But who am I lecturing! You're the star of a sensationally successful comedy show. You're an international celebrity. Most of all, you are the Pied Piper of the magical 18-34 demographic, the age-group whose attention marketers in just about every market claim will enlarge all hungry enterprises. When a journalist wants to win relevance among the legions of paradigm-changing youths, all he has to do is say he likes your show, whether he actually likes it--or has even seen it--or not. You've become more a conduit than a comedian.
The problem is, this downward-plunging market is going to ruin you just as Penn and Teller made the comics they exploited look ridiculous.
What are you going to do when the criminals and clowns presently running the country leave the places of power? I mean, what are you going to do if an admirable man or woman takes the helm? You're more pegged to the news cycle than the professional newspeople you gratifyingly deride. (You're bound to differences among political values, too. When you tried to mock Chuck Schumer's vow to prevent the Dubai company from acquiring the ports, nobody laughed.) I love comedians who make humor out of current events, out of bad or stupid politics. But the best of them work the stuff into wit. You just point, taunt, make faces. You say something "sucks," and that's the joke. You say "sucks" a lot.
Jon, I think the reason you've settled into this gross-out expedience is that you think, or you've been told, that the young audiences you supposedly draw aren't up to more sophisticated bits. For one thing, I think you're selling short the number of people in the magical demographic who have fine senses of humor. For another, I don't think your audience is that focused on politics anyway. They just like to see people in authority, no matter whether they're good or bad, torn down. It doesn't matter whether the deconstruction is funny or not so long as it seems to humiliate the subject. So pretty soon, and especially when politics changes, you're going to have to rethink your role as the Howdy-Doody Orwell. More importantly, when the chickens come home to roost--yes, the deficit spending on the war--and people start to want comedy with true creative-destructive substance; when they start to crave comic maturity rather than resigning themselves to pandering puerility, you're going to be in trouble. Sometimes I think you don't even believe in this shtick yourself. Again and again, you'll start doing an accent or imitating someone, self-consciously stop yourself, hang your head and apologize for the failed joke. Maybe somewhere you have contempt for the magic demographic?
I want to share something genuinely funny with you. It's from an article in The New York Times about your Oscar gig. The "Mr. Cates" is Gil Cates, as you know, the long-time producer of the Oscars.
As a fringe benefit, Mr. Cates said he hoped that Mr. Stewart--whose show attracts a viewer whose average age is just over 41 [who would have thought it?] according to Nielsen Media Research--might attract younger people to the Oscars, whose typical viewer last year was 47.
The problem is, this downward-plunging market is going to ruin you just as Penn and Teller made the comics they exploited look ridiculous.
What are you going to do when the criminals and clowns presently running the country leave the places of power? I mean, what are you going to do if an admirable man or woman takes the helm? You're more pegged to the news cycle than the professional newspeople you gratifyingly deride. (You're bound to differences among political values, too. When you tried to mock Chuck Schumer's vow to prevent the Dubai company from acquiring the ports, nobody laughed.) I love comedians who make humor out of current events, out of bad or stupid politics. But the best of them work the stuff into wit. You just point, taunt, make faces. You say something "sucks," and that's the joke. You say "sucks" a lot.
Jon, I think the reason you've settled into this gross-out expedience is that you think, or you've been told, that the young audiences you supposedly draw aren't up to more sophisticated bits. For one thing, I think you're selling short the number of people in the magical demographic who have fine senses of humor. For another, I don't think your audience is that focused on politics anyway. They just like to see people in authority, no matter whether they're good or bad, torn down. It doesn't matter whether the deconstruction is funny or not so long as it seems to humiliate the subject. So pretty soon, and especially when politics changes, you're going to have to rethink your role as the Howdy-Doody Orwell. More importantly, when the chickens come home to roost--yes, the deficit spending on the war--and people start to want comedy with true creative-destructive substance; when they start to crave comic maturity rather than resigning themselves to pandering puerility, you're going to be in trouble. Sometimes I think you don't even believe in this shtick yourself. Again and again, you'll start doing an accent or imitating someone, self-consciously stop yourself, hang your head and apologize for the failed joke. Maybe somewhere you have contempt for the magic demographic?
I want to share something genuinely funny with you. It's from an article in The New York Times about your Oscar gig. The "Mr. Cates" is Gil Cates, as you know, the long-time producer of the Oscars.
As a fringe benefit, Mr. Cates said he hoped that Mr. Stewart--whose show attracts a viewer whose average age is just over 41 [who would have thought it?] according to Nielsen Media Research--might attract younger people to the Oscars, whose typical viewer last year was 47.
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