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Because The Daily Show and Colbert Report are so liberal, Fox News decided to continue its important mission of balance and provide a counterpoint. This was, as we can all agree, desperately needed.
When a clip appeared online, I watched it and thought it sucked. There were some mildly funny things, but the jokes are either somewhat mishandled (The clip is trying joking about how popular Obama is. The news guy says that Obama admitting he used cocaine caused Democratic support to "plummet to 99.9%". This is an old sort of joke, and the setup is always 99.9% to say, 99.8%, because nothing is ever a hundred percent.) or utterly botched - who the hell is Random Black Guy and what does this have to do with cocaine? Oh, he's a DC mayor from twenty years ago. Timely.
If you make the mistake of thinking about it, you might start to get this weird pseudo-racism vibe from the whole thing, where they keep showing black people - masses of black people for Obama's "American" supporters (we're apparently annexed Africa. Cool.) and the aforementioned mayor - then Obama's magazine contains articles like "I actually did go to Harvard".
If you make the severe mistake of going to see what other people think, you find out that far from mocking the news distortions of MSM/Fox, this place is acting as echo chamber. One of the few funny lines on the Obama magazine is "Politics: My 18-Month Journey". Turns out he's got ten years of experience, it's just Fox News likes to say 18 months. And let not a moment go by without mentioning that his middle name is Hussein! Hussein! You totally should pay attention, because that's really important news! (Hussein!!!)
But once I rewatched it, I decided all of these things aren't really that bad from a viewer perspective. The racist vibe is there, but it's not overt and its target audience probably isn't going to pick up on it. The echo chamber is there, but hey, that's Fox News, and people are still watching. It's not objectively funny, but it's not absolute utter garbage and sometimes pilot episodes suck. The hard conservatives might be happy enough to have someone agreeing with them. And there's the possibility that, not being its target audience, there might be all sorts of right-wing jokes that just flew over my head.
But then I came across another clip.
What the hell, Fox? Seriously, what the hell?
I've watched this clip several times, and I'm still completely lost. I'm strongly disturbed and find the whole thing really creepy, but I still don't know what they intended.
If I was going to mock the "blame the Democrats!" attitude, I would write something where the Republicans had to start off by pretending it was two years later to say anything negative about Democratic leaders because at the moment, all the fuckups are clearly theirs. Then I'd have them saying everything's gone to hell since that point, and with clever irony, have the Republican say that "our national reputation is in shambles. Our economy teeters on the brink of collapse" because that's how things are now, with the Republicans in charge, mocking how they keep saying Democrats will ruin everything despite the unending failure that is their attempt at governing. And I'd drop in some line about Cindy Sheehan going on a murder spree to parody how Republicans obsess about the woman as if she's some horrible monster.
And when Pelosi, house speaker, tried to contact the president, I'd write a president wondering how she got the number, implying that Republicans are jackasses who don't respect our government or anyone who disagrees with them, and who refuse to work with the people we elected, instead deliberately trying to prevent communication with them.
Maybe I'd even end with Coulter's infamous "kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" to remind everyone that Republicans are scary, violent xenophobs who want to kill everyone who doesn't support them, and that the real Republican administration went scarily close to actually trying this.
Watching the clip, I had no idea what the jokes were. Is it a self-parody, as some suggested? No, it can't be, because Coulter wasn't joking when she advocated invading the middle east so we could kill their government officals and forcably convert the surviving Muslims, and the rest of the stuff has been said seriously as well. Is is not a joke? But there's a laugh track and it's supposed to be a comedy show.
The only option is it's some kind of parody of a parody of Republicans. Except that, again, most of that has been said seriously, so it can't be taken as a joke about liberal extremism in a parody.
Whatever it is, I'm thoroughly creeped out now.
When a clip appeared online, I watched it and thought it sucked. There were some mildly funny things, but the jokes are either somewhat mishandled (The clip is trying joking about how popular Obama is. The news guy says that Obama admitting he used cocaine caused Democratic support to "plummet to 99.9%". This is an old sort of joke, and the setup is always 99.9% to say, 99.8%, because nothing is ever a hundred percent.) or utterly botched - who the hell is Random Black Guy and what does this have to do with cocaine? Oh, he's a DC mayor from twenty years ago. Timely.
If you make the mistake of thinking about it, you might start to get this weird pseudo-racism vibe from the whole thing, where they keep showing black people - masses of black people for Obama's "American" supporters (we're apparently annexed Africa. Cool.) and the aforementioned mayor - then Obama's magazine contains articles like "I actually did go to Harvard".
If you make the severe mistake of going to see what other people think, you find out that far from mocking the news distortions of MSM/Fox, this place is acting as echo chamber. One of the few funny lines on the Obama magazine is "Politics: My 18-Month Journey". Turns out he's got ten years of experience, it's just Fox News likes to say 18 months. And let not a moment go by without mentioning that his middle name is Hussein! Hussein! You totally should pay attention, because that's really important news! (Hussein!!!)
But once I rewatched it, I decided all of these things aren't really that bad from a viewer perspective. The racist vibe is there, but it's not overt and its target audience probably isn't going to pick up on it. The echo chamber is there, but hey, that's Fox News, and people are still watching. It's not objectively funny, but it's not absolute utter garbage and sometimes pilot episodes suck. The hard conservatives might be happy enough to have someone agreeing with them. And there's the possibility that, not being its target audience, there might be all sorts of right-wing jokes that just flew over my head.
But then I came across another clip.
What the hell, Fox? Seriously, what the hell?
I've watched this clip several times, and I'm still completely lost. I'm strongly disturbed and find the whole thing really creepy, but I still don't know what they intended.
If I was going to mock the "blame the Democrats!" attitude, I would write something where the Republicans had to start off by pretending it was two years later to say anything negative about Democratic leaders because at the moment, all the fuckups are clearly theirs. Then I'd have them saying everything's gone to hell since that point, and with clever irony, have the Republican say that "our national reputation is in shambles. Our economy teeters on the brink of collapse" because that's how things are now, with the Republicans in charge, mocking how they keep saying Democrats will ruin everything despite the unending failure that is their attempt at governing. And I'd drop in some line about Cindy Sheehan going on a murder spree to parody how Republicans obsess about the woman as if she's some horrible monster.
And when Pelosi, house speaker, tried to contact the president, I'd write a president wondering how she got the number, implying that Republicans are jackasses who don't respect our government or anyone who disagrees with them, and who refuse to work with the people we elected, instead deliberately trying to prevent communication with them.
Maybe I'd even end with Coulter's infamous "kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" to remind everyone that Republicans are scary, violent xenophobs who want to kill everyone who doesn't support them, and that the real Republican administration went scarily close to actually trying this.
Watching the clip, I had no idea what the jokes were. Is it a self-parody, as some suggested? No, it can't be, because Coulter wasn't joking when she advocated invading the middle east so we could kill their government officals and forcably convert the surviving Muslims, and the rest of the stuff has been said seriously as well. Is is not a joke? But there's a laugh track and it's supposed to be a comedy show.
The only option is it's some kind of parody of a parody of Republicans. Except that, again, most of that has been said seriously, so it can't be taken as a joke about liberal extremism in a parody.
Whatever it is, I'm thoroughly creeped out now.
