I can't stand either of them. Watters, mostly because he's an untalented hack who looks like he would weep and throw a tantrum if the doorman of his apartment building didn't display proper deference to his arrival and departure, and Gutfeld comes off as a smug asshole begging to get a swirlie. I'm sure the Right feels the same about Colbert & Co., but whatever...those two guys are jerkoffs.
You are comparing apples to watermelons. Gutfeld and Waters don't pretend to be unbiased. They are running a show delivering a right-leaning perspective and they are honest about it.
The entire legacy news and entertainment cabal that serves the Democrats keeps demanding that they are the only sane, normal providers of the balanced and accurate perspective.
This gets to the heart of just about everything wrong with the Democrats and why more people are running right. It is that honesty and authenticity. The Democrats are deep up to their neck in self-deception and thus they keep needing to double down on more of it. They have dug such a hole that they cannot get out of it. They are no longer funny, and certainly cannot take any joke delivered their way. They are snarky, nasty and mean. And then they grow more so when people tell them they are snarky, nasty and mean. Because they want to be the chosen... The Elect... the Righteous. And so they lie, lie and lie again. They play act. They are artificial and plastic and people are no longer interested in listening to them.
While Balkanization is a good descriptor for American media, pillarisation might be a better analogy. Everything seems sorted into a few parallel societies.
One issue, and probably what conservatives are complaining about when they say things got political, is that we all still call stuff in the "liberal" pillar mainstream while conservative things are clearly called conservative. Colbert and Gutfield can be considered similar, but there's no conservative Emmy for Gutfield to win.
There's always a pretty large element of "a fish doesn't know it's in water" when it comes to what people think is "political" or not. If something seems obviously true and uncontroversial to you then it's not "political". If it offends your beliefs then it probably is.
I see this a lot with video games, where the right think a game is "political" if a main character is a lady who is not designed to be very sexy, and if it's going to be a trans person it might as well just stop pretending to be a game and switch to the medium of political manifesto (because video game characters should either be badass tough guys or sexy ladies). At the same time, a lot of leftists consider moden shooters like Call of Duty or Battlefield to be very political because to the extent that they include a story, it usually involves Americans using violence to keep the world in order against savage foreigners.
The progressive character identities aren't political to the leftists because that's just how they see the world anyway, and the military shooters aren't political to the right because that's just how they see the world.
> Many of those people would be fine with comedy that reflects their views.
I won't deny that I used to enjoy the daily show political comedy back when I was right on the same page with Jon Stewart. But I learned how toxic and dangerous that is! It's fun in the moment but it is unhealthy, so now I regard it like my old cookie drawer habit.
Is Nick Di Paolo still around? He was hella conservative but actually funny (i. e., a professional comedian with talent). And Colin Quinn? Same, plus he hosted Tough Crowd on Comedy Central way back when, which threw all kinds of stuff against the wall (ah, for the days of George W. Bush’s first term).
Colin's maybe a right-leaning independent, definitely not MAGA. Nick DiPaolo has a podcast, I haven't heard it but, yeah, he was a really good standup back in the day.
They aren’t. Most of us don’t watch any of that stuff. Pretty typical viewpoint this day from a sub stack writer which means Missing the whole point. Most people at the end of the day were looking for variety and had no problem with a few barbs being thrown there way. They were not looking for a lecture though.
making fun of gutfeld (not a viewer) does not make the other guys look any better it just shows that one is incapable of escaping the binary that has been imposed by our culture
Clearly the decline of late night predates the political turn of the genre. Going political also was also a life boat to Colbert in the early Trump years. It seemed though we had 20 odd Colbert/daily show clones, and all were saying the same damn things! But I can’t help but think of the Orwell quote:
"A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks".
The over the top politicization of the genre clearly pushed away a lot of potential viewers, and limited its appeal. Presumably a late night TV show shouldn’t have the same demographics as old people who watch MSNBC all day, but that seems to be the case. If your goal is to entertain, why have Adam Schiff on all the time? Or ever?
Jesus Gutfeld bombed that desk piece. The only joke that got an unforced response was a confused laugh about Rosie O'Donnell and a vibrator. Does this mean his writers suck? His delivery seemed... fine... I guess. But wow. Crickets after almost every joke.
I can't stand either of them. Watters, mostly because he's an untalented hack who looks like he would weep and throw a tantrum if the doorman of his apartment building didn't display proper deference to his arrival and departure, and Gutfeld comes off as a smug asshole begging to get a swirlie. I'm sure the Right feels the same about Colbert & Co., but whatever...those two guys are jerkoffs.
You might very well think that but I couldn't possibly comment.
It's this kind of unfailing journalistic integrity that keeps me coming back.
A wink's as good as a nod to a blind man, I say i say
Gutfeld is a Dennis Miller wannabe and about as funny as the post 9/11 Miller (in other words, amoebic dysentery).
The only logical choice for the next king of late night is Chris Wallace.
The funniest thing about Gutfeld is his name. Which is also an intestinal disorder.
You are comparing apples to watermelons. Gutfeld and Waters don't pretend to be unbiased. They are running a show delivering a right-leaning perspective and they are honest about it.
The entire legacy news and entertainment cabal that serves the Democrats keeps demanding that they are the only sane, normal providers of the balanced and accurate perspective.
This gets to the heart of just about everything wrong with the Democrats and why more people are running right. It is that honesty and authenticity. The Democrats are deep up to their neck in self-deception and thus they keep needing to double down on more of it. They have dug such a hole that they cannot get out of it. They are no longer funny, and certainly cannot take any joke delivered their way. They are snarky, nasty and mean. And then they grow more so when people tell them they are snarky, nasty and mean. Because they want to be the chosen... The Elect... the Righteous. And so they lie, lie and lie again. They play act. They are artificial and plastic and people are no longer interested in listening to them.
I came here to write your first paragraph. Ditto. If Kimmel was on MSNBC this would be a better comparison.
While Balkanization is a good descriptor for American media, pillarisation might be a better analogy. Everything seems sorted into a few parallel societies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillarisation
One issue, and probably what conservatives are complaining about when they say things got political, is that we all still call stuff in the "liberal" pillar mainstream while conservative things are clearly called conservative. Colbert and Gutfield can be considered similar, but there's no conservative Emmy for Gutfield to win.
There's always a pretty large element of "a fish doesn't know it's in water" when it comes to what people think is "political" or not. If something seems obviously true and uncontroversial to you then it's not "political". If it offends your beliefs then it probably is.
I see this a lot with video games, where the right think a game is "political" if a main character is a lady who is not designed to be very sexy, and if it's going to be a trans person it might as well just stop pretending to be a game and switch to the medium of political manifesto (because video game characters should either be badass tough guys or sexy ladies). At the same time, a lot of leftists consider moden shooters like Call of Duty or Battlefield to be very political because to the extent that they include a story, it usually involves Americans using violence to keep the world in order against savage foreigners.
The progressive character identities aren't political to the leftists because that's just how they see the world anyway, and the military shooters aren't political to the right because that's just how they see the world.
Clone Norm Macdonald?
> Many of those people would be fine with comedy that reflects their views.
I won't deny that I used to enjoy the daily show political comedy back when I was right on the same page with Jon Stewart. But I learned how toxic and dangerous that is! It's fun in the moment but it is unhealthy, so now I regard it like my old cookie drawer habit.
Trump's still mad that Colbert's rightwing character on The Colbert Report was just a character.
Are you kidding? The pitch for Trump was Colbert 2.0.
Is Nick Di Paolo still around? He was hella conservative but actually funny (i. e., a professional comedian with talent). And Colin Quinn? Same, plus he hosted Tough Crowd on Comedy Central way back when, which threw all kinds of stuff against the wall (ah, for the days of George W. Bush’s first term).
Colin's maybe a right-leaning independent, definitely not MAGA. Nick DiPaolo has a podcast, I haven't heard it but, yeah, he was a really good standup back in the day.
I didn’t mean to imply that Quinn is MAGA: he’s too smart and decent for that.
I wouldn't call Colin Quinn "conservative," but rather an ornery contrarian (but talented!) who loves fucking with people of all stripes.
The c
You know what I want to see and have decided to write a comment about?
Get a Kimmel writer and a Gutfeld writer into the same room and see what kind of jokes/script they come up with for a Frankenstein of a monologue.
How do you think it would turn out?
I wonder if my distaste for all these people *and* the five or so Colbert-alikes of late night comedy qualifies me as a centrist.
What an effort to prove an obvious point
They aren’t. Most of us don’t watch any of that stuff. Pretty typical viewpoint this day from a sub stack writer which means Missing the whole point. Most people at the end of the day were looking for variety and had no problem with a few barbs being thrown there way. They were not looking for a lecture though.
making fun of gutfeld (not a viewer) does not make the other guys look any better it just shows that one is incapable of escaping the binary that has been imposed by our culture
God: PRETEND to have read the article.
I tried man I tried. But I did fail.
Then why the fuck are you on Substack?
GFY.
Clearly the decline of late night predates the political turn of the genre. Going political also was also a life boat to Colbert in the early Trump years. It seemed though we had 20 odd Colbert/daily show clones, and all were saying the same damn things! But I can’t help but think of the Orwell quote:
"A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks".
The over the top politicization of the genre clearly pushed away a lot of potential viewers, and limited its appeal. Presumably a late night TV show shouldn’t have the same demographics as old people who watch MSNBC all day, but that seems to be the case. If your goal is to entertain, why have Adam Schiff on all the time? Or ever?
Apparently insisting comedians "read the room" produces different results depending on the room.
Jesus Gutfeld bombed that desk piece. The only joke that got an unforced response was a confused laugh about Rosie O'Donnell and a vibrator. Does this mean his writers suck? His delivery seemed... fine... I guess. But wow. Crickets after almost every joke.
He's not funny.