Mar5 |
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Sarah Palin actually bombed on Jay Leno? Who cares?
You mean there’s artifice in the staging and production of a late-night talk show? SHOCKED!!!! I am absolutely shocked. As I said at the outset of the whole Leno-Conan kerfuffle, late-night talk shows are basically somewhat more entertaining infomercials. Jay Leno’s job isn’t to illuminate and inform; it’s to entertain and sell you his guest’s latest movie/TV show/album/whatever. With rare exception, his job is never to make his guests look bad and it is almost entirely to make his guests look good. Sarah Palin included. Anybody who comes to Leno’s show looking to make electoral choices needs to take remedial civics class. Don’t get me wrong: Sarah Palin is a callow ideologue who never, ever should’ve been within spitting distance of the presidency. John McCain’s choice of her as a vice presidential candidate was a cynical disservice to his country that should forever mar his record of public service. But if the laughter at her jokes was augmented? Meh. That’s not some dark political conspiracy to foist Sarah Palin on an unsuspecting public. That’s showbiz. And it’s the business that Palin more properly belongs to, anyway. |
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Sure, NBC has been so Palin-friendly that they would move heaven and earth to make her look good. I read this Daily Kos article, sounds like BS to me. There were about 400 people in the audiance, do you actually think if she bombed, only this one nutcase at the Daily Kos would be talking about it, especially since the guy said that 70 percent of the audiance hated her. Another thing, why would anyone fly 6,000 miles round trip to see someone they didn’t like? Palin has been in his neck of the woods several times, you would think he would have gone to see her at some other event, such as her visit to Auburn NY, or the Autism Walk on Long Island, why, he could have even flown to Chicago for the taping of Oprah. Sounds more like a pathetic liar to me, trying to get some attention. After all, the Daily Kos isn’t exactly well known for its “honest” reporting. If you read the comments by the DK bunch, you get the impression that even a lot of them don’t believe him.
I find the Daily Kos article very believable. I grew up with the sitcom laugh tracks. It always grated on my nerves even as a child. Sarah grates on my nerves: her high pitched screech, her garbled syntax, her repetitive talking points, her lies. It is only right that they treat her as a sitcom and add a laugh track. She is a living breathing sitcom. Keep her in comedy and out of our political life.
The important difference is that Palin is not a comedian, actor, or musician plugging an entertainment product… she’s a political figure (by some miracle) with serious political ambitions. Creating the illusion that the studio audience was receptive to her message is propaganda — it’s a political act of deception. The fact that soi-disant journalists no longer perceive the distinction between politics and entertainment is one of the root causes of the social decay that allows entertaining but vacant pols like Palin to rise to prominence in the first place.
It makes sense to me that fake laughter was added. The audience was mostly Adam Lambert fans, and they could care less about Palin.
By the way, I read the whole blog by Michael Stinson about Palin’s visit on Leno, and it was pretty brilliant.
I watched the show specifically to see what Sarah had to say. It was a live audience and her jokes, if somewhat less pointed than some of the comedians that do political jokes for a living, make me smile a little. Had I been watching live, I would have laughed a little.
To the person questioning why there are not more blog posts from the massive audience of “400″.
And how many blog posts do you see from audience members of ANY show day to day? Pretty much NONE!
This may be news to some but the entire world does not blog their daily experiences no matter how dramatic. Just a tiny fraction do.
(1) most shows have “flavored” audience reactions, probably to diminish the reality that one is watching an inert gadget alone in a room, and not being with other people. The discovery of “laugh tracks” and related is an old one.
(2) The author of, “I worked in a mental institution. The very basic definition of insanity is ‘inappropriate laughter’” had pretty much tainted whatever they were trying to say by illustrating their comically absurd understanding of insanity. I don’t think being inept in one arena implies ineptness in all arenas, but — it doesn’t help one’s case, either.
(3) In all likelihood, Sarah Palin would have done just fine as VP. One has only to (dispassionately) regard a roll-call of past VP’s to see that this is the case: Nelson Rockefeller?! Seriously?! However, I understand that “dispassion,” regarding the ex-Gov. Palin, is usually in short supply on both sides of the debate.
Many people think she somehow, magically, doesn’t belong within spitting-distance of Washington, DC. Funnily, many of these same people elected a president who mirrors approximately her experience in the public sector — and expect great things. Me? I expect great things from my president, too; but then I don’t turn around and lambast someone similar just because they “think different” than I do.
Something about that doesn’t strike me as being “even-handed.” ;o/
Captcha: “had evacuees”
All that to say this, I guess: Roger Ebert is a fine and caring human being, an inspiration more than ever, a deft writer, and an incisive film critic. But his political opinions of the GOP make the “I worked in a mental institution. The very basic definition of insanity is ‘inappropriate laughter’.” guy look like Einstein.
Wry: I don’t want to get too far off-track here, because I’ve been in this discussion a million times, but the whole “Sarah Palin was just a GOP Barack Obama” meme doesn’t really fly. Sure, they’d spent a similar amount of time in elected public office, but the differences end there.
Like him or not, Obama obviously had spent some time preparing to run for president and giving a fair amount of thought to the issues he’d face at the federal level. All the evidence from inside John McCain’s camp is that Palin wasn’t all that familiar with the issues beyond a sound-bitey-culture-warrior-bumper-sticker level.
If you didn’t like Obama’s preparation for office, fine. But it’s a little crazy to believe that Palin was every bit as prepared as he was; she wasn’t. I aspire to even-handedness, but I don’t aspire to false evenhandedness.
That said, while Roger Ebert and I share some a lot of the same politics, as an editorialist he makes a fine film critic.
You say “probably enhanced.” So in another words, you have absolutely zero evidence it actually was enhanced. You are making a juvenile, utterly fictitious accusation – just because you don’t happen to like Sarah Palin. I watched the same thing and I thought she was funny, and very natural.
The real revelation in your post is the level of hatred you have toward Palin. Reading the replies of those agreeing with you, it almost seems like it’s BAD that she was being treated NICELY. Good grief.
Get a life mate. The world is a bigger place than your politically straight jacketed mind allows you to imagine.
Joel, to your response to Wrymouth I would add, “And don’t forget, Obama went to law school and graduated, editing and presiding over the Harvard Law Review along the way. Then he taught at law school. Palin, on the other hand, attended two community colleges and two universities over the course of 5 years and got her BA in Communications. Before entering local politics, her experience consisted of being a sports reporter.”
Dude: That’s SO elitist.
Roger Ebert speak up defend youself . Sara always spoke highly of you, but then in your circle of eletist d kos types .Being kind or caring consists of kicking your dog or cat less than usual.By the tenor of the remarks ,(Unemployed) THE RESULT of hope and change might apply.
KhabaLox, I was wondering if you ever considered the possibility that one of the greatest problems in government is that the people we continue to elect are people who have never been truck drivers, shoe salesmen, farmers or even sports reporters.