Stephen Colbert's Use Of Political Satire In The Daily Show

Words: 874
Pages: 4
Open Document
Stephen Colbert is a partially deaf late night talk show host. He lived in Canada as a boy.

His early career in theatre sparked the creation of a news character on Jon Stewart’s show. He became involved in the Olympics, and attended the Tony Awards. I did not know that he had a hearing impairment, was a devout Catholic, and suffered tragedy as a young kid when his two brothers and father died in an airplane crash. He had been a happy kid until this tragedy happened. This, perhaps, might have been a reason that he started reading a lot of books and played games pretending to be someone else to escape. This paper discusses the biography of Stephen Colbert. A good portion of the paper discussion is mostly based on how his deafness and early tragic …show more content…
Stephen performed a segment during “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart where he acted as an ignorant and self-absorbed “blowhard” which he played for nine years. He delivered phony news stories during each show. He had created this character by practicing the imitations of newsmen on television. Stephen then used this same “right-wing” alter ego character in his own show called “The Colbert Report”. This show was a satirical view on opinion programs such as “The O’Reilly Factor”. During these shows he puts his guests on the “hot seat” during the last part of his show, he badgers his guests and yells at them. He used the word “truthiness” in the first episode to illustrate that his commentary was not hindered by facts. This word was named “2005 Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society and 2006 Word of the Year by …show more content…
He has written numerous satirical articles about American politics and several books. He has devoted his life to comedy. Stephen has won several awards for his comedy writing and performances over the last twenty years. An example of his political satire is illustrated in the excerpt (below) from “his controversial sixteen-minute speech and seven-minute video presentation in front of 2,500 high-powered political and media guests”, Colbert was sitting right next to President George W. Bush when he “turned into” his conservative pundit character. He started his satirical speech by admonishing the media and then spoke directly to the president and made statements such as:
"I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound--with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the
Show More

Related Documents: Stephen Colbert's Use Of Political Satire In The Daily Show

Senior Sem Paper

celebrities. But who and what are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert: 21st Century journalists or as they claim to be just comedians? The answer isn’t exactly clear as the line between comedy and journalism has blurred. Nonetheless, their position has given them a unique ability to raise issues and call out politicians in ways that mainstream journalists will not. within this paper I will look at communication and rhetoric studies, and how Jon Stewart and Colbert use persuasive and argumentative communication…

Words 630 - Pages 3