THE O’REILLY FAKER / AGE: 4I
Digital Journal — Maybe it’s the easily arching eyebrow or the deadpan delivery. It could be terms like “truthiness,” which he coined and was later canonized by the American Dialect Society as its 2005 Word of the Year. Stephen Colbert deserves the applause — he broke away from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to star in his own self-titled show, acting as a Bill O’Reilly-esque anchor who is apt to ask his liberal guests: “Why do you enjoy hurting America?”
For a fake anchor, Colbert has been luring some high-profile politicos to endure his rapid-fire grilling, like Michael Brown, former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and chief bungler of the New Orleans debacle. Brown played patsy to Colbert’s faux sympathy, which raises an interesting idea: Colbert’s right-wing extremism mocks those guests who might agree with him, so The Colbert Show is emerging as the true voice of the political centre.
| Check out Digital Journal‘s Other Rebels:
|
Colbert’s act is wrapped in a clever veneer of ultra-patriotism and polished with a coating of I can say whatever I want, so listen! His smarmy, authoritative voice carries the passion of a Jerry Falwell while borrowing from the Kevin Nealon school of satirical news reading. It’s comedy delivered with a big wink. And when a guest says something unexpected — Connie Chung once asked him to take off his glasses — Colbert always complies sweetly, reminding us there’s a softie (likely the true Colbert) beneath his hard exterior.
His shtick is gaining fans in unlikely places. A Pentagon worker asked him to lunch, though Colbert declined. In late April, he performed at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, standing right next to the president he was skewering. The San Francisco Zoo even named a baby eagle after Colbert (“I’ve always wanted an eagle. You know, someone you can toss around the old mouse carcass with”). The show reaches 1.1 million viewers a night, the majority being the coveted 18- to 28-year-old demographic.
All this from a South Carolina native raised Roman Catholic, whose childhood was marred by a tragedy that would cripple most of us: His father and two of his seven brothers died in a plane crash when he was 10. Colbert told 60 Minutes’ Morley Safer the loss made him realize he could never blindly accept authority ever again.
A tough-skinned comedian using pain to fuel his fire, Colbert first made his mark on projects both controversial and renown. He voiced Ace for Saturday Night Live‘s “Ambiguously Gay Duo” segments. Dabbling in various media (animation, improv, feature films like Bewitched) has given him the flexibility to stretch his creative muscle — Colbert is now taking his fakery to the publishing world, authoring a book due out in the fall of 2007. He said in a statement, “This book will have the same noble goal as my television show: to change the world one factual error at a time.”
NEWS BITES
- Colbert is deaf in one ear. “I had this weird tumor as a kid, and they scooped it out with a melon baller,” he told The New Yorker
- He had brief roles in the TV shows Law & Order, Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Dana Carvey Show
- Colbert is a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings. On The Daily Show he once recited the detailed lineage of the character Aragorn
This article is part of Digital Journal’s national magazine edition. Pick up your copy of Digital Journal in bookstores across Canada and the United States! Or subscribe to Digital Journal now, and receive 8 issues for $29.95 GST ($48.95 USD)!
