Thursday, January 25, 2007
O'Reily vs. Colbert
Last week, a friend told me about the surreal show swapping between Colbert and O'Reily. Each went on to each others shows, and the word from my friends was that O'Reily got pretty well shown up. I don't think this is so.
I watched both appearances on the internet and felt that although Colbert held all the cards, O'Reily was able to fight him to a draw. He did this by being extremely bland and by not getting particularly offended by anything. Up to this point, Colbert has done something that nobody else has been able to done; he's pulled O'Reily's teeth. O'Reily was a scary ultra-conservative host who was very popular, presumably still is. He was intimidating, and because he was so insistent, any decent open minded person would feel, in listening to him, that perhaps they were wrong. Perhaps they ought to feel a little guilty for opposing the war or defending immigrants.
Our decent protagonist would fight back in his head, trying to score points with an imaginary O'Reily. But it's impossible, you can't score points arguing with O'Reily because he's totally aggressive, crazy and insufferable. Another type of protagonist would just dismiss O'Reily out of hand, and although that's tempting, I don't think it's viable. Not time to discuss that part though.
What Colbert was able to do was simply be just a little bit more ridiculous than O'Reily. Just enough to very cleverly suggest how ludicrous O'Reily was without O'Reily having the slightest recourse. Usually, he has to act crazy, but when he does, Colbert either agrees with him, which pulls his teeth, or acts even crazier, at which point O'Reily has to MAKE HIMSELF SOUND REASONABLE in order to reign Colbert in, very clever.
So in this particular debate, Colbert holds all the cards. However, he doesn't win, he doesn't really make O'Reily look ridiculous, unless he can make him really mad. Not fake mad like he did on the O'Reily factor but really hopping, ridicoulously crazy-ass mad. And mad for no good reason. Mad because somebody's telling you he likes you, agrees with you, emulates you. O'Reily refrained, he held it in, he even laughed at himself a little bit. He certainly couldn't win, but he played to not lose, and succeeded. He didn't come accross as crazy, he didn't come accross as dumb. Just kind of bland. I think that's the best he could do.
I watched both appearances on the internet and felt that although Colbert held all the cards, O'Reily was able to fight him to a draw. He did this by being extremely bland and by not getting particularly offended by anything. Up to this point, Colbert has done something that nobody else has been able to done; he's pulled O'Reily's teeth. O'Reily was a scary ultra-conservative host who was very popular, presumably still is. He was intimidating, and because he was so insistent, any decent open minded person would feel, in listening to him, that perhaps they were wrong. Perhaps they ought to feel a little guilty for opposing the war or defending immigrants.
Our decent protagonist would fight back in his head, trying to score points with an imaginary O'Reily. But it's impossible, you can't score points arguing with O'Reily because he's totally aggressive, crazy and insufferable. Another type of protagonist would just dismiss O'Reily out of hand, and although that's tempting, I don't think it's viable. Not time to discuss that part though.
What Colbert was able to do was simply be just a little bit more ridiculous than O'Reily. Just enough to very cleverly suggest how ludicrous O'Reily was without O'Reily having the slightest recourse. Usually, he has to act crazy, but when he does, Colbert either agrees with him, which pulls his teeth, or acts even crazier, at which point O'Reily has to MAKE HIMSELF SOUND REASONABLE in order to reign Colbert in, very clever.
So in this particular debate, Colbert holds all the cards. However, he doesn't win, he doesn't really make O'Reily look ridiculous, unless he can make him really mad. Not fake mad like he did on the O'Reily factor but really hopping, ridicoulously crazy-ass mad. And mad for no good reason. Mad because somebody's telling you he likes you, agrees with you, emulates you. O'Reily refrained, he held it in, he even laughed at himself a little bit. He certainly couldn't win, but he played to not lose, and succeeded. He didn't come accross as crazy, he didn't come accross as dumb. Just kind of bland. I think that's the best he could do.
# posted by JPD @ 7:45 PM 
