On Jon Stewart…
In the past few days, Jon Stewart keeps popping up at random moments. Not literally, of course, but he’s been mentioned by several different people in several different contexts.
First, I was looking over my calendar for August, and was reminded that I’d ordered tickets for the August 12th Daily Show (I’d forgotten, since I’d requested the tix about three months ago). Then, I was reading through back email on the Media Ecology listserv, which included a discussion of a Neil Postman appearance on the Daily Show, including a link to a great interview that Bill Moyers did with Jon Stewart (via Ken Rufo). Finally, I pull up Salon, to find a story critiquing the slate of late-night talk show hosts.
As I’m wont to do when a topic crosses my radar, I spent a few minutes surfing around and reading interviews with Stewart, and I realized something: not only does everybody like this guy (he’s practically the only person with a show on between 11 pm and 1 am on weeknights who survives the Salon article unscathed), but he has a credibility that few can match. I mean, this is a man whose hourlong conversation with Peter Jennings is sold by the New York Times.
This seems remarkable, in part because the only people I can think of who seem in Stewart’s genre (comedians whose material grapples with current affairs in some depth, and who have a national audience) are all known for their over-the-top personalities: Bill Maher and Dennis Miller are two who come to mind. Al Franken comes close, but he’s not nearly as prominent, and often a bit too smug. Stewart’s really the only one I can think of who has crafted a persona, and a show to accompany it, that is humble.
Humility, though tossed around like it’s going out of style, seems a pretty rare thing on our society. True humility (the assumption that others might know more than you, and the willingness to step back and learn from them) is hard to find, especially on television. I’ve been amazed in the past year or two to see the parade of intellectuals, politicians, artists, and writers who’ve been interviewed on the Daily Show, and the depth of the conversation that Stewart attempts, considering that he’s usually got about five or ten minutes with a given guest. The only show I’ve seen on TV that combined this sort of humility and depth was Later with Bob Costas back when he occupied the 1:30 to 2 am slot on NBC, which I used to watch religiously.
Not sure that there’s any real point to this, except to wonder “What might our political culture be like if we had more Jon Stewarts, and fewer Bill Mahers?”