Blog #28

Colbert[ican] Politics: Red, Blue, or Purple?

http://www.mhlearningsolutions.com/commonplace/index.php?q=node/5581

The article I read is about the supposed politics of Stephen Colbert. Seeing as how I'm a bit of a fan of his show (much bigger fan of Jon Stewart though), this article seemed appealing. Stephen Colbert, the wacky newscaster who doles out humorous criticism across the entire political spectrum. The author goes in depth about Colbert's character and the persona he uses to help make us laugh. He goes on to state that Colbert has neither a conservative or liberal bias, being part of “purple” politics. I generally have to disagree with this statement.

Colbert generally takes an over-exaggerated conservative approach in his episodes. This helps make fun of of liberals through the use of blatantly sarcastic remarks about them, and makes fun of conservatives by stating their ideas in a nearly nonsensical fashion. In playing the conservative side of acting though, I feel that he's acting almost like a counter to the similarly-styled, and yet liberal-leaning, Jon Stewart. Jon is less sarcastic than Colbert, and has a much more definitive liberal feel. Despite all this, I feel that Colbert plays the conservative role more naturally due to having an actual conservative leaning himself, even though he can point out when others are being ridiculous. One such example is during my favorite Christmas episode, where Jon and Stephen were both irate to the point that their sarcastically bitter remarks lost a lot of sarcasm, and began to simply be bitter attacks toward government actions at the time. Colbert is simply good at presenting his news with only a sarcastic bias, and doesn't let it control what he presents.