This is a prominent blending of fantasy and reality today. Or, actually it's a blending of fake news and serious reporting.
Here's a tibit from The Colbert Report from last night, celebrating it's 500th show and the last day of George W. Bush's presidency. I want to draw your attention to the section with the montage of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez saying the word "recall" (it's at about 2:20)....
The same episode used a similar montage technique showing the "boiling frogs" motif in political coverage:
Actually, this is a VERY common visual humor technique used on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I do not know if this originated on The Daily Show, but it is where I first noticed it years ago. It's an easy way for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to make politicians and talking heads look like goons: simply show a montage of them saying the same word or phrase on multiple occasions and expose the ridiculous repetitiveness of their rhetoric (say that three times fast!). It also works to establish rediculousness in a word or phrase motif ITSELF by showing a montage of people saying it.
Now try THIS on for size...
Here's a package from a year ago by CNN's Jeanie Moos that opens with the SAME montage technique. Remember, this is CNN, NOT the Daily Show or Colbert Report...
As much as I love to watch these montages of sound bites because they are funny, I cannot help but consider that it's not a very fair for a credible news outlet like CNN to use. Of course someone is going to look like a goon if you count how many times they say a particular word or cliched phrase (I do it all the time when I'm listening to my instructors in class). You can make ANYONE look like an idiot if you string a bunch of clips of anytime someone said the word "house" or "car" or even the word "the." One of the ways Jessica Simpson was portrayed as a ditz in her old reality show "Newleyweds" was a montage of all her saying the word "cute" as she went shopping (I'm sure you're disappointed that I don't have video to back that up). Let me just say that my girlfriend says "cute" a lot as she shops for clothes and I don't consider her a ditz.
To reiterate my excitement of the Lost season premiere, look how this montage makes Lost look like a goon...
1 comment:
I can't believe i watched that whole lost vid. That was severely annoying and now I do think lost is goonish.
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