Commentary: Stephen Colbert was the perfect unprecedented host for unprecedented times
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You don’t have to like late-night host Stephen Colbert to be outraged by the cancellation of his CBS “Late Show,” which will go dark this week after 33 years on the air.Colbert, who took over in 2015 for the show’s original host, David Letterman, wasn’t for everyone.Colbert was an odd choice, and a risky one.
Once a correspondent on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” he landed his own Comedy Central show, “The Colbert Report,” where he played a bloviating, misinformed character, also named Stephen Colbert.The fictional host was fashioned largely after Fox News blowhard Bill O’Reilly.He was narcissistic, bombastic and unyielding in his fact-free views.
His news sense came from the gut rather than actual reporting.And from a comedy perspective, the fictional Colbert was a brilliant creation, a parody of the decade’s growing right-wing punditry and media figures who embraced “truthiness” over truth.The real Colbert was so convincing as the antagonistic face of the “The Colbert Report,” it was often hard to tell how much space set the man apart from the character he played.
He made audiences wonder about his sincerity.Did he really believe this stuff? The blurred lines reflected larger questions about the changing nature of conservative media.
Did Fox News hosts and pundits really believe there was a liberal-led war on Christmas, or that gay marriage would lead to interspecies nuptials, or that Obamacare would lead to death panels? Or were their outrageous takes simply a ploy to boost ratings? (If so, the ploy worked.) Television Our writers shared their favorite moments on the late-night talk show, which include lighthearted and serious interviews about grief, faith and politics.Colbert’s bombastic delivery and knack for turning the most innocuous of stories into rage bait was the perfect parody of the nation’s splintering media-verse and how it d...