Stephen Colbert: Beyond Truthiness (8 page)

Behind Colbert the prankster, his eye twinkling at each new gambit, stands Colbert the Philanthropist. True to what he told Stewart moments before his first
Report
, Colbert has made “a lot of money doing this.” His earnings start with his annual $4.5 million Comedy Central salary, plus residuals from various voiceovers in films. He also earns plenty from his best-selling books,
I Am America (and So Can You),
and
America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t.
Then there’s the
Tek Jansen
comic book series based on Colbert as a superhero. Add up the earnings and the man who once used his infant daughter as an audition prop now rakes in $6 million a year. The figure puts Colbert’s earnings far below those of top celebrities, yet few have been more generous with their time and none have been as creative in raising money for charity.

On October 18, 2006, the first anniversary of the
Report
, Colbert auctioned the portrait of himself that hung over the fireplace on his set. A Charleston barbecue restaurant paid a cool $50,605 and hung the portrait in its lobby. At Colbert’s request, all proceeds went to Save the Children charitable organization. A year later, when Colbert fell on the set and broke his wrist, he had guests sign the cast, then sold it on eBay, with proceeds going to the Yellow Ribbon Fund that helps American soldiers returning from active duty abroad.

Colbert soon found a charity that remains his favorite, Donors Choose, which lets anyone donate directly to specific projects for needy public schools. Colbert first used the DonorsChoose.org site during the 2008 Pennsylvania Democratic primary. He first asked his viewers to cast their votes online for candidates Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, then he referred them to Donors Choose. What he called his “Celebrate the Democalypse” campaign raised $185,000 for Pennsylvania public schools. Colbert has continued to raise six-figure sums for Donors Choose, sending huge quantities of supplies to children who send him their drawings in return. In 2009, he joined the charity’s board of directors.

In 2012, Colbert gave royalties from his children’s book,
I Am A Pole (And So Can You!)
to U.S. Vets, a group that provides basic services to veterans. Proceeds from the sales of his Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor, Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream, are also distributed to charity. Others who have benefitted from Colbert drives include Amnesty International, Autism Speaks, Feeding America, the Global Fund for Women, and Stand Up to Cancer. Finally, Colbert also donates all proceeds from his public appearances.

Why does he give so much? Christian charity?
Noblesse oblige
? “That we have the capacity to give so much of ourselves to others is, I think, what separates us humans from the animals,” he said. “Sure, there are other things, like the fact that we don’t shoot venom out of fangs.”

“Colbert the Prankster” has earned wild applause, and “Colbert the Philanthropist” has won enduring gratitude. But “Colbert the Politician,” despite his impishness and
joie de vivre
, has drawn venom from the powers that be. Beyond his roast of President Bush, Colbert has rankled politicians of both parties. He is at his best, however, when taking on the universe of greed, ego, and cold cash that American politics now embodies.

In late 2007, responding to Internet petitions nominating Stewart and Colbert for president and vice president, Colbert threw his hat in the ring. He was not the first comedian to stage a mock run for the White House. In 1968, when Vietnam and race riots brought American politics to a boiling point, the deadpan comic Pat Paulsen ran a satiric campaign that included smoke-filled fund-raisers, whistle-stop tours, and speeches on
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
. But Paulsen never filed papers to run for office, and he never appeared on any ballot. Even when he revived his campaign and received hundreds of write-in votes, Paulsen drew a line between satire and serious campaigning.

Colbert decided to erase that line. He announced his candidacy in a mid-October 2007
Report
. Balloons fell from the ceiling, “I’M DOING IT!” flashed on the screen, and the audience all but wet themselves. Three days later, he appeared on
Meet the Press
. Host Tim Russert, unsure which Colbert was seated across from him, tried to be both straight man and comic. Challenging Colbert’s last name, Russert asked if he should change his name to “Russ-air.” But Colbert stayed in character, explaining why he was running.

“The junctures that we face are both critical and unforeseen, and the real challenge is how we will respond to these junctures, be they unprecedented or unforeseen, or, God help us, critical.” Without his roaring studio audience, Colbert fell flat on
Meet the Press
. That Sunday afternoon, however, he flew to South Carolina’s capital, Columbia, for his first rally. Before a cheering crowd, he announced, “I promise, if elected, I will crush the state of Georgia.” The Mayor of Columbia gave him a key to the city and proclaimed “Stephen Colbert Day.” Polls soon showed Colbert backed by 2.3 percent of South Carolina voters, more than New Mexico’s Governor Bill Richardson could muster.

Colbert continued milking the campaign on camera, but when he filed papers to be on the primary ballot in South Carolina, officials thought the joke had gone far enough. The executive council of the South Carolina Democratic Party convened to decide his fate. Before their meeting, Colbert lobbied the council with cocktails and snacks, shaking hands and “spoon feeding them Democratic talking points, most of which I lifted from Neil Young lyrics.” The following day, the verdict was announced. “The council really agonized over this,” said chairwoman Carol Fowler, “because they really like him, they love his show, and everyone thinks it’s wonderful that he cares about us.” But by a thirteen-to-three vote, Colbert’s application was rejected. Claiming he was not a viable nationwide candidate, the council returned his $2,500 filing fee. Colbert broke down on camera. He would return.

In 2010, Colbert again crossed the line between comedy and politics, and this time his rejection was not so polite. That September, California Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, whom Colbert had hosted on the
Report
, invited him to address a congressional committee debating an agricultural jobs bill. Colbert had already participated in a migrant workers’ “Take Our Jobs Day,” picking beans in upstate New York. He planned to tell Congress about the backbreaking labor, but would they take him seriously?

By then, the congressmen he once tricked into improv interviews knew him well. His show, books, and soaring celebrity had made him a household name, and he was just a month away from a rally with Jon Stewart on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Everyone, it seemed, loved Stephen Colbert, even Bill O’Reilly. “I think satire is very, very entertaining for any society to have,” O’Reilly said of Colbert. “I have never had a problem with it as long as it’s not mean-spirited, and I don’t think he is.” But if there is one entity whose members refuse to laugh, it is the United States Congress. So when Colbert sat down before the congressional subcommittee, he faced the toughest audience of his life.

On a sunny D.C. morning in late September, Room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building teemed with Colbert Nation citizens. Colbert entered with a police escort. One woman shouted, “Thank you for saving our corn, Stephen!” As cameramen snapped photos, the congressmen and women sat at their mikes bewildered or tight-lipped. Opening the hearing, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan thanked Colbert for drawing so much attention, then asked him to kindly excuse himself and let the committee get on with its business.

Colbert should have taken the advice. Instead, he deferred to the congresswoman who had invited him. Lofgren urged him to speak, and he began by sharing “my vast experience spending one day as a migrant farm worker.”

“Does one day in the field make you an expert witness?” a congressman asked.

“I believe that one day of me studying anything makes me an expert,”
Colbert
replied.

He then gave a semi-serious, semi-satirical look at migrant work that drew few laughs and much scorn. Having picked beans for a day, he was shocked to discover that “most soil is at ground level.” Joke after joke drew a chuckle or two from the gallery, glares from the congressmen.

“This is America,” Colbert went on. “I don’t want a tomato picked by a Mexican. I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan and served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian.” A few laughs.

Colbert continued reading from a written statement: “Maybe the easier answer is to find fruits and vegetables that pick themselves. The scientists over at ‘Fruit of the Loom’ have made great strides in fruit-human hybrids.” Silence merging with disgust.

Stepping out of character, Colbert said he had accepted Lofgren’s invitation because “I like talking about people who don’t have any power, and it seems like some of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work but don’t have any rights themselves.”

The congressmen remained resentful, and the press denounced Colbert’s testimony as a “stunt” that was “
emblematic of the dumbing down of American political culture.”
Colbert v. Congress
was not an Internet sensation. Even today, it’s hard to watch.

Colbert’s brief testimony had scarcely dumbed down American political culture, but by 2011 many wondered whether Colbert and Stewart were doing democracy any favors. Ever since “The Year of Jon Stewart” in 2004, media experts had worried that “fake news” might be harming young Americans who make up the bulk of
The Daily Show
audience.

Professors and pundits fretted. And in 2005, when
The Colbert Report
doubled the dosage, academic studies of Comedy Central’s late-night duo proliferated. Were viewers learning anything from “soft news?” Did nightly viewing of Stewart and Colbert lead to (gasp!) negative perceptions of politicians?
Were the two shows deepening the cynicism that many adults lamented as the default mode in today’s youth? And in an age when John McCain appeared on
SNL
, side by side with Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, was there any such thing as “fake news”?

Initial studies warned that comedic news might alienate viewers from the political process. Gradually, however, a different consensus emerged. Rather than detaching their audiences, professors found that
The Daily Show
and
The Colbert Report
heightened political involvement. Regular viewers were better informed than viewers of other cable news and better able to discuss issues. More recently, media analysts have gone further, defining a “Stewart-Colbert Effect” that has changed how news is perceived. The distinction between “fake” and “real news” is meaningless, political scientists Mark K. McBeth and Randy S. Clemons argued. Both Stewart and Colbert interview real newsmakers. Both show clips of real events. Both have been guests on serious political shows, and both are in the news themselves. So what is real and what is fake? Various studies showed that viewers could not laugh at a Stewart-Colbert fake story if they did not know the real story.

Some academics have compared Stewart and Colbert to “court jesters.” Others see them as savvy purveyors of that most cherished commodity, “cool.” Being cynical and funny, they have become trustworthy, especially to the eighteen-to-forty-nine-year-old demographic whose loyalty they own, according to late-night ratings. Yet Stewart and Colbert also offer a constructive alternative to a media that is increasingly polarized, polemical, and sometimes just inane. They are not just ironic, they are intelligent; not just cool, but cerebral. No longer mere comics, Stewart and Colbert, one study said, “are
rhetorical critics
. . . who creatively guide audiences towards democratic possibilities.” And their work, another professor claimed, “can, arguably, be considered some of the most embracing and engaging commentary on the television landscape.”

But one academic saw disturbing shifts in reality itself. The Stewart-Colbert effect, said Professor Robert J. Tally, Jr., was “hyper-reality.” As defined by European theorists Jean Baudrillard and Umberto Eco, hyper-reality sets in when simulations are perceived to be no less real than the real thing. Disneyland, Las Vegas, wax museums, theme restaurants, faux castles and fake dinosaurs – all are part of the American obsession with the “Absolute Fake.” Stewart-Colbert and their “almost real” headlines are just another example of hyper-reality, Tally concluded. “Above all,” he said, “these programs impress upon the viewers the profound sense that the mainstream media’s real news is not much more real than its satirical or parodistic copies. Hence, the distinction between the real news and the fake news begins to recede.”

Academics posit, professors profess. Colbert viewers will have to decide for themselves whether they know the difference between the fake and the real, and whether they care. But the reality of
The Colbert Report
never got more hyper than during the 2012 presidential campaign. Expanding on his aborted 2008 run for the White House, Colbert obliterated the line between fake and real news. In the process, he bared the sheer hypocrisy of campaign finance, exposed the hype and greed, and won another Peabody.

It all started on Colbert’s birthday, May 13, 2011, when he formed his own Super PAC, an independent political action committee. These committees had been popping up since the Supreme Court’s
Citizens United
decision in 2010. What Citizen United did allowed unlimited corporate and union donations to the PACs, which could, in turn, funnel unlimited amounts of cash into any candidate’s campaign so long as the PAC remained “independent” (wink, wink) from candidates and their staffs.
Citizens United
was analyzed, protested, and embraced, but only Colbert took the hyper-real road of forming his own Super PAC.

As he had done in South Carolina, Colbert filed the necessary papers to participate in the process. Inside the Washington, D.C., office of the Federal Election Commission, Colbert faced down an official who thought he was joking. “Hadn’t he been kidding when he appeared before Congress?” Colbert stood his ground. His congressional testimony was “a completely different issue,” he said. “This is something I’m asking for. It’s a right as described by the
Citizens United
case. And I believe that the
Citizens United
decision was the right one. There should be unlimited corporate money, and I want some of it. I don’t want to be the one chump who doesn’t have it.”