On comedians and the media and the prophetic voice.

Rabrrrrrr

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Fri May-07-10 05:05 PM
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On comedians and the media and the prophetic voice.

I believe strongly that the modern social commentators who are actually worth listening to are comedians and the authors of science of fiction, and not the talking head newscasters in the media (except Maddow and Olbermann, but they're also people of great humor), the shitpots on talk radio, or, sadly, even most journalists.

There was a good, though stupidly short, article in Wired Magazine a while ago saying that the realm of literature that offers social commentary left the "serious" literature world a few decades ago, and is now being done almost solely in science fiction (which had been doing it since the beginning of the genre).

I think that article is right - the modern serious literature (while wonderful) is more about holding a mirror up to reality and regurgitating it back, but without commentary on it; we're in a period of high realism in literature. If you're not reading science-fiction, you should be. Lots of great stuff going on there offering commentary on today.

The science fiction writers are also the only people really giving us viable visions of the future.

I think we should make it mandatory that our government leaders read science fiction. They should also be reading books on science and scientific theory. Especially Republicans. Seriously, is there any group of people more monolithically ignorant of reality than Republicans? It's fucking criminal.

I'll also say that the only real prophets (in the sense of offering immediate critique of current society) left today are the comedians - I came up with this thought about a decade ago when I was introduced to Bill Hicks, and came to the realization that, while he was ostensibly a comedian, he was really a preacher using comedy as his vehicle.

I spend a lot of time with preachers and folks religious, because that's my world, and though I'm in the liberal camp of things, and so most are somewhat prophetic, I do think that most of the truly valuable prophetic insight is coming from the comedians, whether religious or secular. The church and the synagogue and others seem to have given up their prophetic voice (starting sometime in the late 70s/early 80s).

And thank God the hole is being filled by others - the comedians. Bill Hicks, Eddie Izzard, Stephen Colbert, John Stewart, Ron White, George Carlin, David Cross, Lewis Black, and so on.

I'm thinking of comedians and this stuff today because it was the final of the celebrity Jeopardy year-long contest and (no spoilers, so don't worry), it was all comedians (Jane Curtain, Cheech Marin, and Michael McKean). I noticed throughout the year, that every time a "news" person or person of that ilk was on the show, they did really, really poorly. Wolf Blitzer ended up -$4000 on his showing. I'm sure if they had Rush Limbaugh on, he'd be fucking slaughtered as well. Conservatives and news people do ludicrously poorly on that show.

And I apologize that this is not as tightly argued or literate as it should be - I've got a Martini in me, and it's really gone to my head. But I open it up for discussion. Assuming that what I wrote is coherent enough to begin one. Sorry if it isn't.