I’m putting this in Cafe Society because I regard this as a show biz question… but since it has a political mods are free to put it in GD or IMHO or wherever they deem it appropriate.
Up to now, comedians and cartoonists have shied away from making fun of Barack Obama, and that will NOT change any time soon. That’s partly because TV’s comedians (and their writers) tend to be liberals who love Obama, and partly because they’re terrified of being called racist.
For that reason, I expect that Letterman and Stewart will keep making Sarah Palin jokes for another few months.
Still, by then it will sink in “The President is a Democrat. Democrats have a big majority in Congress. There just AREN’T any Republicans who matter, and there won’t be for another few years, at the very least. We actually have to start making jokes about THIS administration.”
Obama himself will be off-limits for a long time. So, who can Letterman goof on? Whose malapropisms and foul-ups can he re-broadcast every night?
Isn’t it obvious?
This is going to be a loooong four years for Joe Biden.
Even if you think he’s a smart, capable, veteran legislator, the fact remains: he’s an older white guy with a penchant for saying ridiculous things. Up to now, that’s been ignored, but it won’t be for long.
Fairly or not, Joe Biden is going to be the Dan Quayle of this administration: a national punchline, for the next four years.
The consensus agrees with you astorian, it will be Biden. We also have to wait and see about the cabinet. I have seen a few rumors that Kerry might be in it. He is sure to find ways to provide fodder.
I think they will find reasons to lampoon Obama, and I don’t think they will be scared of the “racist” tag. Making fun of the president is racist? Come on, it’s their job.
Aside from that, the situation reminds me of when Tony Blair came to power here. Most of the satirists probably were sympathetic to the Labour government and privately pleased to see him elected. But it didn’t take too long for them to identify little personality quirks and tics to make fun of. Blair’s slightly earnest and sanctimonious air (not entirely unlike that of Obama, in fact) led to satirical magazine Private Eye lampooning him as the “vicar of St. Albion’s Parish church”. Also noted was his habit of using glottal stops in his speech when engaging with younger and/or cooler people, perhaps in an effort to sound like he was down with the kids.
And so on. In time, concrete reasons emerged to hate the guy, as no doubt they will with Obama.
Obama won’t be off-limits at all. You would only be charged as being racist for racist jokes (mentioning “watermelon,” for instance).
The main reason Obama hasn’t been the target of comedy is that he’s just not funny: He doesn’t often make gaffes, his demeanor is fairly reasonable and non-dogmatic, he doesn’t put his foot in his mouth all that often, and he’s can both tell jokes and joke about himself. There’s not a lot you can exaggerate for comic effect.
Political satire is about caricature. It’s about exaggerating real, observable characteristics for comic effect.
The problem for comedy writers and satirists so far is not that they don’t want to mock Obama (they certainly had no problem with mocking Bill Clinton, and Jon Stewart did some pretty funny riffs on Kerry), but that (so far) no one has really found any kind of defining, comic characterics for the guy. It’s hard to find a hook. He hasn’t shown his chin. Nobody’s figured out HOW to really make fun of him yet. Give it time and somebody will figure it out eventually.
The notion that his skin color has anything to do with it is complete nonsense, of course. They’ve never had any trouble making fun of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton or any number of black celebrities. Thy just need time. Somebody will solve Obama sooner or later. Probably sooner.
Jesus it hasn’t even been a week yet. He hasn’t done anything except make speeches. Wait till he starts screwing up. One thing I can guarantee, he is not going to be the first flawless president.
Late night comics have lived in a target rich environment since Johnny Carson took over the Tonight Show in the 1960s. They won’t lack for material. Of course, it will be easier if Bill Clinton hires on as a special ambassador or something.
They’ll lampoon Obama and the administration every time it caves in to Republicans. That was what the Daily Show did with Clinton - made fun of him every time he did something conservatives liked.
The reason people are reticent to make fun of Obama isn’t that they’re worried about being racist; the reason is that it’s hard to make fun of him. He’s attractive, intelligent, eloquent, self-aware, and has a sense of humor. Doesn’t give comedians much to work with.
The Daily Show didn’t even exist during Clinton’s first term, and it didn’t become political until Jon Stewart took over in 1999.
Even so, the political satire about Clinton in the rest of the media (including SNL and the late night shows) was always about pussy, starting before he’d even won his first term.
I sure as hell don’t remember jokes that “Clinton is caving into the Republicans, ha ha ha.” That must have been an alternate universe from the one I lived in.
Even beyond his image as a horndog, Clinton was a target a mile wide for comedians. He had the hillbilly thing going, the over-empathizing (“I feel your pain”), the overparsing of words ("didn’t inhale, the definition of “is”), Hilary, etc… Even Bush hasn’t been as easy a target.
Which is the real reason Obama doesn’t get made fun of, there isn’t much of a hook (to borrow a phrase from a doper in another thread). There’s the messiah thing, the black thing (which has been the subject of jokes, despite what the OP says), and not much else.
But as others have said, give it time. Obama will do something to get made fun of, and if he doesn’t, the media will make something up (I think I heard him say he invented the internet.)
One possible angle that comics might want to look at is that Obama does have a dweeb streak in him. He dances like a dork and bowls like one. I think some massaging of his nerd qualities might bear some fruit.
Godzilla is stomping the bejeezus out of downtown Nebraska and the cool, calm and collected O-man, with all the focus of a jedi, disregards the danger and destruction going on around him and approaches the monster and appeals to its rational side, enters into negotiations with it, and sends it on a compromise mission to stomp the bejeezus out of, oh I don’t know, downtown Alabama? Or maybe gives it a high-paying job in a Godzilla-powered electricity supply facility. His signature hand gestures and posture will be critical to the success of the sketch.
Just spin the totally cool and focused persona into all kinds of wildly chaotic situations: Obama appeals to the sun and prevents a supernova, Obama disuades ebola from ravaging yet another African village, Obama convinces the dollar to try harder and increase its global value, etc. The repetition and predictability would become its own comic machine.
Obama never does anything stupid or funny? Get real!
If George W. Bush had said that “Some of the men who gave their lives for this country are here with us tonight,” or if Sarah Palin had said she’d been through “57 states”, Letterman and Stewart would have re-broadcast it a million times.
They didn’t- partly because they were afraid to, and partly because they chose to give him the benefit of the doubt (“everyone knows Obama is a smart guy, and we all know what he MEANT”) that they never give to Republicans.
Obama IS a smart, eloquent guy, but he HAS committed as many gaffes (and will continue to do so) as often as any person in the spotlight would. Those gaffes COULD have been used to make him look like a fool. COmedians CHOSE to overlook them.
For only a small percentage of what most companies pay their CEO, I would be willing to take a position in the Obama administration and be the Designated Pinhead. I will do things that are stupid and outrageous every single day, thus ensuring that there is a continual supply of fodder not just for comedians, talk show hosts and political pundits, but also for the opposition to get riled up about.
For instance, as my first official act I will make a speech standing on the White House lawn, just behind the fence on Pennsylvania Avenue, extolling the virtues of accessibility to public officials and stressing that the Obama administration is committed to an open door policy towards all the citizens of the United States. I will then leave without accepting questions from the press who are watching from outside the fence.