Modified On March 7, 2006
We’ve read a lot of articles in the past 24 hours about the Oscarcast. As the day wore on, the MSM became increasingly bold in their condemnation (Is that a strong word? We think not.) of Jon Stewart. Somewhere along the way, we read something that gave us a chill. It was a negative review that compared Stewart to hosts past, but lumped him in with Chris Rock, Chevy Chase and David Letterman. It identified all three as “comedians” and did so in such a way as to pin their failure on the fact that they were comedians. (And they wrote it in such a way as to deliver the word “comedians” with the literary equivalent of a contemptuous spit in the reader’s eye.)
Are we being paranoid? Of course! Where have you been for the last six years and eleven months?? A large part of our mission in that time has been tracking the snottiness of the media regarding standup comics. And they’ve been pretty bad. (And, as we always say, “if there actually after us, is it really paranoia?”)
But lately, it has been getting better. Until today. We have the ugly, sweaty feeling that the media might take this opportunity to not just hammer Stewart, but to turn their negative attention to comics in general. Something about the tone of the last 24 hours. We’ll be monitoring (as always!), but now we’ll be extra vigilant for Oscar fallout.
It seems as though the powerful folks (in the MSM, in Hollywood, etc.) like comedians… as long as comedians joke about the things they want them to joke about. When they don’t, they get indignant, angry, vengeful. And they tend to commit the unpardonable sin of failing (willfully so?) to distinguish one comedian from another. We’re hoping it doesn’t happen again.