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reactions to Stephen Colbert at the Press Correspondence?
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Acheron

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PostPosted: Sun May 14, 2006 8:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

The Colbert Report is a satire of a Right-wing News Show. It's sarcastic through out the entire thing but the fact remains that it's public stance is in favor of George Bush and the Republicans. It points out many of the flaws and takes idea's employed by thte President and satires them, like the Dangers to America list where Bears was number 1. At the same time it also satires programs ilke Letterman with all the lists and other shows that are all political like Hardball or Crossfire or Crossballs or Hardfire. I view it as a politic-focused version of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

In regard to his speech, people were furious, and by people I mean republicans. For good reason though since Colbert came in and pointed out all flaws in the Bush Administration and very few positives, most of which were backhanded, and he was at the White House Press Conference. He did his speech just like his show, talking about just the Republican party and Bush and using facts and stuff that aren't favorable to them.

I thought it was funny. I thought it was honest and true to form for Colbert. I think the people should be mad at him but they can't really refute what he said because he used pretty commonly known facts. He wrote his speech very well and it took balls to say that in front of a crowd that won't laugh at your jokes. It was also pretty ballsy of the person who put him on the roster. He offered a different perspective definently.

Soph is right, he's no Edward R. Marrow, though very few could ever step up to his level. Most that try are just two bit hacks anyways. Marrow was one of a kind.
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Acheron

Stonewall Brigade


Joined: 13 Feb 2005
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PostPosted: Mon May 15, 2006 10:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Sorry for the double post but this is related just not to the last topic. I forgot completely until tonight that I had a paper to write about a speech. Any speech, political ones are good. So quick thinking me is going to analyze the rhetorical strategies used in Stephen Colbert's speech given to the White House Correspondents' Diner. I'll post the paper once I finish if ya'll are interested. It should be fun to take a serious look at a satirical work.

EDIT: Well here it is. If you can bear it enjoy reading it. It's a literary analysis so tell me where you think I went wrong and so forth so I can bear that in mind next time I do one for English. Sorry it's bad looking, I'm too tired to change the margining or whatever to make it look fancy like it does on word.

Quote:
A Political Parody

Stephen Colbert is a funnyman of the news circuit. As a sister program to the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the Colbert Report was created to offer the satirical of a liberal who poses as a conservative supporter of President Bush. The satire of his show may not have been conveyed to whomever decided to give him a spot as a speaker at the annual White House Correspondents' Diner where Stephen had some choice words. His speech mainly attacked the Bush Administration and the media and its main figures. In a situation like this many would Leonardo DiCaprio-foot around the issues but through diction, logos, an anti-ethos and sarcasm we see that Colbert has no fear in facing the issues in the face of the object of his criticism.
There are several examples in this speech of parallel structuring. In the first paragraph we see the introduction to a theme seen from front to back and in between of his speech. He starts with using a common phrase, one that everyone can identify with. "I feel like I'm dreaming. Somebody pinch me." He says this to start his speech with something his audience could relate to, something to get his audience warmed up to him.
By using common phrases that everyone can agree with he uses logical transitions to make his points. In this case he creates a means to raise the issue of Dick Cheney shooting his friend in the face with a shotgun. The transition is brief enough to make those who were pulled in by his common phrase also be more inclined to agree with the negativity brought on by mentioning the media crazed events surrounding that fateful hunting expedition with Cheney.
In paragraph six Colbert uses more common phrases with another intention. This time he begins by saying he is a "simple man with a simple mind". This influences the audience that he is like the President, mentioned in the two paragraphs prior, but he continues by using more common phrases. With each one he stretches further from something we consider truth and because he established his likeness to Bush, Bush also gets drawn from a state of truthfulness. Another common phrase cited is "a government that governs best is a government that governs least." Commonly held by many as a truth, a concept brought up in the Declaration of Independence, which set parameters for this country to be formed. Colbert uses it to imply that we are destroying the government in Iraq, which is an issue that the President has been and is being highly criticized for.
In the latter part of the speech Colbert begins four of his paragraphs with a persons name, the person being the subject of the criticism. Jesse Jackson, John McCain Mayor Nagin, Joe Wilson, all are being scrutinized in a light-hearted way by Colbert. He takes the thing that got them the most press attention and makes sarcastic quips about them by referring to these publicized happenings. Just like he did with Cheney in the beginning and what he does with the references to common phrases, he brings up the things everyone will know about. These things will remind people about what the subjects had done wrong. Jesse Jackson having tyrannical control over the interview he did on Colberts show was referenced implying how Jackson is a stubborn man, Mayor Nagin's infamous quote about New Orleans becoming a chocolate city of all blacks. He uses that same thought to expand the analogy to apply to Washington DC, calling it a Mallomar. Joe Wilson and his public issues with his wife and Cheney's incident with the botched hunting trip, all examples of these men's shortcomings that the media pointed out to everyone. By recalling them he brings those feelings back up with the audience.
Paragraph ten introduces the well-known statistic showing Bush's approval rating dropping significantly. Colbert brings this up along with another common phrase, "the glass is half full". While normally this would be a symbol for optimism and pessimism, here Colbert uses it to show that the President is generally bad. He extends the analogy of the glass of water to say that a substantial majority disapproves of him and that those left are "backwash". Backwash is a negative word to choose when describing people. It makes t audience think that these people are the leftover and that they don't really know what's happening. It's like the backwash people don't know that Bush's a bad President because they're still hung up on what happened in the past.
Stepping back we see in the fourth paragraph parallel structure again, this time used in a different way. He repeatedly starts sentences with "we" giving the impression that he is like another, in this case George Bush Jr. When he uses we, the reader or listener will get the implication that they are to associate Colbert with the President, and that they share the same mind on many subjects. It's no coincidence that Colbert establishes this precedence early in his speech because it leads into numerous examples of Anti-Ethos, which is comparable to Litotes.
In ancient Latin poetry we see many literary techniques that were used to show the mastery of language the author has. Ovid is well known for his mastery of language and shows this by writing in dactylic hexameter, using literary techniques all throughout his work like synecdoche, litotes and beautiful metaphors. In particular he uses litotes, which in Latin Poetry is proving a point by disproving the opposite. Though probably unknown to him, Colbert's speech makes use of this ancient technique often.
Colbert made clear that he is a just like Bush. In this way he created an Ethical Appeal to the audience that what he says about himself is assumed to be true with the President also. So with that in mind he gives his speech and several times disproves his own argument, thereby disproving Bush's arguments as well. In paragraph five Colbert claims that his gut is guiding him and is what governs what is correct. He says his gut is a better guide than books, which can be assumed to mean logical knowledge. This tactic pits his gut, something that isn't very reliable, against something that is generally thought to be true, books. In doing so he is not only making himself seem dumb, but also insulting the intelligence of Bush, who by parallel chooses to follow his gut rather than logic.
The analogy made of Rocky and his miraculous comeback that never was from paragraph 12 is another example of litotes by using this misplaced analogy that hurts his and the Presidents side more than it helps it. He could have just said that Rocky was like the President in that Rocky didn't give up. It would have been inspirational but the analogy continued to make a point to say that Rocky lost in the end. The comparison of Bush to Rocky is made first, than it says Rocky fails so the reader's conclusion is that the President is down the same road to failure.
In the following paragraph Colbert ends by saying "Think about it. I haven't." This is also an example of that Anti-Ethos where he disproves himself by proving himself incompetent and Bush also by the parallel established in the beginning of the speech. Colbert is constantly proving to the audience that he has a bad point of view and his stances on issues tend not to make logical sense, juxtaposing the same on Bush. Using litotes to create a negative Ethos to the audience that applies to the President.
Another rhetorical strategy used prolifically throughout the speech was Diction. He uses the word "reality" in paragraph ten as a set-up for a joke he makes about reality having a liberal bias. He could have used other words like, the "modern media" or "America", but he opted to call it reality. The use of this word implies that Bush's state of mind is on a fantasy trip that causes him to act as if he has the support of the American people. Fact is that America doesn't tend to approve as much as he thinks and he makes actions that an America that approved him would support but that America doesn't exist in reality.
Diction is also used in paragraph fourteen where he makes note of the numerous pictures that are just too perfect to be real. The aircraft carriers, the rubble, and flooded areas of the disaster zone left in Katrinas' wake, all examples where Bush has been captured on film in shots that tell the viewer that Bush cares, he's in the thick of it. Colbert calls them "powerfully staged photo ops" which really brings a negative tone on it. Now regardless of the fact, the audience will view these pictures of Bush's compassion as fallacies, powerfully staged photo ops.
When talking about retired generals, Colbert makes it clear that in modern day generals do very little. His claim that it requires the same strength to get on TV as it does to control our soldiers is a tribute to this. By using the phrase "order the men into battle" we get a somewhat negative feel. It makes the general seem distant from his troops. The implied distance makes the General seem impersonal to his troops, as if his soldiers are just numbers and not individuals in the eyes of the General.
Out of all the rhetorical strategies used, sarcasm is the most frequent. To prove this we see that the entire inspiration of the speech seems to be sarcastic. The most obvious use of sarcasm appears in paragraph fifteen where he implies that Bush has done nothing about the energy crisis going on choosing to dilly-dally at his ranch instead. Colbert makes a wise crack about mesquite powered cars of the future thanks to Dubya! This idea is completely outlandish and seems impractical to the reader or listener and so does Bush by his association.
In paragraph sixteen we see even more sarcasm about the book program Laura Bush is pushing in recent days. He calls books elitists and untrustworthy, personifying books in a negative way. The mere thought that books, the means by which we store our knowledge and imagination, are to be discredited on groundless information is preposterous. This sarcasm than casts a shadow on Bush who we've established as like Colbert who hates books. So does Bush Jr. hate books too? He and Colbert are so similar, after all.
Throughout this speech Colbert makes quick jabs and drops his left hook on Bush and other figures of the political world, often veiled in humor. The impact of this speech was fairly sizable considering that I heard about it from word of mouth within 3 days of its occurrence. It takes serious balls to tell the most powerful man in America that he's not doing a good job and point out his flaws to his face. At any point Colbert could have been grabbed and "removed" from the premises but he was allowed to stay and he said some very important things. Stephen Colbert showed he had no fear and made his points known by using diction, logos, an anti-ethos and sarcasm. Perhaps now people will regard him as not only a funnyman, but as someone who has a fair amount of knowledge on the subjects that are brought up in real world situations.
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Leb

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PostPosted: Tue May 16, 2006 1:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

A little too large for a copy and paste job, so I put it in quotes.
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Acheron

Stonewall Brigade


Joined: 13 Feb 2005
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PostPosted: Tue May 16, 2006 9:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

@Leb: Thanks, I wasn't too sure about it. It didn't hit the potch limit so I thought it would be okay and it is an original composition but I see your reasoning. Thanks.
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