Jon Stewart’s third appearance in the anchor’s chair since returning to “The Daily Show” opened with the seated host basking in a standing ovation from his stoked studio audience. Citing the controversies and “carping” triggered by his first two episodes, he promised that Monday’s performance would offer something different —“an amuse-bouche, a trifle, something light.” That relaxing change of pace would be a discussion of, naturally, Israel/Palestine.
The first two episodes of the show have drawn a wide range of media responses. Some, such as NPR, The Washington Post and The New York Times, feted him as a conquering hero. Other outlets, such as the Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Vox, thought the program ranged from OK to meh.
Audiences — and even comedians themselves — risk forgetting that their news reader is neither a credentialed journalist nor a scholar, but a person whose core competency is genital gags.
Slate, by contrast, parsed the beloved comedian’s performance as “the same s— all over again.” Along with Mary Trump, Keith Olberman and The Onion, it lambasted Stewart for his “bothsidesism” in the first episode in which President Joe Biden was ridiculed, rather unoriginally, for being old. Stewart’s gestures toward evenhandedness were certainly evident in Monday’s episode, as were the inherent intellectual, and even ethical, deficiencies of what is known as “politainment.”
This popular genre, of which Stewart is a master, blends comedy and political analysis, all the while smuggling in whatever moral convictions the comic might possess. Politainment looks like real news. Its graphics are so eye-popping, its chyrons so abundant, its shiny sets so CNN-like, one expects Wolf Blitzer to pop in, projecting a winner in the Michigan primary.
Politainment radiates a weird sort of winking authority, and even moral gravitas. Audiences — and even comedians themselves — risk forgetting that their news reader is…
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