mechanics of joke work itself, which, as Freud theorized, requires an
emotional distancing from the object of the humorous attack and an
identification with the teller of the joke. These ideas suggest that satire
might not be all that useful as a political strategy and that humor and
satire might not work very well to persuade a viewer to share an
interpretive strategy, to use Fishs terms. Televisions goal is to entertain, and in comedy shows it is to make people laugh, but people
cannot be counted on to laugh at the right things.
A case in point is the reaction Colbert received from his audience at
the White House Correspondents Dinner in April 2006. Although
CSPAN covered it, the correspondents dinner is not an event meant for
broadcast. Divorced from the spectacular intention of television, Colberts scathing humor had a very different purpose, and his talk was
met with only a few uncomfortable laughs from a mostly stunned
audience (so we can assume that at least some people got the irony).
Again, the object of his attack was the mediahis very audience, not
disinterested television viewersand the way they have made themselves a willing tool of partisan political strategy by being more interested in entertainment and ratings than in critical analysis of
policies and events. Though it got a lot of attention on the internet, his
performance did not get much coverage by the mainstream press,
which is not surprising since he attacked them mercilessly for their
complicity in the misinformation of the American public:
Over the last five years you people were so goodover tax cuts,
intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didnt
want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those
were the good times, as far as we knew. But listen, lets review the
rules. Heres how it works: the president makes the decisions. Hes
the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you
people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce,
type. Just put em through your spell check and go home. Get to
know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel
you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the
intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the
administration. You knowfiction!
(Colbert, White House)

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Other news programs and the networks gave much more coverage to
the Bush impersonator, with whom the president good-naturedly
played along, showing that he is after all a regular guy with a sense
of humor. Colberts attack was so disorienting for a number of
people, including the president, who appeared completely bewildered,
because on the surface it did not sound all that different from what
is heard nightly on news programming: As excited as I am to
be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by
the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of
Fox News. The comedy was comfortably familiar at first, but as the
satire became more pointed, the audience became visibly ill at
ease. Colberts satire here is much less ambivalent than it is on his
television show. On television, comedy and the pleasure of the critique
is the goal and audience laughs are essential, so the irony can be read
from whatever angle the viewer brings to it. At the correspondents
dinner, Colbert, much like Jonathan Swift, gives us the moral standard
against which we are to judge the actions of the pressthe fictional,
intrepid reporter who stands up to the administration. Here, he is
more like Swift, who at the end of A Modest Proposal, advanced rational
policies that would actually address the poverty and famine in Ireland;
they, like the fictional Washington reporter, are presented ironically,
absurd in the face of such a reasonable and ethical proposal as
cannibalism.
Even on his show, Colberts satire is aimed at the very aspects of
contemporary culture that undermine the efficacy of traditional forms
of humorous attack, that is, the parody, pastiche, and depthlessness,
and therefore the lack of seriousness, of all public discourse.2 Viewers
might get this and laugh at it, or they may only get and laugh at the
parody and farce, but, primarily, the attack is against television itself,
because it is the primary source of information for most Americans, and
television turns everything into product and everyone into consumers
of its product. As Gregg Camfield has argued, Television is, on the
whole, nihilistic (26). Its task is to deliver an audience to advertisers
and to support advertisers needs to sell us illusions of redemption
packaged as products (Camfield 26). Product goes beyond happy
meals and lite beer; it is a whole complex of desire that undermines
the ability of individuals to be agents of their own desires and emotions. Television creates a need and then sells us something to fill
the need, according human value only to those who have; however,

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appearing to have soon becomes as important as having. As Guy

Debord explains in The Society of the Spectacle:
An earlier stage in the economys domination of social life entailed
an obvious downgrading of being into having that left its stamp on
all human endeavor. The present stage, in which social life is completely taken over by the accumulated products of the economy,
entails a generalized shift from having to appearing: all effective
having must now derive both its immediate prestige and its ultimate raison detre from appearances. (16)
The postmodern world is the world of surface and appearance, and
television mediates this world for us. Television programs self-reflexively cite the situations and gestures of other television programs,
undermining the seriousness of meaning in contemporary culture,
turning everything into pastiche. Savvy television shows like The
Simpsons, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report satirize the blurring of
the real and the virtual, the political and the parodic, but they do it
within the same self-reflexive, mediated space of television, and therefore, like all pastiche, the seriousness of their critique is undermined. If
the satire is pleasing to audiences, it becomes another mediated gesture
to be quoted and referenced. The mainstream media pays close attention to the fake news of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, and politicians clamor to get on their shows, and, while this makes for
brilliantly funny comedy, it trivializes the seriousness of both the politicians and the satire, turning everything into one big meta-joke.
With the spectacular power of television, the power and efficacy of
traditional satire is diminished because meaningful political and moral
oppositions collapse and are replaced by spectacle and competing
opinions. An opinion is real merely because it is held by individuals,
and therefore it is beyond analysis. OReilly often ends a debate with
the seemingly reasonable conclusion that he and his guest will just
have to agree to disagree. This is usually after he is attacked their
patriotism and or credibility; in other words, let us just agree that Im
a patriot and you are a traitor and I am speaking the plain truth and
you are liberal elitist. As stated above, competing opinions cannot be
true or false; they just are, and this leaves audiences to judge even the
most bizarre statements not on their merits or on their truthfulness but
as just one of many differing opinions, based on their own set of facts
(an opinion held strongly enough has the same effect in the world as a

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fact). If everything can be both true and false at the same time, then
moral and political oppositions become increasingly difficult to judge
and evaluate, and the only valid analysis can be that of subjective
intention (Wilkie 608). The new questions that dictate viewer analysis
are now: how genuinely do politicians seem to believe their statements?; or, does he seem like he is honest?; or, is he someone I would
like to have a beer with? Referring to Jonathan Swift again, with the
blurring of the lines between fact and opinion, knowledge and belief,
politics and entertainment, it is not so surprising that students could
see Jonathan Swift as voicing merely another point of view, albeit
an unpleasant one. They may reject his idea, but their rejection is based
on their gut, not on an understanding of historical facts, nor on a
close and critical reading of the article, nor the meaning of its form and
its content.
With this logic, the reality of globing warming can be diminished
as an opinion if argued against earnestly by oil company scientists,
and creationism is as valid a science as evolution if they are both merely
opinions based on their own set of facts, and the phrase Happy Holidays can be read as an assault on the very foundations of Christianity.
Stephen Colbert mocks this particular type of discourse as truthiness,
a brilliant satiric phrase that describes the appeals to emotion, or the
gut, that have replaced a more critical discourse. The power of
truthiness rests in affirming appearance and opinion over what reality
itself will support. He coined the term in response to the absurd
nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, which was defended by the president because he knew her heart. Colbert adds,
And what about Iraq? If you think about it, maybe there are few
missing pieces to the rationale for war, but doesnt taking Saddam out
feel like the right thing here? (CBS News). On The Colbert Report, he
claims, I speak straight from the gut, OK? I give people the truth,
unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the No Fact Zone (Colbert,
White House).
The media sees its role as merely reporting opposing opinions, and
the facts supporting those opinions are no longer the object of investigative or interpretative analysis: Fox Newss slogan is, We report,
you decide. This seems to suggest, first, that they are actually reporting information; and, second, that audiences can actually decide
anything within a reality that is so heavily mediated. Colbert satirizes
the values of a culture in which being a consumer and a product of

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commercial television appears like real agency and autonomy. He

launched his first show with this direct address to viewers:
This show is not about me. No, this program is dedicated to you,
the heroes. And who are the heroes? The people who watch this
show, average hard-working Americans. Youre not the elites. Youre
not the country club crowd. I know for a fact my country club
would never let you in. Youre the folks who say something has to be
done. And youre doing something. Youre watching TV.
(Colbert Report, episode 1)
This is deeply serious satire, but it also illustrates the inherent problem
of televised social and political satireif it were truly effective satire it
would make audiences turn off their television sets. The best satire
attacks the mediated reality of television itself and its manipulation of a
consumer audience that confuses passive consumption with agency and
action. But, as Rob Wilkie argues, the troubling effect of most political
satire on television is that it entertainingly safeguards the current social
relations by the fuzzying of politics . . . its engagement is directed at
legitimizing the interests of big business and the strategies of nonengagement (606). This is further complicated by the fact that the real
news media is more than ever desirous of being entertaining and taking
its cues from Comedy Central. The fuzzying of politics and entertainment is the outright goal of most news organizations, and the way in
which they engage issues, such as the wars in Iraq and the Middle East,
abortion, and the environment, moves further away from producing
knowledge [and] aims at producing cynical subjects out of citizens and
evacuating the public zone of any serious debate and discussion over
collective priorities and needs (Wilkie 606).
With news shows like The OReilly Factor and Hannity and Colmes,
what is a satirist to do? If the object of the attack is more absurd than
the comedy itself, how can satire make its point? One thing they can
do is appear on a real news show and ask journalists to do their job,
and this is precisely what Jon Stewart did during his now famous
performance on Crossfire. The satire on The Daily Show is broader than
on The Colbert Report, and where Colbert parodies a type of personality,
Stewart mocks the television news media in general. The news segments on his show have names like The Road to Washington (or as I
like to call it, I am Ed Helms), reported, of course, by correspondent
Ed Helms, and they mock the fatuousness of television news readers

Political Satire and Postmodern Irony

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and their reporting. In a segment called Ashamed to Be Fake News,

Rob Corrdry investigates the real March 2004 news story about the
White House surreptitiously producing news segments that reported
favorably on a number of the administrations policy objectives, such as
regime change in Iraq and Medicare reform, and planting them in
the mainstream media. The segments, using actors and featuring interviews with senior administration officials in which questions are
scripted and answers rehearsed, were broadcast in some of nations
largest television markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago,
Dallas, and Atlanta. Stewart reported on the controversy this way:
Jon: This is really a shocking story. Not only did the Whitehouse
pretend that these were news packages, they went so far to hire actors
to play journalists.
Rob: I know, Jon. In my 25 years of The Daily Show Senior Media
Analyst I have never seen anything like this. Its more than a little
bit embarrassing.
Jon: In your mind, you feel youre embarrassed for this Whitehouse?
Rob: No, Jon, Im embarrassed for US. Were the ones who are supposed to know the fake news, I saw that Medicare piece and they are
kicking our ASS! They created a whole new category of fake news, a
hybridINFOganda! Yeah, well never be able to keep up.
Jon: Rob, did you find any fault with what the Whitehouse did?
Rob: Well, there was one thing, Jon. Im kinda picking a knit here,
but calling their fake news reporter Karen Ryan? I know what theyre
trying to do with the name, its blue collar, but not dirt-poory. Im
sure it tested well, but the truth is, real reporters have fake, crazy
names. Like Wolf, and Gupta, and Van Susterenenenn . . . .
Jon: Thats it, Rob? Thats your only objection? Karen Ryans name?
Rob: Would it kill them to show us what she looked like? I mean,
sounds pretty hot . . .
Jon: Rob, shes fake . . .
Rob: HEY! Fake or real, its all the same in the dark! BANG! For The
Daily Show, this is Rob Coractually this is Dr. Roberto Van Corddrensesen . . . . (The Daily Show)
The satire here points in so many directions that it is hard to know
what to laugh at. The White Houses cynical manipulation of the news
is almost minor compared to the complacency of a news media that is
so preoccupied with ratings and image that it was not vigilant enough
to investigate the source of the fake news segments. The blurring of
fake/real/fakea fake news show commenting on a real news story
about fake journalistsis so extreme that it is impossible for a viewer

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to have any reaction except cynical laughter at the fakeness of all

information. But the laughter is ultimately at the viewers expense; we
are made aware of our inability to distinguish between infoganda and
knowledge, laugh at it, and keep watching.
Stewart has always seen shows like Crossfire as the most insidious
form of infoganda, because they are complicit in the strategies of nonengagement that anesthetize viewers and substitute spectacle for critical enquiry. His appearance on that show seems to suggest his
awareness of the limits of satire to affect change, andthough he
remains funnyhe abandons his cynical stance to plead with Tucker
Carlson and Paul Begala to be responsible journalists:
Stewart: . . . I wanted to come here today and say . . . Stop, stop,
stop, stop hurting America . . . and come work for us, because we, as
the people . . .
Carlson: How do you pay?
Stewart: The peoplenot well.
Begala: Better than CNN, Im sure.
Stewart: But you can sleep at night.
Stewart: See, the thing is, we need your help. Right now, youre
helping the politicians and the corporations. And were left out
there to mow our lawns.
Begala: By beating up on them? [the politicians] You just said were
too rough on them when they make mistakes.
Stewart: No, no, no, youre not too rough on them. Youre part of
their strategies. You are partisan, what do you call it, hacks.
(Crossfire)
It is interesting that both Carlson and Begala felt the need to be funny
and to beat Stewart at his own game, which is the very problem he is
trying to get them to confront; they confuse their own work with
entertainment. Later in the interview, Carlson chastises Stewart for
only asking his guests softball questions:
Carlson: Its nice to get them to try and answer the question. And in
order to do that, we try and ask them pointed questions. I want to
contrast our questions with some questions you asked John Kerry
recently.
Stewart: If you want to compare your show to a comedy show, youre
more than welcome to.
Carlson: No, no, no, heres the point.
Stewart: If thats your goal.
Carlson: Its not.

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Stewart: I wouldnt aim for us. Id aim for Seinfeld. Thats a very
good show.
The blurring of entertainment and news is something satirized daily on
Stewarts show, but on Crossfire Stewart unambiguously and without
irony criticizes the media for abdicating their responsibility. Throughout the interview Carlson baits Stewart and accuses him of not asking
tough questions of his gueststhe absurdity of the accusation is lost
on Carlson, though, even when Stewart replies, I did not realize that
news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity
. . . . You are on CNN. The show that leads into mine is puppets
making crank phone calls.
Of course, he does realize that the news media look to entertainment
television for their cues, and that is the source of his ire. What is
interesting is that Stewart feels the need to abandon satire to forcefully
make his comment about journalists doing theater instead of trying
to offer reasoned, rational analysis of issues that have very real consequences for millions of people. What is even more interesting is that
Crossfire was cancelled soon after Stewarts appearance on the program,
and Tucker Carlson was fired from CNN.3 According to the New York
Times, the president of CNN, Jonathan Klein, specifically cited the
criticism that Jon Stewart leveled at the show during his appearance.
He agreed that partisan rant shows were hurting America, and stated,
I agree whole-heartedly with Jon Stewarts overall premise (Carter).
However, we cannot assume that CNN necessarily did anything ethical
or laudatoryI doubt the show would have been cancelled if the
ratings were strongbut there is something hopeful in the fact that
Jon Stewarts own ratings clout in a medium that he attacks regularly
might have been enough to tip the scale.
The fact that there was a very real effect to Stewarts nonironic
critique is perhaps a comment on the ambivalence of the satiric mode
and suggests the limits of its efficacy. Freud said of jokes and laughter,
We are not in a position to distinguish by our feeling what part of the
pleasure arises from the sources of their technique and what part from
those of their purpose. Thus, strictly speaking, we do not know what
we are laughing at (121). If we do not always know what we are
laughing at, it may be difficult for a satirist to marshal the energy of
laughter for a specific purpose. Stewarts appearance on Crossfire had an
earnestness to it that his humor does not have, and, indeed, could not

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Lisa Colletta

have, or it would not be funny. However, it is his humor that makes

him popular and gives him enough importance to be taken seriously,
and this is profoundly important. One of the pleasures of humor and
laughter is that it has no moral valence. Humor is an openness to
different interpretations of meaning and value, and, as Freud argued, it
is a time-out from the demands of rationality. Satire is an attack on vice
that exploits comedic strategies; it partakes of both the pleasures of
humor and the moral confidence of social critique, so it is necessarily
ambivalent. Therefore, its efficacy as an agent of immediate change
cannot be guaranteed, if indeed it ever was, but its ambivalence might
ultimately be its most powerful attribute. Because we live in a world
where unchallenged adherence to moral certainties is deadly, the need
for citizens to be thoughtfully and critically engaged has taken on a
new urgency. Instead, though, our primary source of information is a
medium in which issues are reduced to their simplest outlines and
sound bytes and sold as product in a fight for ratings. Satire, through
its irony, complicates and problematizes the way we see things, and
therefore it can challenge viewers in unexpected ways. As a result, the
informed satire of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert can, arguably, be
considered some of the most bracing and engaging commentary on the
television landscape.
Though there is good evidence to suggest that postmodernity has
killed irony and satire, I am not willing to say that our culture is no
better for having satirists around. All theories of humor essentially
come down to incongruity, the sudden recognition that the world is
not what we expected it to be. Awareness of incongruityif it is
viewed with enough distancecreates laughter, and as Freud suggested, moves us into an appreciation of aesthetic form rather than to
action, which is, of course, the primary criticism of satires efficacy.
However, in a state of suspended activity, we may be forced to see
things in a new way and to acknowledge alternative possibilities. This,
in turn, could make viewers more tolerant of those who approach
things differently, and thus inspire them to action that they have not
yet considered.

Notes
1. Stephen Colbert, White House Correspondents Association Dinner, April 29, 2006. He also
used this bit in his segment on truthiness (episode 45, January 31, 2006).

Political Satire and Postmodern Irony

873

2. By lack seriousness, I do not mean that nothing can be funny. Humor, as we are well aware, can
be deadly serious and profoundly important.
3. Tucker Carlsons latest venture is a turn on ABCs reality show, Dancing With the Stars. This is
so rife with irony, I do not really know where to begin.

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Lisa Colletta is Associate Professor of English at the American University of
Rome. Her research interests include the twentieth-century British novel,
humor studies, travel literature and literary history. She is the author of Dark
Humor and Social Satire in the Modern British Novel, editor of Kathleen and
Christopher: Christopher Isherwoods Letters to his Mother, and co-editor of Wild
Colonial Girl: Essays on Edna OBrien. Her JPC article was funded by the
Babson College faculty research fund.