In part two of the S&R Interview, comedian Lee Camp talks with me about the relationship between politics and comedy and has high praise for those who, like Jon Stewart and Chris Rock, are able to infuse their work with important insights about our society.
“Thank god for The Daily Show,” he says. “I wish there was a network that 24 hours [a day] played Daily Show-esque clips of ‘Bush said this and a month ago he said this and it’s completely the opposite. McCain said this and it conflicts with this‘.”
Camp also offers his personal experience on how the networks and media corporations use their money and the promise of wider exposure to co-opt and undercut the message of comedians with something more serious to say.
As noted in the introduction to part one, Lee is a lot more than just another funny guy. Here’s proof.
Photo by Jack Shaftoe for S&R and JackShaftoe.com.
We’d like to offer a huge thanks to our great new friends at ZeroCoordinate.com for shooting the footage. Natalie Ashodian directed, Chris Bulkley-Logston did the camera work, and Paul Logston handled operations. We look forward to other projects with them in the future.
You’d think that the channel repeatedly showing clips of politicians contradicting themselves would be, like, CNN or a “news” channel, but oh well.
Wait a second, this guy had an amazing idea. Imagine a 24 hour news channel like CNN except instead of CNN you get Daily Show/Colbert Report type material, but done seriously.
What a concept! A 24 hour news channel that reports news and facts! Wouldn’t that be something? Maybe some richer-than-Satan media mogul will pick up this idea and run with it? I’ll bet he’d make billions!
He’s smart. So much selling out has been justified in the name of the children.
Re political comedians: I’m one of those un-PC types who liked Mort Sahl better than Lenny Bruce.