I’ve been avidly following the aftermath of the White House Correspondents Dinner, as it’s basically where my studies jumped off [i.e. with Stephen Colbert’s performance in 2006 – read my take here]. So here, again, we have a comedian on the hotseat for their remarks at this event.
Now it’s Michelle Wolf’s turn. You’d think the WHCA would learn about hiring former The Daily Show (TDS) correspondents to speak at events for Republican administrations. Apparently not.
Setting the scene
Exactly as with Colbert, Wolf was a former correspondent whose work was admired by the press corps, and as such was invited to speak. Although Wolf has been quoted (by Mae Yen Yap of the Post, Athens (8/26/2017)) as saying
My first priority is to make people laugh. If they get something out of it, great. But I’m not trying to change the world.
(read my comments about that here), as with Colbert, Wolf did what she has always done, both as a TDS correspondent and presumably will do on her own show, The Break with Michelle Wolf (Netflix, slated to begin May 27th, if this all works out). TDS has always been first and foremost about critiquing the media itself. In this spirit, Wolf roasted not only the administration, but the correspondents themselves. And as with Colbert, these same correspondents now seem to take issue with her performance.
My recap of Colbert
When Colbert’s incident broke, I analyzed the speech itself and the reactions to it, pointing out three major movements in the press: First, there was silence, crickets from the press, echoing that (it was later argued) of the people in the room. Critics in the blogosphere argued that whereas humor provokes laughter, silence is an indication of outrage, and therefore politics – because it wasn’t funny, it must have been political.
Then the press argued that their silence does not indicate outrage, but judgment of the form the jokes took, and the decorum of the comic. Thus
The press argues that their silence rhetorically constitutes the message as neither political nor humorous. Because they weren’t offended, it wasn’t political; because they didn’t laugh, it wasn’t humor.
Finally, I engaged in a “thought experiment” to display the value of Colbert’s address as a text that is open to interpretation, and thus produces political acts. However, far from Colbert’s address as a mere event – something that happened that started a separate and independent conversation – the creation of the address itself was a political act.
A tentative conclusion
My basic point was and still is on this blog that a lot of people are still – perhaps unknowingly – making the argument that humor is separate from politics. However, we all know that something can be both funny and impactful, even to the same person.
In order to keep this brief, I’ll end this post here. However, over the next few days, I’m going to get into the similarities and differences between Colbert’s incident and Wolf’s, so stick around.
