Apparently sarcasm and satire are too indirect and subtle to be understood by those who live in a strict black vs. white, good vs. evil, dichotomous world. Research has now shown, "[...] individual-level political ideology significantly predicted perceptions of Colbert's political ideology. Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements."
In other words, conservatives don't get the joke.
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I've been seeing links to this study flying all over Twitter. It's not surprising, really.
ReplyDeleteThe one time I actually managed to go to a taping of the show, there was a conservative-looking couple in the line reading the New York Post or the Washington Times or something like that (with some really conservative-oriented cover story that day), and it was pretty clear they Didn't Get It. That's the best kind of parody, really.
Dammit, you beat me to this one. So yeah, it's a really interesting sort of confirmation bias story, or possibly just disbelief that he could be mocking the ideas they hold so dear.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, he does mock more liberal points of view from time to time, especially in the past few months. Based on the group with whom I often watch the show, I'm not always sure it gets picked up on in that direction, either ...