Double-Fold
A bit of water for thinking.
Colbert bugs me. He bothered me during the Bush administration, and I couldn’t really put my finger on it. But I think the thing that bothers me is that his parody sits so close to the edge of literalism, that his humor works too well as an inside joke for people who actually believe the stuff he says but dare not express it, even though what he says is a parody of what those people think but dare not say.
This double-fold of layers isn’t the same as having an audience that isn’t smart enough or sophisticated enough to know that what they are watching is a parody, even a parody of themselves. Its more complicated. The audience definitely is smart enough. They know what Colbert says is parody, but they don’t find what he says funny because of the parody. They find Colbert funny in a literal sense, because he does say all the things they think but cannot say AND he gets away with saying it. What’s even better, he gets away saying it to liberal intellectuals who also laugh at it, because he has constructed his parody from a liberal perspective – that is, his parody reflects the absurdity liberals see in the right. Meanwhile, he is winking at the right. Liberals love parody, especially parody of racists, dogmatics, and rightists, racists love racism and the right loves parodies of the left’s view of the right. With Colbert, you can “get” both levels and still enjoy the one that is nearest and dearest to your heart. Secretly. Darkly.
He is obviously very smart to be able to accomplish this. Because of this double-fold in his humor, he implicates both sides in every issue he skewers. If you agree with him in a literal sense, you are a racist, fascist, whatever. And if you take umbrage with his parody, then you are at best without a sense of humor and at worst guilty of censorial intentions. A Stalinist perhaps. Better for both parties to laugh at his jokes than implicate themselves as something darker. Colbert sits right in the middle, which is an achievement in terms of skill, but I am not sure it is an achievement truly. It feels to me like more of a nihilistic occupation of an amoral no-man’s-land. I am not sure what it does or where it goes. A relief valve? Court jester? Maybe. Maybe.
