But I think the article would have been more effective if they had compared Jon Stewart to Keith Olbermann...
I think it would make sense for someone to do that, but I don't think this article could. It's too hung up on the idea of passion versus detachment as part of a Real America versus Liberal Elites culture war narrative:
Moore, while taking all the right positions and displaying all the right characteristics for a political and cultural leader – courage, boldness, uncompromised expression of contested beliefs – represents everything that the modern, educated liberal casts as inferior. Moore is obese. His appearance is consistently sloppy and working class. He’s a college dropout. He has an apartment in New York City, but continues to spend most of his time living in Michigan. He’s devoutly Catholic.
An overweight, relatively uneducated, Midwestern Catholic is the image that most liberals mentally sketch when they consider the cultural enemy.
The gist of the article seems to be that "aloof hipness" will never have broad appeal outside the "politically impotent" "cocktail party and faculty lounge scene of the liberal establishment," and that the left will have to sacrifice this aloofness if it wants to alter public discourse and reach a general audience (i.e., Real America).
And it's totally right, too. I mean, just look at how Olbermann appeals to a much broader audience than Stewart!
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Date: 2011-10-27 10:46 pm (UTC)I think it would make sense for someone to do that, but I don't think this article could. It's too hung up on the idea of passion versus detachment as part of a Real America versus Liberal Elites culture war narrative: The gist of the article seems to be that "aloof hipness" will never have broad appeal outside the "politically impotent" "cocktail party and faculty lounge scene of the liberal establishment," and that the left will have to sacrifice this aloofness if it wants to alter public discourse and reach a general audience (i.e., Real America).
And it's totally right, too. I mean, just look at how Olbermann appeals to a much broader audience than Stewart!
...oh, wait.