Does Colbert fly under the right-wingers' radar?

[Ladyhawk]

Preamble: All right, I told myself I didn't want to post in GD any more, let alone start a thread, but this is probably a fairly safe topic. If you really must flame me, I guess there isn't a damn thing I can do about it.

Tonight my right-wing mother said of Colbert and O'Reilly, "They're cute together."

???Cute???

Colbert didn't totally eviscerate O'Reilly, but he did hand him his ass a couple of times.

When I was compiling a Colbert video montage, I only showed my mother what I considered the "cute": harmless fluff like the Green Screen Challenge. When I showed her something I thought might make her mad--Colbert interviewing Rep. Gingri--she thought Gingri did a good job and that it was "cute."

Hmmm.

My take is that Colbert made Gingri look like a fool by out-winging him. Gingri said he was against gay marriage and gay adoption and Colbert asked, "Where do you come down on gays having driver's licenses?" Colbert's comments about not wanting his highways "all gayed up" were designed to simultaneously make people laugh and realize how silly it is to restrict the civil rights of gay people in one area while granting them in another.

My mother didn't get it. She most definitely isn't an "it getter."

How many right-wingers don't "get" Colbert? Even the ones that do understand he's making fun of them have a hard time using their little "hate-fests" because Colbert is slippery and under the facade, good-natured. My feeling is that his and Jon Stewart's comedy may be accomplishing something the rest of us couldn't do with a million demonstrations.

Edit: typos and clarity

[Counciltucky]

1. He must...

Not only O'Reilly, but also his appearance at the White House Correspondents' Gala.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. no offense to mom, but people stupid enough to hold RW views,

at least the ultra views, are incapable of seeing his humor for what it is.

[Ladyhawk]

7. My mother is willfully ignorant, not stupid.

My father was a little of both. His hatred ate him up in the end.

In all honesty, I have no idea how I ended up in a position to reject everything they ever forced down my throat.

Like Colbert's persona, my mother isn't a big fan of books because they're full of facts. I think she doesn't read in order to avoid cognitive dissonance. Luckily for both of us, I think she also stays away from me for the same reason. :shrug:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

8. there is a difference, to be sure.

please don't think I was insulting her with my gross generalization. That was not me intent.

[Ladyhawk]

16. It's okay. I've been angry enough with her...

...to call her all kinds of things in my mind. We've had a tough time during the past six years or so. I came out as an atheist and discovered my politics were completely different from my family's. We had some knock-down, drag-out arguments that weakened and nearly destroyed our relationship.

I still don't know what to do with myself. :(

[ChairmanAgnostic]

23. my paternal unit thinks goldwater was a commie.

my maternal unit has agreed with me on politics the last 3 years.

We have come to terms, in that we do not discuss politics anymore, he and I. Although he did watch last week's Bushista oration, and he called to tell me that the man is either on drugs like beta blockers, he is insane, he is religiously demented or a combination of all three. Then again, he thinks that invading Iraq was good, and that Iran deserves what it gets.

[Vexatious Ape]

3. I think your right.

Some humor does fly over their heads and between their legs. A lot of them don't even get Lettermen.

[Jesterstear]

4. Well...

Someone was certainly dumb enough to not realize he was a satirist when they invited him to speak at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.

[satya]

20. Good point! (and welcome to DU)!

:hi:

[Ladyhawk]

21. I certainly wondered about that...ROTFLMAO!

Jon Stewart said, "Apparently he was under the impression they hired him to do what he does every night."

[Robbien]

5. Limbaugh and oreilly have told the bushbots to hate Stewart

but they haven't told the bots to hate Colbert. So the Bushbots are all asea and have to figure it out for themselves.

As soon as Limbaugh and oreilly give them their marching orders on Colbert, the bots will all fall in line.

[Ladyhawk]

22. Hmmm...I wonder if Mom will still think Colbert is "cute," then?

She actually said, "I'm tired of people being mean."

That's really interesting considering she worships the likes of Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Robertson and Falwell.

The story of the boy who had been kidnapped for several years got to her a bit and she was really angry with those in the media who were blaming him for not escaping when he could. I brought up "Stockholm Syndrome," a term which I'm sure has been bandied across the airwaves. (I don't have TV. I get my Stewart and Colbert exclusively off the 'net.) This was BEFORE O'Reilly blamed the kid. I wonder if O'Reilly changed her mind? Or is she starting to see O'Reilly and his ilk for what they really are? I think that's too much to hope, but maybe something is starting here.

[Guaranteed]

6. Do you have a link to that Gringri interview?

I'd like to see that...I think I missed it.

[Ladyhawk]

11. I'll see if it's on Comedy Central. n/t

[Ladyhawk]

14. Here ya go:

http://tinyurl.com/2lz35v

It's on the top row on the right.

On edit: the second from the right is an outtake that never appeared...pretty damn funny stuff.

[Homer Wells]

9. Where Satire is appreciated by the liberal minded

it totally goes over the heads of most Conservatives.

When a Conservative attempts "Satire", what they generally produce is "Mocking Ridicule".

East is East, etc.

:shrug:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

10. Bull'O for one, Insannity, for another.

Actually, too many to count.
Coulter, Malkin, and Rush - satire is a foreign language to them. Kind of like french.

[malaise]

15. I have long been convinced that Colbert

would not have been invited to the WH Press Corps dinner last year if they really thought he was laughing at them nightly. I seriously think they thought he was one of them. That's why they were so pissed when he exposed them as hacks, whores and photo-op seekers. He skewered them on a BBQ pit.

[Ladyhawk]

24. I still have a hard time believing so many could be so stupid.

But he was invited. That's hard to explain away considering bubble boy's usual tastes.

[malaise]

29. I have no difficulty believing they are

so stupid.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

25. makes it even more sweet, no?

and the uber reaction of digging up a breathing corpse like Little to do the honors this year, my oh my.

[malaise]

30. Oh yes n/t

[GregD]

12. did you show her the one

where the pubbie could not recite the 10 commandments? Was that Gingri?

I'm not sure about your initial question, but I do find it astonishing how well he keeps his composure when facing those who he most detests. To be able to not only skewer Bush (a dim bulb if we ever saw one) at the Correspondents Dinner, but then to take on other guests like that guy last week who blames 9/11 on libs and finally to handle O'Really manno-y-manno - I am so freaking impressed.

[Ladyhawk]

18. I am in danger of violating one of my own rules:

Never ever hero-worship ANYONE. I am trying to keep my Stephen Colbert worship in perspective, but when he continually outdoes himself, it's pretty damn hard. :)

[GeneCosta]

13. Colbert, Stewart, and Olbermann

The true faces of liberal news are masters at using comedy to convey their thoughts. It's wonderful seeing O'Reilly try to crack a joke on Colbert's turf, and failing completely. Last night he was trying to portray himself as humerous with his snide remarks. Colbert's audience didn't buy it.

For your information, I said true faces of liberal news because too many conservatives think of Holmes when they hear liberal. Holmes is just Fox News's moderate lapdog.

All conservatives I've seen share the same style of rhetoric. Whether it's voter-fraud gal or loofah boy, they just make a comment about 'the evil liberal agenda' and move on.

[CrispyQ]

17. Colbert is such a master!

There was one time in the O'Reilly interview, that O'Reilly was taken aback. It was after O'Reilly stated that it was a mistake to come on the show. Then a moment or so later, Colbert asks Bill, "Who has the better parking space, Hannity or you?" Bill shook his head in a sort of disbelief, laughed & then answered the question, in what appeared to me, the most honest manner he had presented himself all night. We get it Bill. You're parking space is a sacred topic & you never expected little Steve Colbert to ask you something that really mattered to you.

Colbert is a master.

If it's any consolation, my mother wouldn't get him either. I doubt she would even go so far as to say his routines are cute.

[satya]

19. I think they may be laughing WITH him, instead of AT him. Like my RW folks did while watching

All in the Family back in the 70s ... they didn't really get it. They thought it was funny to hear Archie say on tee-vee the same bigoted things that they said in private.

[Richard Steele]

26. Yes. On a cellular level.

There was a study published last year, which I don't seem to
have bookmarked, which used real-time medical scans of brain
activity to show that many people who lean toward a "black/white"
authoritarin worldview (aka "Repubs") simply do not have the
ability to "get" the higher forms of humor.

Slapstick or fart jokes? They show the same brain activity as
anyone else when watching those.

But "satire" or "dramatic irony" don't register with them.
Their brains simply don't work that way. They recognize
that they are recieving external stimuli, but that's as
far as it goes. There is no DEEPER mental activity, no
genuine UNDERSTANDING happening in the RW mind.

If an average B*sh-voter watched an episode of Colbert
alongside an average German Shepard, and both were wired
for an EEG, the printouts would be pretty similar.

[Ladyhawk]

27. No way! Way?

Do you have a link? Seriously, this is very interesting.

At the WHC Dinner, Colbert came out of character just enough to make sure the bushbots knew they were being skewered. At least, that's the impression I get from watching it.

[Richard Steele]

28. WAY. (And no, I don't have a link (YET!) dammit!)

I've been Googling for it; no luck so far.
I probably need to step back and concentrate on something else,
until the right search-term combo pops into my head unbidden.

I'm fairly certain there's been more than one study that showed this;
the last one I read about used some language that implied (to me)
that it was actually a specifically-focused "follow up" to an
earlier, larger, more GENERAL study of human brain-activity patterns.

[Ladyhawk]

31. Very interesting.

Let me know if you find the link.

I was raised to think in black/white terms and I still have problems stepping away from that. Sometimes I wonder how I could have been born to such a family then end up changing so radically. I don't understand what makes me so different from family. It has caused a lot of pain, but I can't be someone I'm not.