A Comedy of Influence.

Rush Limbaugh has been in the news again as of late. I try to ignore it and hope it’ll go away, but it doesn’t. Rush said some pretty grotesque things on air a minute ago (surprise!!) that pissed a lot of people off (surprise, again!!), and he's been losing sponsors, largely via demand from people who don't enjoy hatespeech. From the right, some folks are pulling at #StopRush-style protest on Jon Stewart, and suggesting that Bill Maher was being inappropriate when he called what’s her face from Alaska a cunt. I’d just like to put this out there as food for thought: Jon Stewart and Bill Maher are comedians. Jon Stewart is an actor. While I enjoy their programs very much, they are political comedy programs. The key word being comedy.

Let us Google the definition of “comedy,” shall we??


com•e•dy/ˈkämədē/
Noun: Professional entertainment consisting of jokes and satirical sketches, intended to make an audience laugh.
A movie, play, or broadcast program intended to make an audience laugh.


I picked the first available listing, but most of us can probably agree that the above is a reasonable overview of what comedy means. Now that we have that established, that Jon Stewart and Bill Maher are the hosts of comedy shows, meant to entertain an audience and make people laugh.

Let us now Google Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, and Rush Limbaugh to see what their job descriptions are. I’m using Wikipedia. Deal with it.

*a-hem*

Jon Stewart: “American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian.”

Bill Maher: “American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, author, and actor. Before his current role as the host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher hosted a similar late-night talk show called Politically Incorrect originally on Comedy Central and later on ABC.”

Rush Limbaugh: “American radio talk show host, political commentator, an opinion leader of American conservatives particularly influential in matters affecting the Republican Party.”

Okay, so as defined by popular culture, Stewart and Maher are funny whereas Limbaugh is influential and an opinion leader. Am I really the only one who sees a difference between a stand-up comedian, even one that I think is hilarious, and someone who is supposed to be in a position of power, influencing people’s opinions?? I mean, come on. I quote George Carlin, Lewis Black and Margaret Cho a lot, but I rarely hear them being lauded as leaders of influence. Do you??

I don’t always agree with Bill Maher, but to the best of my knowledge he called that Plain woman a cunt in a stand-up comedy show. Rush Limbaugh went on his show, as an influential opinion leader and went off on Sandra Fluke. And there’s call from the right that liberals hate free speech because we didn’t like that and said so, loudly. We could get into the whole “hate speech is not free speech” debate, but then we’d be here all day. I suggest that before anyone else stands up and demands the boycott of Stewart and Maher, learn the difference between “influence” and satire.

But that’s just one woman’s opinion.