This past weekend I had the great fortune to go see Jon Stewart present at the Smith Center. I love the Daily Show and find its bashing of all sides of politics hilarious.
Needless to say he is quite different doing stand-up as opposed to the Daily Show. Nevertheless he was funny. He tended to stick to topics of politics and race. The former was unsurprising to me but the latter was quite surprising.
On the politics he mostly called for us to wait and give Obama a chance before passing judgment. Also, of course, there was the Bush bashing that is his staple. Nothing too new there.
The on race I thought it would be the liberal same old same old of whining and yelling at "whitey." He did in fact do this for most of his routine. Getting very disappointed I was suddenly shocked right near the end of the routine where he brought up the position I take on this. "Just get over it, you've had a lot of trouble yes, but get over it" was essentially what he said.
I was quite surprised to hear someone I considered very liberal say something of that sort about minorities and race. He even came from his own Jewish perspective with an example. To summarize more or less, he gave this example.
"If you are a Jew living in a majority Christian town and they want to put up a Christmas tree at Christmas, you don't need to insist a large menorah be put up as well. They are celebrating the birth of their savior, you are celebrating that the oil lasted a bit longer than you thought! Just get over it!"
I found this encouraging that he advocated for moving past all the horrible things that have happened in the past and just try to live peacefully with one another. There will be bigots and racists from every group. But most of us, in the end, just want to live a happy peaceful life regardless of our religion, race, or sex.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
As a conservative I knew JS would have many jokes that would make me uncomfortable or angry.
But I was quite surprised at the number of times and to the extent which he attacked his own side.
He attacked victimhood vehemently. He pilloried the celebration of diversity.
Something along the lines of "Acknowledging diversity is great... Celebrating it... Is f****** annoying." (Made my evening)
He slammed Obama on gay rights.
I went in there thinking I'd hate 90% of the show and came out having enjoyed 70% of it.
He seems like the type of liberal that a libertarian or conservative could hang out with at a bar and while you wouldn't agree you'd be able to have a damn good time. (Unlike say.... Rahm Emaneul)
As a conservative you probably aren't in favor of gay marriage and in favor of DADT (if you don't know what it stands for without looking it up you can't speak intelligently about politics anyway)
Anonymous, that is an irrelevant, ridiculous comment. Attacking someone for being against gay marriage when their only reference to it was about a comedian slamming a politician for not promoting gay rights is not intelligent discourse. Way to straw man.
Also, I promise people can speak intelligently about politics without using abbreviations. I know plenty of people who can tell you lots about Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but will probably do a double take on that abbreviation. Being informed on one issue does not equate to being able to talk politics, anyway.
Post a Comment
The Patriot accepts anonymous comments [unlike the draconian editors at the Hatchet]. However, we strongly prefer that you USE A NAME. Mostly it's because we don't take anonymous comments seriously, but it's also because we hate bullshit. Have a nice day.