Watching The Colbert Report is like observing an elegant symphony being played. Well, if all the orchestra members were wearing fat suits, exaggerated Einstein wigs and spinning bowties. What it takes to make this often clever news satire show – which features the fake news anchor Stephen Colbert playing a rancid Bill O’Reilly/Kay Burley-esque windbag giving hilariously Orwellian treatment to the day’s events – is revealed in the fascinating Working: Stephen Colbert (Slate Radio). “I embody the bullshit,” the comic tells host David Plotz. “My show is a false construction of the news, as opposed to a pure deconstruction.” Colbert goes on to describe, in intricate detail, the typical working day in which this very specific goal is achieved.
While the early morning is about gorging on news, the rest of the day is spent banging the opinions of Colbert (the character) into shape. It’s a complicated business. “We have to see patterns where none exist, “ he says, “then apply the matrix of my character’s opinion to those patterns that don’t exist so he can convince you that there is a conspiracy.” So jokes will get chucked out not because they don’t work, but because they don’t add to the elaborate fantasy. “You want to do the joke because it builds into an argument,” he says.
Indeed, The Colbert Report’s strength is that in a world where news anchors look like they will have a cerebral aneurysm every time they spit passionate bile about Obama, it looks like the real thing. Fictional Colbert “kisses the news” and his real life counterpart explains that this sweaty, emotional investment in the story is just as important as the story itself. It’s a fascinating game of mirrors, with Colbert describing his character as a “wilfully ignorant idiot”, but also admitting: “the most subversive aspect is how close I am to (him)”. Scary.
Colbert comes across as robust, uncynical and fiercely intelligent. And Working … works on two levels: as an insight into the work funny TV involves and as a warning before you launch into your next lame knob gag.
