Conan versus Jay: Yet Another Generation Gap (see SNL)

What do you watch at 11:30?  Are you even up?  The Daily Show is over, but there’s still Steven Colbert.  Or are you sucked away from basic cable to join one of the Established Hosts on those antiquated broadcast networks?  And if you are, which one?   The answer to that question probably depends on how old you are.

Last week’s Saturday Night Live  included this imaginary Larry King Show, mocking, as both hosts have, the ham-handed dismissal of the younger Conan to honor expensive contract obligations made to the older Leno.  For many of us, this is simple: Jay Leno is old and grouchy (well not as old as I am but still…) and O’Brien younger, more creative and definitely holder of the “younger, cooler, hipper” mandate.  (Yes I know there’s David Letterman (and George Lopez) but for now let’s think about NBC.)

Younger viewers have been up late watching Conan for years – after many of the rest of us had gone to bed – and they know and like his ironic, goofy, smart persona.  The Harvard-educated O’Brien, (who wrote for the university’s humor magazine, the Harvard Lampoon,) and served as a long-time writer for Saturday Night live and later for The Simpson’s, is a perfect 21st Century personality. 

Leno, on the other hand, is a real 20th Century man.  He came up through comedy clubs and Tonight Show appearances and is a car collector and motorcycle freak.  His humor is less subtle and, somehow, although less arch than Conan it’s also less friendly.  Mostly though, it’s old-school.  In my view, it’s for the dwindling older audience and not for the emerging majority of TV viewers (and of Americans) born well after we Boomers had finished college.  

It’s funny, but as much as I loathe the idea of age discrimination, I also see this decision as a symptom of a generational division visible in the women’s movement, in life on the Web and in the politics that brought out so many younger voters for Barack Obama and then betrayed them with posturing and partisanship.

I first thought about all this when I saw an interview with the gifted and admired Dick Ebersol, long an icon of sports coverage who has led NBC Sports for many years and presided over several Olympics seasons on the air.  In the Huffington Post, he called Conan’s Tonight show a “spectacular failure.”  In his long career, in addition to sports, Ebersol was an executive in charge of the TODAY SHOW (full disclosure, I worked for him – and happily) and of Saturday Night Live so he’s no slouch.  But it seems that seven months, preceded by a failing Leno show with ratings so bad the affiliates, bleeding audience for the local news that followed Leno, demanded a change, was hardly the best audience-builder for Conan, whose show followed that news.  More than all of that though, Ebersol is far from the days when he had his finger on the pulse of the emerging audience, the Gen Xers and Millennials and those younger than they are.  They want something different, something cooler, something more like — Conan.

I’ve written about, and been on panels about, the generational divide.  The economic crisis has only exacerbated it as young people consider the disappearing Social Security benefits and their own futures in a world where job security and benefits is hazy history.  They’re mad at the Boomers, blame us for more than we’re responsible for and often have no idea what we really accomplished in the 60’s and 70’s — for the better.   Events like this one, however superficial and entertainment-based, are just another example of the disregard in which they are too often held.  NBC will pay for that — in the PR game it already has (did you see the Golden Globes?) and, I fear, in a larger sense, so will the rest of us “older” Americans.  We should be listening to them about more than product preferences and if we don’t, we’ll be sorry.

IS JOHN STEWART A POLITICAL KING (QUEEN) MAKER? DOES COMEDY RULE? SHOULD IT?

Snl_3
I used to run a television newscast for teenagers.  It was tough to get them to pay much attention to the news, so one of the features I experimented with was "If you don’t know the news, you can’t get the jokes." Dennis Miller was doing Saturday Night Update then, and sadly, wouldn’t talk to us, so the idea failed.  It wasn’t that original anyway; humor has always been part of American politics.  But I wanted the kids to care more about it – and I thought that connecting news and cool comedy would help.   I’m pretty sure I was right; political comedy is certainly a factor this year’s campaign.  If you’re my age, you’re probably sitting there thinking "Hasn’t this woman ever heard of Mort Sahl?  Yup.  He’s just turned 80 and his political humor is as sharp as ever.  But he didn’t have a daily "Daily Show" as a podium. Look at this:

 

I started thinking about this because this headline just appeared in the Media Bistro LA edition – which linked to this piece in the Washington Post.  Comedy, at least this year, is an important factor in the campaign.  Of course, Bill Clinton rebounded from one of his many backslides in 1992 with a saxophone-playing appearance on standup comedian and talk show host Arsenio Hall’s show.  This clip, in fact, appeared on Channel One, the show I used to run! 

That was the second time Clinton used nightly talk as a life preserver.  After this disastrous keynote convention speech in 1988

Clinton went on the Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and did the same thing.  Not quite comedy but definitely popular culture.  Carson had a unique impact, too.  A wise Republican political consultant told me he could tell the mood of the country by listening to which jokes audiences responded to on The Tonight Show.  So this year, despite all the fuss about Comedy Central, is not the first time that the worlds of entertainment and comedy have had more than a small role in choosing our leaders.  And those are just in the past few elections. (OH, and don’t forget JibJab. )

Hogarth_the_times_2
We aren’t alone, of course.  The 18th Century British cartoonist William Hogarth, is still taught in political propaganda classes.   This one, The Times, is an example.   

The difference today may be the ubiquitousness of any information that emerges; it’s not just in some elitist newspaper, it’s all over the place.  It may also be the diminished influence of what used to be our respected news media.  Young people (and others) turn to comedy not just because it’s arch, and fun, but because it’s less pretentious and heavy-handed, and treats audience members as co-conspirators rather than as a single passive body. 

I worry that the deflation of our leaders that comes from the Comedy Central syndrome is as scary as it is useful.  Americans like to believe; that’s part of the appeal of both Obama and McCain, I think.  And it’s possible to believe without mindless acceptance.  But if all, or most of one’s information emerges from the acerbic minds of comedy writers, does it undermine any capacity to follow a leader in what are truly perilous times? 

Franklin Roosevelt, through his Fireside Chats and other communications with Americans, was able to bring the country along as war drew closer.  Doris Kearns Goodwin, in NO ORDINARY TIME*, one of my favorite books, tells the story of one chat in particular.  FDR asked Americans, in advance, to get a
map of the world and follow along as he described the current state of the war.  Maps sold
out. And the Americans who had bought them sat there by the radio and followed as Roosevelt spoke.  You don’t need comedy to inspire confidence when you have that kind of respect for your audience.  I guess you could say that FDR was a kind  of rock star who had built such a relationship with Americans during the Depression that  he was in a different situation, but still, it’s a provocative example to place against 5 minute guest spots with Stewart or Colbert. 

This has been long and a bit rambling because I’m trying to think it all out here – and I still don’t have an answer.  I do think it’s going to be interesting to see how long this trend lasts — at least in this incarnation.

*go to the link and search inside under Fireside Chat and map and you will find the story (pg. 319)

 

DEMOCRACY AND THE DAILY SHOW

REPOSTED FROM VOX 8/09
We seem to have a DAILY SHOW thread going — not just here but across the web. My favorite is a piece on ALTERNET by the great writer and wonderful editor Jessica Clark, “Comedy, Like Reality, Has a Liberal Bias.” It debunks some of the complaints about current political satire — reminding us that there’s a basis in reality to much of the brilliant satire served up every night on Comedy Central. Beyond that, she reminds that — well read the piece. It’s worth the time and not very long anyway

To really understand the appeal of the program, however, go beyond the Bush-bashing to this.

The Daily Show

REPOSTED FROM VOX 8/08
OK so it’s almost midnight and Jon Stewart is going on about BP Oil, Condi Rice and Congress. There are those who think that Stewart is destroying youthful patriotism. Hardly.

To me, his satire is the only thing between many young people and total alienation. First of all, you have to know what it IS in order to laugh at it. Secondly, most polls show Americans who never heard of Comedy Central are as angry at Congress as the most tatooed, pierced or just plain pissed off kid.

Now there’s a commercial airing about Oliver Stone’s WORLD TRADE CENTER. I really want to see it but I’m afraid to go. Anyone else feel the same? Don’t know if I can got through this again — even for great cinema.