Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Colbert and Irony
Just felt like promoting my own comments from Scats' post below, because I think the topic's interesting. Anyway...
One of the commentators on Colbert (forget who) cited David Foster Wallace's claim about the negative power of irony. Of course Wallace is writing against irony (totally different time, context, type of irony)--the point of the commentator's use of Wallace's quote is to show that in the case of Colbert, standing before the actual em"bodi"ment of the Death Machine, the negative power of irony is the only *possible* weapon he can use--and he used it brilliantly.
I also really liked the (sometimes subtle, but usually not) distinction between the assuasive, affirmative (and therefore complicit and murderous) quality of the traditional "self-deprecatory" and "tongue-in-cheek-reference-to-recent-'scandalous'-news-item" type of humor customary at these types of dinners, and this one in particular. THAT, in fact, is the kind of "irony" that Wallace would want to attack--the type of irony that brackets (neuters) the attack-quality of the "joke" so as not to really attack.
The reason Colbert used the full negative power of irony so well as that all of his jokes delivered THROUGH the ironic negation a silent and totally positive and totally unironic accusation, condemnation, and righteous shaming.
posted by Blicero : 5/02/2006 06:44:00 PM
One of the commentators on Colbert (forget who) cited David Foster Wallace's claim about the negative power of irony. Of course Wallace is writing against irony (totally different time, context, type of irony)--the point of the commentator's use of Wallace's quote is to show that in the case of Colbert, standing before the actual em"bodi"ment of the Death Machine, the negative power of irony is the only *possible* weapon he can use--and he used it brilliantly.
I also really liked the (sometimes subtle, but usually not) distinction between the assuasive, affirmative (and therefore complicit and murderous) quality of the traditional "self-deprecatory" and "tongue-in-cheek-reference-to-recent-'scandalous'-news-item" type of humor customary at these types of dinners, and this one in particular. THAT, in fact, is the kind of "irony" that Wallace would want to attack--the type of irony that brackets (neuters) the attack-quality of the "joke" so as not to really attack.
The reason Colbert used the full negative power of irony so well as that all of his jokes delivered THROUGH the ironic negation a silent and totally positive and totally unironic accusation, condemnation, and righteous shaming.
posted by Blicero : 5/02/2006 06:44:00 PM
