Shawn Kellmer, Web Editor
November 6, 2012
Filed under Arts and Entertainment
Lampoons have been a part of the political landscape for a very long time, and some students and professors say public distrust of the media is turning some media consumers toward comedy as a source of political information.
Since the days of political cartoons in the early newspapers of? Colonial America, lampoons have helped shape the political landscape through humor, which often attacked politicians, candidates and political parties.
The political lampoon jetted to television screens with the advent of Saturday Night Live?? in 1975, which has covered almost every major political story as fodder for skits.
Comedy Central debuted a satirical ?news? show? called The Daily Show in 1996. The Daily Show proved so popular that in 2005 Steven Colbert, a Daily Show correspondent, started a spinoff show, The Colbert Report.
Shows focusing on political lampoons have proven very popular among young adults, including college students. According to The Huffington Post, more young adults ages 18? to 34 watched Comedy Central?s 11 p.m. to midnight hour, which is when The Daily Show and Colbert Report airs, over Fox News during the Republican National Convention.? Comedy central programming drew 450,000 viewers, while Fox News only attracted 329,000.
Critics have blasted shows like the Daily Show warning that they are comedy and not the news, but people still watch and feel that they become more informed.
First year English major Julia Whitesell believes comedy shows can serve as a starting point for political information. ?They do all the stories I?m interested in and after I watch them I can look stuff up on my own and read more about it.?
Whitesell notes that a reliance on comedy as an information source can be troublesome because voters may lack solid, fact-based information.
?I think there is a tendency, especially now, that people don?t trust the actual news and so they don?t want to listen to the news. As a result, I think there are a lot of people that only watch the satirical things and they don?t get the full picture so they end up not being fully informed,? said Whitesell.
Fine arts professor Darlene Smith said that even comedy can offer information that young people might otherwise miss.
?I do see credibility to it.? They frequently speak the language of common man and often times the newscasters fail to do that, but on the other hand they certainly do slant their opinion their way,? said Smith.
Smith said most viewers do not confuse facts with humor, which often relies upon wild exaggeration.
?I think that most people that watch those shows are pretty intelligent people, because those are intelligent shows. I think that if they are getting the humor that they certainly understand the issues,? said Smith.
Pat Burman, an undeclared transfer student, believes that lampoons can be an effective news source if?unlike traditional news sources?it uses humor to attract the attention of young people.
?In order to make the joke funny, they have to tell you the news story. You have to understand what happened to make the joke funny,? said Burman.
Smith sees political humor as a potent communication tool.
?Humor helps everything.? Humor is something that reaches everybody,? said Smith.
The lack of heaviness in a parody is why people tend to gravitate towards shows like The Daily Show, said Burman.
?It?s easier to share a joke, to share something funny, to share something that?s not so heavy and deep as ?this guy said this and we need to go along with this because here?s all the evidence here.? It?s easier to just go, ?well this is funny.?? This makes this guy look like an idiot, so this guy must be an idiot,? said Burman.
One of the largest criticisms is that political satire is often biased.
?It can be looked at as biased because you?re picking on a certain person who has certain views who, if you?re picking on them, it generally implies you don?t agree with them. People have a tendency to laugh at things they don?t associate themselves with as opposed to laughing at themselves,? said Burman.
Whitesell said she views much of the televised political comedy as fair because all candidates and parties are open to funny criticism.
?Despite the fact that its satire and it?s supposed to be comedy, I don?t think they [the hosts] really care what party you belong to. I think they?re obviously more liberal than conservative or anything, but they?ll call out Democrats just as easily as they?ll call out Republicans,? said Whitesell.
The problem, said Burman, is that everyone has a different definition of what is funny, and varied tastes can lead to highly charged political contention.
?If you?re making a joke about something you?re always going to offend someone because people don?t always find the same thing funny,? said Burman.
He adds that political figures might lose the public?s respect.
?When people don?t sit down and actually look at facts, when they just look at the jokes it can create an opinion that this guy is just a clown or this idea is just funny and stupid and we?re going to laugh at it and not think about it,? said Burman.
Smith added that while lampoons have their place in the political discourse, no one should make them a sole source of? information.
?You just have to balance everything, just like you can?t use Wikipedia, you have to watch your sources. Be careful about making judgments that are sort of off of people?s heads and so forth and listening to other people. I think you need to actually listen to candidates. I think you actually have to listen to debates. I think you do have to pay attention to what is truthfully written, and you have to be careful of biased newspapers.? You have to be careful of biased television shows,? said Smith.
kellmers@misericordia.edu
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