I don't really have my shit together enough to actually liveblog things, but I did tape the Emmys, and since I can now fast-forward through all of the truly horrible parts, let's give it a shot. So here we go with the 59th Emmy Awards. On FOX!
9:50 Oh god, Ryan Seacrest.
9:51 For me, Ryan Seacrest handing off to Ray Romano is like a monkey with a nailgun handing off to a cement truck full of leeches. FAST-FORWARD.
9:52 Comedy supporting actor. This has got to be Rainn Wilson, right?
9:52: Jeremy Piven?! Fucking LA.
9:53: I know American Ferrera is supposed to be ironically pretty, but something about her Ugly Betty outfit really pulls her together in a way her actual appearance doesn't. Perhaps I have been
seduced by illusion.
9:54: OK, I don't care about supporting drama actor, but why is Shatner here?
9:55 So is the gay guy from ER Grey's Anatomy nominated because he's good or because of that whole Isiah Washington thing? Could they have a "best excuse for Hollywood to act self-righteous" award next year?
9:56 The guy from Lost who looks like he's about to star as "Mex Muthor" in a straight-to-video movie from 1982 called
The Adventures of Superguy won. This is why I hate the Emmys: they keep rewarding shows I hate.
10:02 Why is Sally Field sitting next to Reese from Malcolm in the Middle?
10:03 Ryan Seacrest handing off to Tina Fey and Julia Louis-Dreyfus is like a plate of maggot-infested chicken handing off to bacon-wrapped filet mignon.
But who is the bacon?
10:04 Comedy supporting actress: I guess I haven't seen
Two and a Half Men, which for some reason has two separate actresses nominated, but this has got to be Jaime Pressly, right?
10:05 Haha, Vanessa Williams. She's like the Shatner of this category.
10:06 Oh, wshew, the industry has decided they like
My Name is Earl, I guess.
10:06 Hooray for skipping speeches!
10:09 "It's HIGH-gel, actually." Honey, if we learned anything from
Knocked Up, it's that we want our women to shut up and pump out babies, OK? You should be thankful we let you have a name.
10:10 Oh crap, first mini-series award. FAST-FORWARD.
10:10 Shit, it takes me longer to write FAST-FORWARD than it does to actually fast-forward and now I saw it.
10:10 Crap, and now I did fast-forward and apparently Thomas Hayden Church is thanking Rudy Guiliani? Somehow? Hold on.
10:11 Oh, that's Robert Duval, hahaha.
10:12 "Only on the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards!" Did the Emmys just tout their exclusivity at giving out Emmys?
10:14 Did they put Ellen up there just to highlight the fact that Seacrest is coming off like a bitter Carson Daly?
10:15 Now there's some sort of talk-show host montage. Huh, sorta wish they'd have shown more of Craig Ferguson's "No Britney Spears jokes" monologue, but I guess it would look strange next to a bunch of Al Gore fat jokes.
10:17 Hey, they're using music to switch from comedy to death, just like on Scrubs!
10:17 Wait, there was no point to that? Should I have listened to Ellen?
10:18 Actress on a drama. They should give it to Sandra Oh as a consolation for being "the overlooked one" in
Sideways.
10:19 The Sopranos vs. Grey's Anatomy, and the pregnant chick won! I guess I would have much preferred John Turturro's sister, but what can you do? Man, the fact that there are only two shows represented in this category says something, doesn't it? Something about how the Emmys doesn't nominate anything that's not on the 4 major networks or HBO?
10:19 "Thanks for getting my name right!" Oh honey, shut up.
10:20 OK, but your mom totally deadpanned. She's awesome.
10:21 Sweetie, you don't want to do what you do, you want to move on to movies, so please, shuffle off, OK?
10:24 Nighttime talk-show writing. They all love Colbert, right?
10:25 So they all did little videos listing the names of the writers, and except for Colbert's, they all involved jokes about Bush or Republicans. That's a sign of
something. Coincidentally, Colbert's (which involved all the writers going up to him and hitting him) was the best.
10:26 Oh, Conan. That's good too. As long as it's not Maher. That's a good life philosophy, actually.
10:27 "A performance by Tony Bennet and Xtina." I hope they do "Dirrty!"
10:29 I neglected to mentio this before, but the whole thing opened with a Family Guy song, and seeing the current performance (which involves, I shit you not, people in half-off tuxes and chairs), I start to wonder if the entire Emmy telecast is a Family Guy episode.
10:33 It's OK if I skip director awards, right?
10:35 I went to the bathroom and came back to find some dude thanking his parents, so I think I can skip director awards.
10:36 Jesus fuck, do people watch mini-series? It's like the best foreign film award of the Emmys.
10:36 WAIT HOLD ON MATTHEW PERRY WAS IN A MINI-SERIES?
10:36 WAIT HOLD ON TOM SELLECK WAS IN A MINI-SERIES?
10:36 AND THEY BOTH LOST TO ROBERT DUVAL WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON STOP.
10:37 Note to self, go up later and spell "Duvall" right.
10:37 Fast-forwarding through Robert Duvall's facial expressions is like watching a squirrel scurry around a tree.
10:38 "And the Jersey Boys pay tribute to the Sopranos!" I know this is a big victory lap for The Sopranos, but why did you let actual New Jersey residents pick the musical numbers?
10:40 Apparently there's a movie coming out called "Elizabeth: The Golden Age." Why can't they make "Elizabeth: Holy Shit, That Bitch Can Yodel!"
10:41 Queen Latifah is paying tribute to Roots, and I don't think I'm allowed to make fun of this.
10:42 Roots got a 44.9 rating! Good job putting it in terms we can all understand.
10:42 Oh, it's Roots' fault that we have mini-series. But y'all, they suck! Actual series are doing the same thing much better now!
10:43 This is the part of the Emmys where we pretend Lou Gossett, Jr. is respectable!
10:44 GEORDI WHERE IS YOUR MAGIC EYE VISOR
10:45 Ed Asner up there looks like a music industry executive from the 50s.
10:45 Oh please please please make the cast of Roots give an award to Debra Messing.
10:48 Every time I hear Hayden Panettiere's name I think someone's still stoned from the laser show.
10:49 They give out awards for guest stars? Well, I hope the aspy guy from Boston Legal wins, then. I also hope he accepts in character.
10:51 I'm going to be skipping all Sopranos-related content for the evening, by the by.
10:52 Drama writing! Apparently I'll be fast-forwarding through this, too!
10:54 Hahaha, Colbert is wearing one of his bracelets.
10:55 Anybody but Maher! Anybody but Maher! OK, the Daily Show, fine fine.
10:57 They just showed a shot of someone who looks like Colbert but with a Jewfro. That was creepy.
10:58 I'm just going to go ahead and lump Tony Bennett in with the fast-forwarding rule.
10:59 It's the accountants' spotlight! My favorite moment of any awards show. "Now, some nerds who we won't let talk!"
11:00 MINI SERIES CONTENT
11:00 The chairman of the television academy! And he's not talking about illegal downloading! Because the TV industry actually has their shit together with downloading!
11:01 Actually, his speech could be titled "Comic Relief: An Appreciation."
11:02 They really gave an award to fucking
Idol Gives Back? "For when TV sacrifices its enjoyability for pandering and self-congratulation, we honor you!"
11:04 Oh, I keep forgetting Fred Willard is on that Kelsey Grammer show, and every time I am reminded I cry a single tear. Grammar/Heaton is like two gigantic anuses farting on each other for an hour.
11:05 Did they
make Glenn Close thank TV for letting women on it?
11:07 I didn't think I'd have to include "Western content" in my fast-forwarding list, and now I am paying the price. BURY MY HEART AT SHUT UP.
11:08 Apparently anyone can make a tribute to the Sopranos by singing in front of screens on which clips from The Sopranos are playing. Look! Now I'm making a tribute to the Emmys by facing backwards and singing "TV Eye!" Now I'm making a tribute to my blog! Now I'm making a tribute to my couch!
11:10 "The Sopranos: It Existed!"
11:12 "And now, the cast of Roots will pesonally fellate the cast of The Sopranos!"
11:13 They just came out and people clapped for them. Thank goodness, because they've really been underappreciated.
11:17 The microphone accidentally started coming out the trapdoor and it looked like somebody sorta wandered in, went "whoops!" and left.
11:19 They are apologizing for promos by letting Louis Black complain about them, apparenly.
11:21 And then Louis Black leaves, his subversive message delivered! He doesn't have to present an award,
he is an award.
11:21 "Mini-series, movies, and dramatic specials..." AAAGH "..thanks to the work of these talented directors." IS THERE A WAY TO DOUBLE FAST-FORWARD? Oh yes, there is.
11:23 Holy shit, they're actually running
Til Death and
Back to You back-to-back.
11:24 I love it when smart people get treated like performing animals. "People think this guy is really smart, and now we will make him participate in some retarded YouTube thing!"
11:25 The MySpace guy is a camwhore! I hope the guy from
Heroes offers him an Amazon gift-certificate to show us his balls.
11:25 Guys, don't cheer Al Gore when you don't even watch the damn thing he's up there getting an award for.
11:26 "First, I want to do what you just did and thank Al Gore..." FF PLS
11:27 I stopped early and heard him say something like "...and reclaim American democracy!" Did Al Gore finally make the jump from wonk to libtard? Don't believe your hype, Al!
11:27 Dear California: please pass a law prohibiting Brad Garrett from ad-libbing.
11:28 PLEASE STOP I AM SERIOUSLY ALMOST CRYING
11:28 It's making me like Colbert more that he's/it's not winning any of the categories he/it is in.
11:29 Tony Bennett just thanked Target! Holy crap, he thinks it's 1957!
11:31 Yay, Alec Baldwin's mom on
30 Rock just yawned while accepting her award! "I'm not faking this, I really don't know what the hell I'm doing." Dear California: please require all of Brad Garrett's ad-libs to be played by her.
11:33 Comedy directing, which I do kinda care about, is won by Ugly Betty! Yay! They sure did put him in the cheap seats, though.
11:36 Comedy writing. 2 Office episodes? Really? And 2
30 Rocks? I mean, I love those shows, but c'mon.
11:38 Have they minimized Seacrest's participation, or have I just been fast-forwarding through it? And did he just say "this looked a lot less gay"?
11:40 Rainn Wilson looks a lot like John Hodgman tonight.
11:41 Whoa, seriously, Kanye? Did he request this?
11:41 They're doing a kareoke thing and it's actually hilarious. "Another one?" Kanye for host!
11:42 "I never win." "Sorry man."
11:44 That skit was a comedy music reality show. If they also incorporated a mafia doctor it would've encompassed all of TV, except the parts we don't care about like mini-series.
11:47 Man, this got
much better at the end. Unfortunately, funny awards shows make liveblogs much less funny.
11:50 Does no one
know when Steven Colbert is making fun of them?
11:51 Presumably you've seen
the hug by now, yes?
11:56 The hug, though, is kinda important. Oh wait, there's another award.
11:57 Yay America Ferrera! Man, this liveblog has gotten boring, huh?
12:00 OH NOES IT'S THE FART PATROL Thank god they're running late so they can't say anything.
12:00 30 Rock wins for comedy series, which is great--I really like it when the Emmys spreads things around, because Ugly Betty really isn't doing the same thing as 30 Rock, you know?
12:02 OK, I'm stopping now because this has really gotten boring and I have to eat lunch and it's just going to be The Sopranos, but more on the hug later.
Labels: colbert, liveblogging, TV, Ugly Betty
It's hard to think of a show that's ever had as good a year as
The Colbert Report did in 2006. It was its first year of existence, and no one was really sure it was going to make it.
The Daily Show didn't really seem like something you could spin off, let alone spin off with someone whose best-known bit was "This Week in God." Good stuff, but how is that a half-hour program?
Well, suffice to say the show justified its existence. By the time it broadcast its last episode in December, one devoted entirely to a guitar duel between Colbert and one of the Decemberists, the show managed to attract both a devoted fanbase that Colbert delighted in exploiting as well as guests of increasingly high stature. And they did all this without significantly changing their approach. They just waited for people to come to them, and it worked.
What is that approach? In a nutshell: effusive cynicism.
The Colbert Report is undoubtedly the most cynical show in America, and it's paid off enormously for them. You realize just how cynical it is when you compare it to its sister program.
The Daily Show promotes the image of a sane oasis in a crazy world, never content simply to show you what's wrong when they can also explain why it's wrong[1], albeit sarcastically, and they even go so far as to suggest alternate policies at times, again sarcastically. But sarcasm is a language we all speak now, so much so that it no longer sounds like a foreign tongue. The most sincere among us (left-wing college students, say) routinely use sarcasm as a way of belittling our opponents, and it's worked its way into modern usage enough that we hear the sincerity simultaneously with the sarcasm. There's no translation, only synonyms. Begin a sentence with "Yes"[2] and it's as sure a reversal as slapping "ne" and "pas" around a French verb.
The main exceptions are the correspondents / "experts," of which Colbert was one before he left. They deliver their reports with a straight face, and this is a big part of the humor. But after their segments, they almost always talk with Stewart, and here the "we are sanity" feeling comes back in: they make some outrageous statement that's recognizable as an exaggeration of what someone else has said, and then Stewart plays the straight man and asks them the questions we ourselves would ask them if we didn't know they were making a joke. It's effective, but it's giving the audience an out, making the correspondent into the object of ridicule before our eyes rather than requiring the audience to make that leap.
On Colbert's show, this almost never happens. The attitude seems to be that the things they're parodying are so obviously absurd that they don't need to hold the viewers' hands. There's no critique necessary, no explanation of why the things they're saying are wrong. The correspondent stands alone, with no one to question him except his guests, who rarely succeed. This is a bleak view of society, one that simply repeats what it hears, raises its eyebrows slightly, and waits for a laugh.
The thing is, the laughs didn't really come at first. If you watch those early programs, people don't really get it: jokes fall flat, and guests seem genuinely outraged at the things Colbert is saying, even though they're on a network called "Comedy Central." No one seemed to know quite how to handle him, whether they should play along or take him at face value. It's hard to say if they'd be funnier now, if the jokes simply weren't up to snuff, but in terms of approach, it was essentially the same. Did this mean that their cynicism was unwarranted, that in fact things weren't so bad that you could offer up a simple parody in place of show-and-tell jokes?
Well, yes and no. Certainly people are actually laughing now, and comedy does require passing a certain tipping point of laughter before people really feel comfortable braying along, so maybe it's just that momentum built enough for them to cross that barrier. But the cynicism has been validated in unexpected ways. People have noted the ways in which Colbert's show has come to resemble the shows it's parodying, like
The O'Reilly Factor, particularly in regards to the devoted fanbase mentioned above. Colbert has built up a cult of personality around himself, so much so that he's able to get his fans to engage in coordinated collective action, and the ability he has to control his audience, down to the second he wants them to stop cheering, is a little scary.
This isn't a criticism of the show, though--it is the final proof of its cynicism. By managing to encourage this level of devotion, they've shown just how easy it is--so easy that a comedian can do it. And the appeal of this sort of rhetoric is so strong that even when it's being used sarcastically, it's incredibly effective. Colbert's fans read through the cynicism and take the sincerity they see on the other side just as fervently as O'Reilly's fans do. If this were
The Daily Show, this might be something to discourage. But the genius of Colbert's show is that it's absolutely committed to its cynicism. It's ridiculous that people will do whatever Colbert asks them to do, it's ridiculous that he could get Henry Kissinger to introduce a guitar duel and the newly-elected governor of New York to judge it. They've created such a good imitation that it functions in exactly the same way as what it's making fun of, and that's spectacular.
It's still cynical, though, and that's important to keep in mind. As effective a piece of performance art as
The Colbert Report is--utilizing mixed media, enabling interaction, drawing power to itself and using that power without restraint, just as its subject would--it all springs from a fundamentally cynical point of view. This rings false: cynicism seems to encourage a disassociation with the corrupted world, so devoted to its criticism that it is unable to engage with the things it's criticizing, and when it's criticizing society, the cynic sits outside it. Colbert has shown that you can be incredibly cynical (completely aware of the ways in which the object of study fails, clear-eyed in your evaluation of its faults) and yet use that knowledge, not simply throw it out there to prove your own superiority. They've seen exactly what's wrong with these sorts of shows and gone and pranked the world, making their points but also so cynical that they don't care if they cause exactly the same ill effects as the original. Why not? Doesn't it just prove their point more? And if you don't get the point, don't you deserve what you get? That's one way in which cynicism can be a productive force.
This is sorta-kinda the subject of an essay by Geert Lovink (!) entitled "
Blogging, the nihilist impulse." It's not the greatest read in the world, full of the autistic shorthand that's infested academia, and prone to statements like "there are 100 million blogs worldwide, and it is nearly impossible to make general statements about their 'nature' and divide them into proper genres. I will nonetheless attempt to do this." Don't mess with Lovink, man, that dude can do the
nearly impossible!
Anyway, this is a problem for me because there's no passage I can really quote to highlight what I'm interested in without subjecting you all to sentences like "It is constituted by cold enlightenment and by confession described by Michael Foucault." So, to summarize, Lovink[3] notes that blogging came about in this millennium, and the tenor of blogs is primarily cynical. This isn't an indictment, just an observation, and the consequence has been that there aren't grand movements (which are inherently suspicious), but the aggregation of lots of individual opinions, all of which can still think they're precious unique snowflakes, into a received wisdom.
He's right, and it's useful to acknowledge the inherently cynical nature of blogs. When I try to explain that, say, the Gawker sites aren't necessarily expressing a firmly-held and well-thought-out opinion, they're just paid to mock
everything, being able to cite cynicism will help. It's also a frustrating tendency of internet culture these days, one that leads to things like blogs being thought of as worthless even by their creators and so not worth the effort to make into art rather than brands, but that's for another time; for now, it's just nice to have a name.
His point about this cynicism being useful is a good one, I think. The example of
The Colbert Report highlight one strategy for utilization, but might there be others? I think so. Take pop music, for example. Almost no one involved in pop isn't cynical about it, and yet it still inspires devotion. You can see the machinery behind the music--the product placement, the obvious marketing plans, the unmistakable demographic targeting, the record company's tracklist calculus, the parade of new talent--and still enjoy the music for what it is. No one doesn't become cynical about pop, so much so that this is now a standard part of the life of a pop fan, even if fans generally won't admit it. (It's understandable--part of the pleasure of rejecting pop is thinking you see what other people don't, even if millions of people have seen it before you--but it's still unfortunate.) But people still listen to pop, still like pop, still make pop out of a love for the music. You can be cynical about something without invalidating it.
This is merely cynicism counterbalanced, though. What's interesting about pop is the ways in which cynicism can actually increase your admiration for the music. Once you're aware of the way the machine works, you can follow it and use your knowledge to become a better listener, by doing things like noticing and following particular producers and songwriters. Moreover, by being aware of the commercial obstacles that pop faces on its way to a finished CD--a condition unique to pop these days, since only pop musicians need to worry about getting someone else's approval for what they release, whereas everyone else can just burn a few thousand discs in their basement--you can gain a greater appreciation for the difficulties the artists face, and this often leads to a deeper enjoyment of their music.
Lovink said something else in there, though, something else that's notably wrong. He thinks this cynicism is a post-bubble thing, a reaction to the repudiation of the net's early utopian promises and grand schemes; like an embittered failure, so burned by his unrealized hopes that he thinks the world is shit. Well, something else happened in 2001--or, rather, two something elses happened. We got a new President, and…well, you know.
An article recently mentioned the 1999 anti-globalization protests in Seattle, and it was like suddenly remembering a dream you'd had. This used to be an inspirational moment for the left, and while I'm sure it's still an inspirational moment to some, it seems impossibly distant now. Fighting over trade policy instead of occupying armies: it's almost hard to imagine. This isn't an indictment of Seattle--far from it--but an illustration of why the mood's shifted since the end of 2000. There's no reason to think the internet couldn't have been dominated by a bunch of Googles, modest start-ups that still had a gleam in their eye, but with reduced expectations and more realistic business plans. But, as I've said
elsewhere, we all went a little crazy after 9/11, on all sides, and it's produced a range of reactions. But certainly there's little choice but to react to the right's version of going crazy with cynicism; there's simply no other option, given how shameless they've become. If the tenor of our times is cynical, well, there are quite legitimate reasons for that.
Point is, we don't pick the conditions under which we make art any more than we pick our upbringing or our talents. Maybe it'd be nice to have some more non-cynical art, but that's not the reality we live in right now. Pointing out the usefulness of cynicism is really just a way of pointing out the usefulness of
anything that's imposed upon us from outside, be it totalitarianism or boundless prosperity or an excess of penguins.[4] Art is creative but also reactive, and since you don't get to choose what there is to react against, it's necessary to find ways to work with anything, and those ways always exist. As long as we're going to view art through the context of its times--and that's forever--this will be a concern, and not an unimportant one, either. But as Colbert demonstrates, you need to bring yourself back into the world, to use those forces to make art within it and around it and, maybe, to contain it.
[1] There's even a common moment now where Jon Stewart turns to a particular camera and addresses a newsmaker directly, with humor but without irony.
[2] "Yes, throwing yourself off a cliff would be a great idea." "Yes, democracy certainly is on the march in the Middle East!" Tone matters, but not that much.
[3] I'm giggling every time I type that, by the way.
[4] This, obviously, leads to penguin sculptures, penguin ballets, etc.
Labels: colbert, comedy, cynicism, daily show, politics, pop, theory
