The Gospel According to Stewart

Now, I don't want to give the impression that I would give Jon Stewart a blow job in a dark alley if I could pay him to be there, but christ do I love the Daily Show. Remember when I thought they'd go to war against Glenn Beck? Well, not having cable does leave me out of the loop in terms of how Fox News covers Stewart's attacks. Really, I only get to see their retorts on The Daily Show itself. Does that skew my perspective? Sure. But I've seen enough of both Fox News programming and The Daily Show to know whom I'm going to put more stock in.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
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Canadian link here. Have I mentioned before how much I hate region blocking? But anyways.

My favourite part of that clip is when Bernie Goldberg calls TDS's audience unsophisticated and Bill O'Reilly laughs. Of course you know, O'Reilly has done research and knows that TDS's audience is predominantly stoned slackers so he's right right to laugh at us, we don't know our heads from our rumpholes. Thus, it's easy for Goldberg, O'Reilly, and anyone on Fox News to right off Stewart's derision. Really, his words don't escape the pot clouds of dorm rooms or mom and dad's basement that they enter anyhow.

But then why do so many Fox commentators feel such a need to strike back at Stewart when he pulls off his stunts? I know he makes salacious and sensational slams against them, but if his voice matters so little, why do you feel the need to volley back? Is it because he hurts your feelings? Is this a matter of pride? Or, maybe, you just need to fill some time on your forever long shows? Beck can only cry for so long before an audience will think they're watching a soap.

I think the real issue here is that Fox News uses Stewart's attacks as just another example of the, GASP!, liberal enemy/media. A huge reason for Fox's success is its ability to simplify every social or political issue in America down to simple black and white. Things are either American wholesomeness, or they are unamerican blank-ism. And Stewart can easily be constructed as the buffoonish liberal media element. Even more so because he's so wonderfully terrible at reporting the news. Indeed, he is neither fair nor balanced. This may be of course due to the fact that TDS is a comedy program that has an obvious political and social agenda. But fuck, that sort of complexity doesn't play on Fox. On Fox, everything is either Black, or American.

So maybe Stewart only plays into their hands when he does this sort of thing, provide Fox commentators easy material with which to juvenilize the liberal media. It is easy to undercut Stewart's argumental ethos when you show outrageous clips of him doing comedic stunts. This guy doesn't know shit, he's a jester. But by the midpoint of the above clip, Stewart shifts into a southern preach, and a full blown call and response by the end, culminating with him and choir singing "go fuck yourself." Now Fox could try to use this clip to show TDS's complete disregard for anything holy, of its out and out buffoonishness, but maybe that's the point. Can Fox News self-righteously show the clip of Stewart dancing in front of a choir singing "go fuck yourself" and have its audience still see him as a threat? He's obviously just being a ham.

If as a stoned slacker I can see this, surely Fox will respect its sophisticated audience enough to know they will too.