[lbo-talk] Conservatives Like Colbert too

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Apr 23 10:02:57 PDT 2009


On Apr 23, 2009, at 12:53 PM, SA wrote:


> I'm not sure what this means. Colbert inhabits the space of
> conservatives in what way?

To be convincing as a parodist - and I don't think Colbert is all that convincing, but that's just me - you have to take on some of that which you are parodying. You have to think and act like your target. You can even view the parodic elements as some sort of defense against the temptations of the parodied position. In other words, there's some weird appeal to being a right-wing yahoo, but you find the appeal uncomfortable, so you bury the role in a layer of irony. Lets you have it both ways.

Doug



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