Okay, we’re really going for it now

Both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report had riffs last night on Sarah Palin, and since she’s an easy target — and, really, she’s done this to herself — they both touched on the use of the word “retard.”

Here’s the one from the Daily Show:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Back in Black – The R-Word
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

And here’s the one from The Colbert Report:

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sarah Palin Uses a Hand-O-Prompter
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

I’ve written about The Daily Show’s use of the word “retarded” before, and I have to say that I think both these shows are treading a really fine line here, to varying degrees of success. There’s a good bit of perspective on at least the Lewis Black piece here, and the author of that blog, Dan, and I had some back and forth about the bit earlier this morning. If you read his piece, I think you’ll figure out his opinion on this pretty quickly. Here’s what I wrote to him this morning about the Lewis Black piece:

As for the Lewis Black/Daily Show thing, which I just watched twice… I’m not enraged. Sure, some of it made me cringe — like the fake R-word tv show thing and the “tard” bracelet — but the point of it to me seemed to be more about Palin’s hypocrisy and Limbaugh’s obviously horrendous use of the word. And I was actually pretty impressed at the audience’s reaction to Limbaugh’s use of “retards” — there was a pretty audible groan rather than a laugh. Hell, if that’s what it takes for people to understand that this word shouldn’t be tossed around casually anymore, than I hope Limbaugh keeps spewing his bile.

In fact, Lewis pointed out the ubiquity of the adjective use of “retarded” for “wrong” or “ridiculous.” It reminds me a bit of the Louis CK bit about words that he knows he can’t use because they’re bad but that as a person who loves language he’d like to be able to say, like “faggot” or “cunt”. Louis CK also talks about using the “n-word” instead of the actual word, and how in some ways that’s worse — I wrote about that a while ago on my blog, and I tend to agree. I’d rather have everyone on the news have to shape their mouths around “retard” than get away with the euphemism, but I’m a confrontationist (not a word, I know, but it sounds good, right?) on this issue.

I have to think that even six months ago, The Daily Show’s coverage of this would’ve been more along the lines of “Sarah Palin doesn’t like the word ‘retarded’? Well, that’s retarded.” and just gotten a cheap laugh from it and moved on. Highlighting it in the way they did makes me feel like we’re actually gaining some traction with this issue. I mean, look at this piece:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-march-2-2009/twitter-frenzy

But that’s my take on it, and I look forward to your thoughts either in e-mail or by posting on your blog.

It reallly IS inescapable right now, and for better or worse, I guess we have Sarah Palin to thank/blame for that. I’d like to think that shining the bright light on this issue — and hey, I’m amazed at how much coverage this is getting, much more than the Tropic Thunder thing two summers ago — is actually going to make more people think about how they use those words.

This was followed by a couple more e-mails where we mostly agreed to disagree, though now we’re sworn enemies!

But then I watched the Colbert piece, which I find much more problematic. Sure, the audience still reacts the same way to Limbaugh’s animosity when he throws around “retard” but then there’s the uproarious guffawing when Stephen gets to his “Palin is an effin’ retard” punchline.

I can sort of appreciate what he’s trying to do here, using Palin’s own example against her since it’s “satire,” but it still feels like a cheap and easy laugh and much more in line with what I actually expected from the bit on the Daily Show, considering their past history. And I felt like less of his audience got the joke — instead, they were just laughing because calling Palin retarded is funny. Again, it’s all a matter of interpretation. And Colbert’s whole show is based around his right-wing persona, which could add a whole different layer to the thing… or I could just be trying to justify and interpret what he meant…which means it’s pretty much a failure, eh, since it should be clear? (Or maybe — just maybe – I’m way too close to this issue to be able to discern any kind of nuance in any way)

I guess I really don’t know what to think. I told Dan that I thought this bright spotlight would be good — it’s that whole “if you make even one person think about it” thing that I’m trying to hold on to, but sometimes it’s just brutal and I just want it to all go away. I’d probably feel less like that if there was another representative of our community other than Sarah Palin out there as our unelected Ds delegate. Can someone please draft John C. McGinley?