Customer Reviews

Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy into a Joke

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I enjoyed every page of this book, and for me that's unusual. It was like reading a favorite editorial columnist's thoughts, but on a fresh and inventive topic. Russell L. Peterson's thoughts run toward those of political humorists in the great American tradition of serious debate infused with serious wit. His insights into television's uneven record on political humor is well-informed and cautionary, including "mainstream" news, commentary, and political humor from Saturday Night Live to Stephen Colbert, as well as all the usual suspects of late-night "talk show" monologues. And when was the last time you read a humorous political book that was fully annotated and indexed? Strange Bedfellows is a scholarly work cleverly masquerading as a highly entertaining fun-with-politics romp. (Or maybe it's the other way around?) No matter, entertaining it is. There are some clues modestly inserted here and there on the cover flaps that indicate what kind of chops the author has utilized to pull this off: A PhD in American Studies, real-life experience in standup comedy, political cartooning, and (this is a guess) a heckuva lot of critical T.V. viewing. Not since the late Neil Postman's "How to Watch T.V. News" have I read anything as eye-opening about television and its subtle, maybe even unintentional, but certainly powerful affect on its viewers.

I really enjoyed this book. It's both funny and insightful. The book's main topic is political humor on late-night comedy shows like Leno's, Letterman's, and O'Brien's. It looks at these shows in the context of the history of American political humor as well as the less mainstream, more satirical cable shows like Colbert's, Stewart's, and Maher's. The main thesis is that the big-audience, big-network, late-night shows do anti-political humor, which avoids taking political sides in favor of cynically joking about the personal foibles of politicians from all parties and the ineffectual government in general. The book's assertions are well-supported, often with jokes from television, which makes it both pleasantly thought-provoking and humorous. The author himself is plenty funny, too, with an engaging, intelligent, witty writing style and his own wry parentheticals. The book will be interesting and entertaining to anyone who follows politics and/or political humor on television. The author obviously follows both, and it shows with the frequent, funny examples that explain why late-night comedians really walk a narrow line in their political humor, maybe narrower than what the audience should be hearing.

This book is a great historical overview of late night talk shows and their impact on national politics. There is quite a bit on Johnny Carson, Arsenio Hall and even Dennis Miller. Then there are all the necessary references to the more recent jokes from Leno, Letterman, Jon Stewart and Conan.

The book's main flaw is that it doesn't contain many current references. For a 2008 copyright, there should be much more dealing with Obama, Saturday Night Live and the Colbert Report. The Colbert examples are particularly dated and the author focuses on the 2006 correspondence dinner that Colbert hosted--so it seems that the book may have been written a couple years before the publication date, with just a couple minor Obama references tacked on once a publisher was found.

But this is a great first foundational effort on a very important topic. It's academic enough for researchers but easy to read for non-students. The author goes in depth on the modern history of media satire and gives some nice subjective views of how comedians have impacted the political process.

I was hoping for a collection of quips and this book was not it. Couldn't seem to be able to review adequately or I was unsure of how to do that.

Part of Mr. Peterson's thesis is that late-night comedy cannot be a stand-in for real news, and he compares the late-night talk shows with his concept of what the news media is. The problem is: his concept of news media couldn't be farther from reality. Thus, he compares late-night comedy with an idealized form of news media which does not exist and may not have ever existed. Thus, his thesis is seriously undermined.

Rather, the glaring reality upon reading even just an excerpt of this book is that it seems that Mr. Peterson's critique of his perception of late night talk show comedy could be literally transferred word-for-word to current news media, save but a few stalwarts such as NPR or the Lehrer Report on PBS. In numerous quotes, the EXACT same comment could be leveled at the news media today. One gets the distinct impression that Mr. Peterson does not ever actually watch the news, or else he filters everything but NPR or PBS. No one with a straight face could argue that late night political comedy is "readily available, cheap; tasty in its way, but ultimately unhealthy" -- as *opposed* to what the news media does. Same goes for the "echo chamber effect" or he fact that the late-night comedy presentation "works because a sizable portion of the audience believes it," a comment which describes perfectly the artificial, overarching "narratives" that big media uses to present their stories over time (e.g., Bush is strong on terror, Hillary Clinton has experience, John McCain is a "maverick," etc. etc.)

Ultimately, as long as our information is going to come to us from EVERY source (including so-called "news") with bias, artificial narrative, and pandering to the audience, why don't we at least laugh while we learn?