In The Blogs

Politics as Entertainment

| Sat Apr. 18, 2009 10:17 AM PDT

Matt Yglesias passes along an email from a reader:

One interesting thing about how much Fox news and friends are covering these tea parties is that it’s illustrative how much conservatism has been transformed from a political movement into an entertainment demographic. Political movements, I would think, are defined by a common set of semi-coherent policies and proposals that movement sympathizers hope to see implemented by government. Entertainment demographics are defined by shared tastes or predilections that media companies can target for ratings.

Actually, doesn't this apply to all politics these days? Bob Somerby has been on a tear recently against the snark-based lefty shows on MSNBC hosted by Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, for example, and although I don't buy his entire argument, he does have a point. Unfortunately, this is just the way things are. An old saying says that politics is show business for ugly people, but in the past this mainly meant that politicians themselves were showmen at heart. Today, though, with the rise of Rush Limbaugh and Crossfire and CSPAN and Fox News and Drudge and Politico and Jon Stewart and now MSNBC, the entire enterprise is thoroughly infused with the ethos of Hollywood. Like it or not, liberals had to get with the program or die.

Given the fact that virtually everything in the world has been entertainment-ized these days, it's hard to see how politics could have avoided this fate. Finance is entertainment. Cooking is entertainment. Science is entertainment. Real estate is entertainment. Sports has always been entertainment. Hell, entertainment itself is having a hard time competing these days. What are the odds that politics, of all thing, could have bucked this trend?

I guess about zero. After all, it's a better way of making money. Paddy Chayefsky was right all along.

Advertisement

Kevin Drum is a political blogger for Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here.

Comments

Dealing

Submitted by Obama, Steelers, etc. (not verified) on Sat Apr. 18, 2009 11:21 AM PDT.

I don't have a problem with Olberman and Maddow. The right-wing has based their entire existence for years now on lies and craziness (just the most recent WM post: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_04/017811.php ). Giving them "fair and balanced" play -- or even spending time debunking them -- grants them too much legitimacy. Mockery is the only way sometime.

With the exception of Juan

Submitted by Anonymous12 (not verified) on Sat Apr. 18, 2009 11:21 AM PDT.

With the exception of Juan Cole, Yglesias is the most stupid amongst the prominent US bloggers. It's hardly a surprise that he said (or repeated) something which is stupid and wrong. I guess as a basis for a thumb-sucker it was a decent start, but really, anything involving that person turns into an immediate eye-roller.

Really?

Submitted by Eclectic on Sat Apr. 18, 2009 11:51 AM PDT.

Juan Cole and Yglesias are worse than the Powerline and Townhall people? Worse than the folks who thought GW Bush was a genius with a transcendent intellect? Or do you only hate liberals and then give idiotic right wingers a pass? Because it's not even close from where I stand. Republicans are the party of more poverty, less healthcare, and more misery, and they seem to want it that way.

Nice ad homenim

Submitted by jimBOB on Sun Apr. 19, 2009 10:20 AM PDT.

Aside from empty insults, does Anonymous12 have anything to say here? His post doesn't even rise to the level of stupid. Even if what he said about Cole and Yglesias were true, they'd still be playing out of Anonymous12's league.

Politically neutral entertainment was the anomaly

Submitted by Pete (not verified) on Sat Apr. 18, 2009 11:38 AM PDT.

Television was politically neutral as long as the airwaves were few and heavily regulated, or as long as cinemas were few and had to appeal to the broadest possible audiences. Without those constraints, entertainment will naturally adopt a point of view in order to capture deep (if not broad) audience loyalty. This parallels the golden age of newspapers, when every city had several papers that "narrowcasted" to like-minded demographics. When you think about it, many television commercials have been subtly political for years. They use symbolism instead of rhetoric, but the effect is the same. Dodge and Chevy trucks: conservative. Toyota: liberal. Beef Council: conservative. Pepsi Cola: liberal. And so on. Next time you're forced to watch commercials, pick out the symbolism to find the underlying political theme. It's fun!

No Fox skewering by Beutler

Submitted by Eclectic on Sat Apr. 18, 2009 11:48 AM PDT.

I went to Beutler's site and noticed that while he skewers MSNBC a lot and CNN a little Fox News seems to get off scot free. Is he a right winger? It's hard to tell, but when you got to skewer cable pundits and have nothing for the Faux News team it seems like it's partisanship. Republicans are the party of more poverty, less healthcare, and more misery, and they seem to want it that way.

I did not expect Fox to use

Submitted by John C (not verified) on Sat Apr. 18, 2009 12:28 PM PDT.

I did not expect Fox to use scriptwriters from world championship wrestling to provde the scripts for Beck's show -- that's entertainment

This is really just a last

Submitted by Jimm (not verified) on Sat Apr. 18, 2009 1:15 PM PDT.

This is really just a last ditch attempt in my mind to wed the Christian fundamentalists back to the business wing of the party, and I don't think it's going to work. They're trying to revive the whole "Government Racket" thing of the late 80's, early 90's, but the problem is that the Republican Party in power largely was that racket, and the bonds that have held together the business, conservatarian wing to the fundamentalist Christian and southern wing are frankly breaking.

You're getting too fair these days, Kevin

Submitted by Steve Sailer (not verified) on Sat Apr. 18, 2009 2:55 PM PDT.

Dear Kevin: Good point, but I fear you are getting too objective and even-handed these days for the good of your career. The left wants to hear that the right is evil. There's no market for trying to understand the underlying mechanisms of how the world works. Steve

RE: Politics as Entertainment

Submitted by majun (not verified) on Sat Apr. 18, 2009 3:51 PM PDT.

A bit unfair to include Jon Stewart in with the likes of Olbermann, Maddow, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly. Of that crowd, Stewart is the only one who makes no bones about what he is and what he does. He is a comedian...he pokes fun at politics. He may lay it on little thicker with the right, but he isn't shy about scoring against the Democrats too. In an odd way (see, Will Rogers) he is becoming an important voice, but nobody will ever mistake his purpose as anything other than pure entertainment.

politics as entertainment

Submitted by Snarki, child of Loki (not verified) on Sat Apr. 18, 2009 4:10 PM PDT.

Two hundred years ago, people didn't have TV, or radio, or the internet, or the outpouring of bestsellers, magazines or daily newpapers that we are used to today. Back then, politics really was entertainment. Now, you could easily make the comparisons between political debates and having the circus come to town. It's not the "politics as entertainment" that's the problem. The problem is that the entertainment seems to be modeled off of a Three Stooges piefight, with all of the serious intellectual rigor that implies.

Donkey meets two by four.

Submitted by Porky (not verified) on Sat Apr. 18, 2009 4:51 PM PDT.

As someone who has his own pig-themed, left leaning, humorously-inclined men's issues website i have to agree that either you join in or you perish.Wrap your message in entertainment and humor or everyone will get bored and go home. It's unfortunate that so few of us have the ability to engage in purely political discussion, but getting it from Jon Stewart or Fox and Friends is better than not paying any attention to it at all. The Paddy Chayefsky reference reminds me of the old story about the farmer and his donkey. The donkey gets sick, the farmer calls the vet, who proceeds to wack the donkey with a two by four. The outraged farmer asks "What the hell did you do that for? You're supposed to help him!", and the vet answers "I am trying to help him, but first i have to get his attention."

Satire works

Submitted by ericf on Sat Apr. 18, 2009 8:50 PM PDT.

Several commenters don't get it, Somerby doesn't get, and Kevin, I'm not sure you get it. Satire works, provided it exaggerates what's true rather than making things up. That why The Daily Show, Countdown, and Maddow work, and why conservatives don't get it and don't make satire work. Yes, it gets attention, but it also cuts through nonsense quickly. Perhaps instead of watching MSNBC, Somerby should watch Newshour. No laughs, not that there's anything wrong with Newshour, other than deceptive spin is allowed to pass without comment, but it also does very good work. Al Franken used to praise it on his radio show --- where he also did satire. We need information, but we also need perspective, and Jon Stewart says his humor requires the audience to come in know some context. For the people who don't like this trend, I have news for you: satire is hardly new. Satire with a serious purpose is hardly new. I thought the silliest criticism was that Olbermann and Maddow took torture seriously, but didn't show the same seriousness to less serious subjects. Well, no --- the less serious subjects got treated less seriously. And the problem is? Frankly, critics aren't getting that humor is augmenting the news, not replacing it. http://www.ravensblog.net

Does anyone remember "That

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun Apr. 19, 2009 3:25 AM PDT.

Does anyone remember "That Was the Week That Was"?

Detroit Dan

Submitted by Detroit Dan on Sun Apr. 19, 2009 2:17 PM PDT.

Best comments anywhere. Thanks Kevin and company...

CSPAN?

Submitted by Chris (not verified) on Sun Apr. 19, 2009 9:35 PM PDT.

I'm gonna go ahead and assume that CSPAN was included in your list there as an honest mistake. It's as objective as a muted sports broadcast.

How appropriate ...

Submitted by Suki (not verified) on Mon Apr. 20, 2009 4:16 AM PDT.

that this article has a picture of the character Howard Beale from the movie 'Network'. His war cry was 'I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' He ended up being exploited by his network employer into a caricature of himself. Couldn't have thought of a better metaphor for modern politico-entertainment 'news shows' myself.

I think Somerby's point is

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon Apr. 20, 2009 6:26 AM PDT.

I think Somerby's point is not that Olbermann and Maddow use satire or are otherwise entertaining in their presentation of the news, but that the news they are delivering is misleading, leaving us all ill-informed. In other words, the problem isn't the delivery, it's that the "news" is inaccurate.

Nah, Somerby's point is that

Submitted by MBunge (not verified) on Mon Apr. 20, 2009 7:49 AM PDT.

Nah, Somerby's point is that he's a pedantic jackass who believes that he AND ONLY HE knows the right way to address the issues. Even when the guy is right, he's a chore to read. Mike