Stewart and Colbert’s D.C. rally draws crowds, criticism

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, hosts of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, respectively, held a rally last weekend in the heart of Washington, D.C.

The “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” drew an estimated 200,000 people from various demographics and featured a multitude of musical guests (including The Roots and Sheryl Crow) and celebrities (including, interestingly enough, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). Stewart represented the ideology of sanity and moderation, whereas Colbert represented fear, leading to moments of clever, campy and eventually absurd humor. The finale of the rally involved a giant papier-mâché Colbert being melted by the chants of the audience, led by Peter Pan (Daily Show contributor John Oliver).

Throughout the rally, Stewart and Colbert’s satirical criticism was a double-edged sword, cutting at both the political left and right and hitting mainstream media. And at the end of it all, the rally was perceived to be a success and a sign that, yes, much of the United States is searching for solutions and composed thinking, not babble-headed, vitriol-laced, aggressive rhetoric.

It seemed the right kind of rally at the right time for this nation — a time when pseudo-revolutionary language and pointed fingers have fueled the public politically.

And yet, for all its good intentions, the rally was a lightning rod for criticism. Even before the rally began, both Stewart and Colbert took hits for going outside of their realm and being “too political,” which is where we return to that oh-so-familiar literary tradition: satire.

What Stewart, Colbert and other comedians like them have done recently is nothing short of a miracle, and it speaks to the fact that humor can be more than just, well, humor. Who could have imagined that someone such as Colbert would go on C-SPAN and, in-character, speak critically and informatively about the immigrant farm workers?

Yet some critics still seem to believe that culturally aware comedians must be treated like 1950s housewives: put in their place and kept in a role in which they belong, which is simply to make people laugh.

It didn’t end there, of course. After the rally, the duo was criticized of perpetuating liberal groupthink, of being condescending with the concept of sanity, of elitism. This got me thinking: Did any of these critics actually watch the rally?

“Jon Stewart: Is there method in his ‘sanity?’ His world comprises the sane ‘Us’ vs. the insane ‘Them,’” wrote The Daily Beast’s Tunku Varadarajan. “I look forward to Stewart saying, on his show, that the Democrats lost in large numbers because ‘America is insane.’ And then he, and others like him, can take elegant consolation in their sanity.”

Peter Beinart, a senior political writer at the same publication, also chimed in on the topic.

“When historians look back at what the American left did wrong in the early Obama years, they’ll have an entire event, preserved on CSPAN, which captures it perfectly,” Beinart said. “Maybe it’s not fair to blame Jon Stewart for all this. He’s a comedian, after all. But he’s the left’s closest equivalent to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck.”

Excuse me?

It’s words like these that get me buying more and more into a substantial point of the rally itself: that today’s media is too busy following sensationalist logic, stretching news over assumptions and raising blood pressures nationwide without elevating any brain activity with it.

After all, it’s the only way to explain such statements as Jon Stewart being “the left’s closest equivalent to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck.” So is it a surprise that a very valuable concern — that mainstream media, or as Stewart called it, the “24-hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator” is fueling greater unrest and division in The United States — went directly over critics’ heads?

Maybe not.

The mainstream media is at a crossroads today. Is the nation made better by the focus on conflict, or is there something of substance to experiencing life through a calmer lens?

Writers such as Beinart seem to believe that “the right has found a way of acknowledging Americans’ terror,” which is a curious way to explain what many times looks and sounds like fearmongering.

And Keith Olbermann still seems to think that his exuberant aggression on MSNBC’s Countdown is “sticking up for the powerless” instead of what usually resembles slightly off-base ranting.

The world we see shapes the world we live. Laughs aside, Stewart and Colbert have a point: The world we’ve been seeing as of late is not exactly a bastion of positivity.

I know that most of the people I know, regardless of ideological differences, aren’t the ones throwing words like “socialism” and “racist” around at every opportunity. But I also can’t help but think that the portrayal of the nation in media today makes us all believe, at least subconsciously, that we are under attack; and as we all know, people under attack don’t respond in the most rational ways.

Maybe that’s why some are so intent on pretending that it’s 1776 all over again.

It took two comedians and a lot of satirical humor, but the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear did what mainstream media couldn’t: provide a viewpoint that helped us catch a breath and think about what a little moderation can do for us.

“This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith, or people of activism, or look down our noses at the heartland, or passionate argument, or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear,” Stewart said at the rally. “They are, and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus, and not be enemies. … If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.”

I hope the media caught that last part, but it’s probably unlikely. Until the media calms down, it might just be wise to take our daily dose of news with a slight grain of salt, along with a little dash of humor.

Eddie Kim is a sophomore majoring in print journalism. His column, “Culture Clash,” runs Thursdays.