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Saturday, January 26, 2008 "The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls." The last two weeks of The Daily Show provided some interesting commentary on not just American politics, but the media. Take, for example, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's "escalating war of words"--since January 19, 2007, the media has been proclaiming that the "gloves are off" in the race between the two Democratic candidates. We could read this as hype, hype, and more hype. As Jon Stewart put it, "You know, if they're going to keep doing that, why do these candidates keep taking their gloves on and off? It seems inefficient." Or better yet, how about this? CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC constantly proclaim that race is an issue in the Democratic primary, and they've said that Hillary Clinton first played the race card. In actuality, Clinton said that it takes a president to actually make the policy that civil rights activists march for. Seems reasonable--civil rights activists hope to change public opinion and move policy-makers to act. They in themselves cannot change policy or create laws. Our media, however, turned her statement into an incitement of racial tensions. Contrasting Clinton's actual words to the commentary from the major news channels is both frightening and fascinating--her words are miles apart from the commentators' sensationalist accusations. Then there's Mitt Romney's supposed eruption and Bill Clinton's angry lashing of reporters. Romney played semantic games--this lobbyist isn't running my campaign, he's just an advisor--but his reaction to the reporter's statements wasn't even on the scale of "angry outburst," much less "incensed" (Hardball). And Clinton? He seemed awfully calm for someone who was "throwing a fit" (Fox News). Yes, he did say, "Shame on you." But I couldn't even rightfully put an exclamation point on his statement against the media looking to create racial issues out of thin air. Yet according to CNN, "He lashed out." All of this brings to mind Indiana University professor Julia A. Fox's study, "No Joke: A Comparison of Substance in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Broadcast Network Television Coverage of the 2004 Presidential Election Campaign." She found that The Daily Show contained as much substance as network news. "A [second-by-second analysis] analysis of network coverage found considerably more hype than substance in broadcast newscasts. Examples of such hype included references to polls, political endorsements and photo opportunities.... Interestingly, the average amounts of video and audio substance in the broadcast network news stories were not significantly different than the average amounts of visual and audio substance in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart stories about the presidential election." The Daily Show is comedy. Very good comedy. But it's not supposed to be a news show. So it's a little sad when the actual news programs do such a poor job of providing substantive information that a comedy show stands with them on equal footing. Or as Stewart says, "You're hurting America." Labels: Jon Stewart, politics, The Daily Show ^ Top | 7:17 PM | | | 
Tuesday, October 23, 2007 A Society in Madness It's not often that I leave a theatre with just one word on my lips: Wow. But Steppenwolf's current production of The Crucible, Arthur Miller's rendering of the Salem Witch Trials, is, in a word, "Wow." The production is intense from the very beginning--the house lights darken and the theatre fills with foreboding music and panicked shrieking, and within the first few minutes of the play we're witness to confessions made under extreme duress. Much has been made of the play's exploration of the McCarthy era, and Chicago newspapers have thrown in their two cents about the production's timely relevance to a society that passes legislation like the Military Commissions Act, but for me, the most interesting aspect of the production had to do with its exploration of a society gone mad. The Salem of the play (which is slightly different from the Salem of history), has a mixture of peoples: Rev. Parris is loath to jump to the conclusion that witchcraft is afoot (primarily due to concerns over maintaining his position as the town's pastor). Rev. Hale, a visiting minister, is an educated, fairly rational man with a conscience: before agreeing to examine a girl who has fallen ill, he tells the townspeople that he will only provide his services if they will agree to abide by his verdict, which may be that no witchcraft is at work. However, a wealthy couple are quick to pronounce the situation unnatural in the midst of jealousy and concerns over their own daughter. News of the illness spreads quickly through the village, and it doesn't take long for (believed, though entirely unsubstantiated) rumors to make their way: the girl flew! She levitated from her bed! A pot of soup is taken as a sorcerer's brew since a frog jumps in on accident. Even though Abigail repeatedly tries to convince her uncle that she and the other girls were just dancing in the wood, he is unsatisfied until she proclaims that she has been under the influence of a witch: her uncle's servant, Tituba. This he accepts without question, though he would not listen to the truth. Tituba is an easy target: she's merely a servant, an outsider (a black woman from Barbados in Miller's play, though the historical Tituba was a Christianized Native American). The Barbados songs are taken for incantations and Tituba is given the choice between hanging and confession for a "crime" she never committed. Before long, all of the townspeople's misfortunes and fears are the result of witchcraft. The first targets are like Tituba, women who will find few defenders--the second accused woman sleeps in a ditch. However, eventually even the most saintly of the townspeople are accused (and the accused all end up hanging or confessing to be witches, turning themselves over). The men who bring the warrants are reluctant, but their hands are tied: they have no choice but to do as the law requires, which includes chaining all the prisoners, some of whom are old, grandmotherly women. In contrast to this, the girls making the accusations enjoy their newfound power--Mary Warren, who serves as a nanny in an era where the head of the house had the right to bar her from leaving the house, starts making demands at home. Abigail, who was on the verge of being ostracized in the village, is now the most important individual: by her word people live and die. And she revels in this. Mary Warren comes to realize that she has been a fraud and tries to expose the others, explaining that during the trials she did believe she was being persecuted by a witch, purely because the other girls (led by Abigail) were acting as though they were being tormented--in the hysteria, she too acted as they did and believed even though she never saw any apparitions or witches. When the other girls accuse her of witchcraft, she ends up renouncing the truth in favor of joining back with the girls in order to avoid hanging. Danforth, the magistrate who directs the proceedings, explains his difficulty in the trials to Rev. Hale in a moment that brought murmurs from the audience: a lawyer is useless to defend the accused, because in cases of witchcraft only two parties are privy to what is going on: the witch and the afflicted. If the afflicted produces signs like growing cold, shaking, shrieking, illness, etc., then the witch is obviously tormenting her and must renounce sorcery: the law's penalty for witchcraft is death by hanging, so unless the witch confesses and turns back to God, she must die. It's a form of reasoning that doesn't allow for any real defense, and even though Danforth seems loath to follow his own reasoning at points, it comes to a question of authority: he cannot show mercy for fear of being called soft or unjust. He cannot be wrong. One wonders why the town does not revolt. The ending of the play makes mention of it (orphans are walking from house to house, cows are wandering without their masters), but it takes that level of social and economic disruption for the town to seriously consider rebellion. As a society, they have a choice to accept or disregard the court's authority--in this case, the tragedy is that they accept the madness with the same acceptance that they gave the claims of witchcraft, never evaluating the situation or holding their leadership accountable. ^ Top | 11:31 PM | | |
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