The Obtuse Approach to Jon Stewart's Comedy

It's deliberate, I tell you.

No one who watches Jon Stewart's brilliant The Daily Show with a halfway open mind equates said program with hard, genuine journalism. It's a fucking comedy program meant to satirize and outright humiliate what should be sources of hard, genuine journalism. Fox News, CNN, and even at times NBC/MSNBC are the usual suspects, kind of in that order for most recurring. Jon said it himself practically ten years ago why he has the usual sources for mockery and satire: they're absurd.

Yet people will tell you, stupidly enough, that he's "not just a comedian." The closest you could come to agreeing with them is to accept that yes, Jon Stewart has a position, and it is a liberal one, but the comedy he puts out speaks for itself because that's what his audience (which includes myself, although I don't tend to watch television and am not personally subscribed to any networks his program airs on) expects. If you want to know what his actual positions are, then stop being a fucking pussy and put him on your show. Oh and don't pull a Tucker Carlson with the smartass remarks and strawmen, a la Crossfire circa 2004. Be a man and probe for the answers like any respectful person in the media would, because media figures of that descriptor are few & far between these days.

But I haven't gotten to the real deal about this post. The following guy is what I want to delve into:

 

The above mug, for the uninitiated, is the rather droll "professional media critic" who has celebrated the anniversary to his rather lukewarm hop over to the Fox News legion on June 20, 2013. If you're a "media critic" working for the mainstream media, then by principle, you cannot be taken with nary a grain of salt in terms of credibility. Even worse yet that he's toiling for the plutocratic horde at Fox News, but that's not the focus here.

Howard has gone after, you guessed it, Jon Stewart on at least one occasion, even sharing some ire for the equally brilliant Stephen Colbert. Just like many of Stewart & Colbert's critics, they're obtuse about the credibility of their respective programs. But this is all deliberate, you see? Both programs, particularly The Daily Show, mock the wasteland that is the beltway media for the status quo circlejerks that they are, and Kurtz, who knows who he is working for, slams Stewart & Colbert for it. Recently, Kurtz pretty much begged for the attention that Stewart's program would afford his by asking, or more accurately begging to be a guest on the program:

You'd like that wouldn't you, you hack? Too bad you're too small fry for Stewart's program to waste time on, because you contribute almost nothing to any conversation. Be glad that you even have a job on that joke of a "news" network, you joke. And yes, he is "just a comedian", at least in regard to anything from his program that you and your overlords loathe so much. So here you are carrying out the usual labours hoisted upon the dogs at Fox News, attacking a fucking comedy program time and time again, never accomplishing anything in your favour. You didn't have a valid criticism of Stewart's segment that you've shown, so you figured it'd be best to leave such for the odd incident where you'd be featured as a guest sitting next to Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, possibly getting Tucker Carlson'd into the shadows of irrelevance you so sorely need at this point. Keep the dreams a comin', Howie, 'cause it probably ain't gone happen any time soon.

A Pre-Viewing, Pre-Release Reaction to RoboCop (2014)

To drive the points I've made below home, I'll provide two of the main trailers for the film here. The release date of this film is wide in theatres & IMAX and on February 14, 2014:

RoboCop (2014) Trailer 1 (from the "MOVIES Coming Soon" channel):

RoboCop (2014) Trailer 2 (from the "Machinima" channel):

From what is portrayed in the trailers, the film misses the point of the original completely, which was both a multifaceted satire and a decent sci-fi film in its own right. There was a substantive reason for all of the violence and silly occurrences of the original, which was to lampoon the culture which created it in the first place. The themes were strong, such as what it is to be a man, and what it is to be a human being. It also heavily featured run-down sets because it portrayed a stunningly downtrodden near-future Detroit, and took place partially in poor neighborhoods, abandoned factories often taken over by powerful criminals, and the characters themselves were superficially human. It also spoke out against what corporate power can do to a community, by portraying OmniCorp as a rather villainous company willing to level a vast chunk of the city that was under-represented, highly-neglected, and overly exploited because of the desperation of the poor.

Hell, when it comes to the main character, (in the original film) Alex Murphy's brutal slaying in the line of duty managed to invoke a degree of sympathy because of just how over-the-top his death was. Instead of that, we see Alex Murphy getting injured from an explosion...in his driveway. It is a totally safe, unimaginative, totally spontaneous incident that flies in the face of the impact that death of Murphy produced from the 1987 classic. While one can safely assume the remake retains the following aspect, the original showed that Alex Murphy was a good, by-the-books cop willing to perform his duties to the teeth, and he got slaughtered for it in such a horrific fashion that you eagerly awaited justice to be exacted on the villains. Even more significant is that the man he was charged with bringing down had ties to the very same corporation that would revive him as the first RoboCop, which had the possibility of cementing his role not as a law enforcer out to protect the greater good, but to serve the whims of OmniCorp. In the end, he defied that, even being nearly destroyed and incapacitated when trying to stand up to the machinations of the company. He, managing to recover some ounce of humanity, intended in the end to stand by principles rather than by profit (indeed, his police force manages to operate solely because they negotiated a paying contract with OmniCorp, nullifying their ability to stand up to their benefactor's corruption and eventual tyranny), bringing down the corrupt power structure that both created him and sought to destroy him.

In this film (based on the trailers at least), characters appear to be clean and have lost the sad & rundown feel of the original (now, good luck feeling anything for anybody in this film); everyone knows exactly what they're doing it appears, whereas the original showed that they had some troubles getting the RoboCop project fully underway; backdrops look rather sanitized and have seemingly lost the nuanced appeal of the original (run-down and rather sad, as said above); it downplays the themes present in the original; there is no satire to be found (such as the rather ingenious commercials to be seen in the original film and its somewhat inferior sequel); the CGI behooves the new film of the visceral, raw nature of flesh melded with machine that managed to cement the original as a landmark entry amongst special FX titans; and Murphy's death in the remake could not possibly illicit a modicum of sympathy for him, let alone any real reaction given how generic and safe it is. I'm sure there are more problems that nobody will possibly see upon release, but at the same time it very well may have its strengths as well.

It just won't measure up to the 1987 classic, and even the somewhat inferior sequel. As Peter Weller said of the remake, (paraphrasing) it won't be able to do it (in comparison to the original).

With all this said & done, I will see this film come Valentine's Day, 2014. But as damned as I am for saying this, I know for sure that this film will end up a mediocre exercise in tedium, safely-played cinematic scope, and theme-deprived science fiction. Indeed, one of the major themes of the original wherein corporate greed & power is portrayed negatively, appears to have been reversed in a sense here and flat-out downplayed. But most importantly of all, how will the "remembering what it is to be a man, and a human" theme hold up in the remake? Will it eschew grandiose narrative and underlying thematic scope for sheer action and fall victim to executive meddling? We'll all see for ourselves on release day.

On the bright side I guess, it does have Samuel L. Jackson in it, so it's gotta be good, right?