The Jon Stewart View
Published September 24, 2007
By Max C. Bookman
I still can’t believe that the masterminds behind The Mind of Mencia and The Sarah Silverman Program also bring the news to millions of young Americans. It’s the 21st century, and this aint yo’ mamma’s Dan Rather.
Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers have been fighting in the disparaged cradle of civilization for the better part of this decade. While a few of us strongly believe they’re defending freedom, and others lament that they’re making a big mess, most of us would rather just speculate about Britney Spears while anxiously awaiting the new season of South Park.
There is a growing sentiment among those of us born in the 1980’s that Washington, D.C. has become Comedy Central. With the endless list of broken promises, sex scandals, dramatic monologues, and vicious backstabbing, Washington politics has the makings of a juicy (or horrific) sitcom.
Of course, some episodes have been more memorable than others.
Remember back in 2000, when hanging chads and recounts were all the rage? Or when Colin Powell stood before the UN with fabricated evidence on Hussein’s WMD’s?
And how could we forget that both presidents in our recent memory have blatantly and unremorsefully lied to the entire nation? After hearing, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” and “the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud,” and now of course, “I am not gay,” we’ve heard it all.
It should also go without saying that parents and older relatives have told us so many glorified stories of Vietnam protest and 1960’s upheaval, we can probably tell them ourselves.
We’re jaded. We totally understand how fucked up the world is. But with that said, things do seem pretty chill in Vermont and the rest of the United States (unless you’re a social conservative worried about all the homos, Jews, and atheists running around unchecked). We wake up in Burlington, walk to class, go to work, read our Facebook, watch television, party on weekends - life is great. Our friends don’t get blown up by roadside bombs, nobody is forced to serve in the Army, and our government doesn’t look like it’s about to collapse.
But all the while, politicians keep forecasting our doom, fumbling their words, fighting each other, and running for president (all 18 of them) to save the world. It’s all funny in a way.
Nothing highlights this hilarity more than in the way we get our news.
CNN.com and The New York Times are fine, but nobody commands the respect and admiration of our generation more than Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Which is odd because, well, they’re fucking comedians.
Who would have thought in 1999 that the guy who played alongside Adam Sandler as Kevin Garrity in Big Daddy would in the next decade become a household name, delivering the news to millions of young Americans? As traditional newscasts such as CBS Evening News are suffering from declining viewership, Stewart’s Emmy-winning Daily Show ratings continue to climb.
The Daily Show is brilliant because it captures our generation’s sentiment that Washington is corrupt, dense, and out of touch with what we want. While many Americans share the same feeling, our method in dealing with this injustice is unique.
Stewart doesn’t stand up with a megaphone decrying our miserable government, demanding change, and denouncing hypocrisy. He reads the headlines and then pauses to convey a look of utter confusion. We can see him trying to hold back a smile, as if to say “what the fuck,” and the audience howls, causing him to lose composure and break down in laughter. We all applaud at the TV.
The commercials run, and we are treated to the usual host of things to buy, do, and watch, instead of suiting up to patrol violent Sunni neighborhoods. When he returns, Stewart brings in his cast of deadpan reporters for analysis of a pressing issue of the day. The “senior” correspondents, with their titles dejure, formulaically relay the news in the logical style of a Bush press secretary, making points that appear so obviously true, when we know that they’re painfully false.
Jon Stewart knows better. He responds to their reports with long silence, punctuated by cynical laughter and applause from the audience. Stewart asks questions as if to say, “am I really the last sane person on Earth?” The audience claps in agreement - politics are whack. We laugh some more.
It’s not that we’re indifferent to what’s going on in the world. It’s just that we’re far away enough from it all to not get angry about it. Your best friend from high school isn’t getting drafted. Everything will probably work out okay in the end. After all, America lost the war in Vietnam, and communism didn’t take over the world.
Very few of us would say that we don’t care about what goes on outside the scope of life’s immediate dealings. We support the troops, we want to see an end to global warming, and we want a president who will be honest with us. But it cannot be denied that as long as we don’t have to deal with the repercussions of these politicians’ stupid decisions on a daily basis, it is shockingly easy for us to go about our business.
There will always be idealistic, passionate people among us, fighting the good fight for whatever reason it may be. But there are just not enough of these types. It’s no secret that the student antiwar movement has been largely inconsequential in comparison to that of the Vietnam era- we may care enough to join a petition on Facebook, but not enough to rally into the streets en masse.
Our generation subscribes to the Jon Stewart view of the world. We peer through our computers and televisions and see death, deceit, and wrongdoing, and we have the luxury of saying “that’s pretty messed up,” and moving on. Our parents marched, but we laugh. When Nixon lied, students were outraged. When Bush lied, we chuckled and called him a dumb cowboy.
We go about our lives, come home, and flip on Jon Stewart. Together, we recap what those silly politicians are doing next, and we have a good laugh.
What a joke.
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