Not only do we have to support idiots like Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and others who revel and profit in a poverty rhetoric, now here is more bad news for rhetoricians.
Not only has MTV cancelled Catfish, now apparently Nev has become a real estate agent?
I mean good for you Nev if that’s your dream but here is someone who created and hosted a show that demonstrated the power of communication, conversation, and rhetoric. All sides were revealed: the deceptive nature of rhetoric and its healing and transformative properties. Catfish is the rhetoric our politics needs.
Contrast this with Kimmel and Colbert whose rhetoric depends on the assumption that people ARE their beliefs. There’s no hope to change minds or ideas. People who think or believe opposite of Kimmel or Colbert are simply losers. They are the butt of all jokes. And let’s ensure that we believe they can’t change! This helps generate millions for these bozos.
Yes write your comment about the importance of comedians. Catfish always brought the humor. But it was a collective laugh at the error of our ways as desiring, hopeful beings. Colbert and Kimmel focus their humor on shame and eradication. For them, the humor is based on the idea that the world would be better without their political enemies. Catfish encourages us to see even the most depraved people as mistaken.
Kenneth Burke would like Catfish. It’s the comic frame. Kimmel and Colbert are the tragic frame. Who is leading us into civil conflict? Increased violence? Those who practice comedy through the desire to render those who are mistaken into fools that should be rendered into laughter.