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I wonder
if Stephen Colbert ever gets tired of "Stephen Colbert," the
rock-brained pundit who shouts from his desk every weekday
night. The host of the crazily popular Colbert Report
wags his finger, dances from his desk to the interviewing
chair, and sometimes gets so involved in warming up his audience
that he breaks his wrist. Clearly, it takes a lot of energy
to pretend to be a moron because Colbert—the real Colbert—does
it so well.
Colbert's
new book, I Am America (And So Can You!) has plenty
of energy but is somewhat short on Colbert's characteristic
wit. The purpose of this book is to convince readers that
"Stephen Colbert" is America. How can you be more American,
too? Just agree with everything he says. The book functions
like an encyclopedia of all of our hero's thoughts (I'm sorry,
"gut feelings"), organized into chapters that cover all the
important topics, such as "Race: Fact or Fiction," "Old People,"
and "Religion: Accepting Jesus as My Personal Editor." Most
information in these chapters is conveniently condensed to
short paragraphs of three lines or less (Colbert's take on
Iraq: "God won the War. He just doesn't occupy very well.").
Every once in a while a "regular citizen" will express his/Stephen's
opinions in sections called "Stephen Speaks: A Chance for
Average Americans to Agree with What I Think."
Those
sensing the monotonous megalomania have a good idea of how
the book works. "Here's the dirty little secret," Stephen
writes in the introduction. "When the cameras go off, I'm
still talking. And right now, all that opinion is going to
waste, like seed on barren ground. Well no more. It's time
to impregnate this country with my mind." If only this book
had been impregnated with the complicated blend of irony,
innuendo, and farce that the show is so popular for delivering;
but, in the writers' defense, it's probably impossible to
deliver this on the page.
On the
show, Colbert the comedian is skilled enough to keep the character
from becoming one-dimensional. Of course, a large part of
the humor lies in the fact that "Stephen Colbert" is so single-minded,
with exactly one opinion on every subject. But stupidity often
has its own special cleverness, and Colbert (the real one)
plays off the words of his guests to deliver comebacks and
one-liners during interviews that one wouldn't necessarily
expect. In his book, he's true to form but with outrageous
opinions that fans somehow will already see coming. There
are jokes aimed at some typical targets—Tucker Carlson,
James Carville, and Charles Darwin—but with very little
commentary on specific political issues. There's nothing like
the moment when, while interviewing Lynn Westmoreland, who
advocated placing the Ten Commandments in the Senate and House
of Representatives, Colbert asked the Congressman to name
the Ten Commandments, and a flustered Westmoreland was able
to recite two of them. The book lacks this thrilling immediacy
of mocking the people whose ideas are currently taking center
stage in the country's events.
There
are a few points in the book where the layers of irony reach
a kind of double-negative and produce ideas with which most
readers would agree. From the chapter called "The Media":
"The greatest threat facing America today…is the national
news media." Although most people wouldn't necessarily call
it a threat, some may agree that it's a problem because it's
clogged with unimportant stories meant to sell products or
hype up TV shows. Not that the book is just a commercial for
the show (we hipsters would be too savvy to fall for that),
but I do think that its makers did not fully realize how much
fans have come to expect out of The Colbert Report.
The greatest
irony of "Stephen Colbert" labeling himself a "hero" is that
viewers actually do see Colbert as a hero. On his show, he
feints right when beneath the humor he's actually feinting
left, and those who notice the hidden meaning really do look
up to this comedian as a figure of truth. If we couldn't trust
Colbert to make fun of the right people for the right reasons,
the show would be terrible. Whether or not anyone intended
it, the Report has attained a level of importance from
which the book, with its inane sidebar puns, can only detract.
However bizarre it is, many people in younger generations
actually watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report
for their news, and there is almost no serious satire in the
book whatsoever—just jokey jabs at science and immigrants.
The author
photo of "Stephen Colbert" on the book's back flap depicts
him as a green Hulk-like character, standing on a bear which
he has stabbed with the butt of an American flag. But look
at the last page of the book: a photo of Colbert at the White
House Correspondent's dinner, looking casual and in full showy
comedian mode; he is comfortable and sarcastic while Bush
looks on with blurry disapproval, seeming to shake his head.
Who wouldn't see this comedian as a hero, standing five feet
away from the figure so many love to hate, making jokes at
his expense, in his face? Is Stephen Colbert ever going to
top that? Probably not, unless he actually wins his bid for
president in the 2008 election. In that case, we'd better
hope we've elected Stephen Colbert, and not "Stephen Colbert,"
the character depicted in this entertaining, but one-dimensional
book.
(November,
2007)
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