{"id":3103,"date":"2010-09-26T23:56:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-27T04:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/donwaisanen.com\/?p=63"},"modified":"2010-09-26T23:56:00","modified_gmt":"2010-09-27T04:56:00","slug":"why-colbert%e2%80%99s-congressional-testimony-missed-the-mark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/2010\/09\/26\/why-colbert%e2%80%99s-congressional-testimony-missed-the-mark\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Colbert\u2019s Congressional Testimony Missed the Mark"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=k1T75jBYeCs' >Colbert UFW Testimony<\/a><br \/>\nColbert is hilarious as always. Yet, while I\u2019d usually be one of the first to commend his efforts, I\u2019m going to go out on a limb (this phrase never made sense to me, shouldn\u2019t it be a plank?) and say that Colbert\u2019s parodic persona didn\u2019t serve this forum nor the issue at hand that well. The main problem with Colbert\u2019s testimony is that he forgot to use satire in a forum where it was sorely needed. In other words, he forgot to speak truth\/s to power. Consequently, Jon Stewart\u2019s more straight-laced, \u201crighteous indignation\u201d would have been a far better choice for the UFW\u2019s campaign. Funny, yes. Satirical, no. It\u2019s the difference between a Jay Leno monologue and the kind of brilliance we saw from Colbert a few years ago at the White House Correspondent\u2019s Dinner speech. Who are the targets in this testimony? In the WHCD speech Colbert focused with an observant precision upon a yay-saying cohort of political and media personalities desperately needing critiqued. In this congressional testimony the targets are all over the place. Take a look at the reactions by the Members of Congress themselves\u2014do they appear all that threatened? Colbert fawns before one Member of Congress at one point and finishes by emphasizing how much of an \u201chonor\u201d it is to be there etc. Don\u2019t get me wrong, a simple, light-hearted laugh at some of these issues can definitely serve an important function, and I certainly don\u2019t think satire needs to be used all the time&#8211;but I can\u2019t help but think that outside the orienting walls of his studio, Colbert missed an opportunity for the kind of disorienting, stinging critique for which he\u2019s capable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Colbert UFW Testimony Colbert is hilarious as always. Yet, while I\u2019d usually be one of the first to commend his efforts, I\u2019m going to go out on a limb (this phrase never made sense to me, shouldn\u2019t it be a plank?) and say that Colbert\u2019s parodic persona didn\u2019t serve this forum nor the issue at [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}