Over at the Lost Angeles Times blogs, Andrew Malcolm notes:
Jumpin’ Jon Stewart, Batboy — was that seven minutes of jokes about Barack Obama on late-night TV? The Barack Obama. The One who’s president right now? President Obama jokes on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show”?
Jokes about Obama’s speaking style. Jokes about Obama’s mannerisms. Jokes about his answers. Jokes about his tedious but very thoughtful-looking pauses, despite the TelePrompter feeding him lines. And about the media’s predetermined adoration/critical complex (think Bill “The Guy Just Bores Me” O’Reilly and Chris “Thrill Up My Leg” Matthews”). See the video for yourself …
I thought it would take, oh, I don’t know, maybe three to six months before the veneer really began to peel. But three weeks into his Presidency, and Jon Stewart is nailing him, hard. My favorite part is the series of heavy pauses and “uhhhhh’s” that they string together into a phony answer, which is virtually an exact copy of this long-time favorite video of BDS sufferers. (As usual, language warnings apply. Jon Stewart’s theme for the stimulus debate is “Clusterf#@k to the Poorhouse”)
Andrew Malcolm also points out that “one night does not a trend make.” And we are still a long way away from a level of anger at Obama that mirrors the Bush derangement that completely saturated the entertainment industry and heavily influenced television, movies, music, and stand up comedy for the past eight years.
Naturally many of those parallels won’t ever happen, given the depth to which Hollywood idolizes our current President. He was a blank screen upon which they were free to project any ideal that they wished. And Hollywood relishes any chance it has to make something beautiful, something perfect and larger-than-life. They won’t easily give up on a man whose image they worked so hard to create. Further, entertainers known to possess conservative political views generally are not prone to profanity-laced tirades during performances or at press conferences. We should be proud of that.
Anyway, it’s nice to see at least one television comedy program whose star and writing staff are getting tired of continually straightening The Messiah’s halo. It has become awfully costume-looking during the past three weeks, and thankfully someone has the guts to tell our new emperor just exactly what it is that he is wearing.
