Monolithic Authenticity and Fake News Stephen Colbert’S Megalomania

Monolithic Authenticity and Fake News Stephen Colbert’s Megalomania SETH HULSE DESIRING AUTHENTICITY Authenticity is an idea that lurks behind every claim in every news story, as it is ascribed to medial narratives by sender, receiver, and the dissemination medium itself. Journalists caress authenticity by trying to enhance their stories with images and sounds from historical reality while news consumers try to inform themselves about their historical reality by confronting the claims made by journalists and deciding on what to believe. Although consumer confidence in news media, and television news in particular, has steadily fallen in recent decades, consumers still rely on broadcast television as their primary source of news information (cf. Rosenstiel 17-18). Also, despite having a low amount of trust in media institutions, as detailed in the expansive Pew Research Center report by Rosenstiel, American news consumers con- tinue to long for information that informs their conceptions of society. As Jan Berg persuasively writes in his essay »Techniken der medialen Authentifizierung,« our desire for authenticity can be understood as a longing for the all-powerful, for the wondrous, the holy, and the authorless object (cf. 56, 65). He describes the modes and the depiction techniques of authenticity and posits that authenticity need not only be seen as a relic of undisputable omnipotence, magnificence, and holi- ness, but that instead one can also understand it as »a specifically modern modus of truth, a mode of compensation, which in the modern world shifts into those positions that have become empty as a result of 64 | SETH HULSE Enlightenment and de-deification« (Berg 56; my translation).1 Most interestingly, Berg highlights an important facet of the authentication process, namely that of self-ascription, of supposed authorlessness. Objects are not only ascribed an authentic status by recipients. Some objects tend to convey a depiction of authenticity that excludes the recipient. In effect, this tendency tries to draw a recipient’s attention away from any reference to the required stagedness in acts of depiction (cf. Berg 66). Authentic objects instead tell recipients: We are authentic for we have conferred upon ourselves the status of authenticity, and, moreover, you are not to question our logical fallacy of circular reasoning. Objects that wish to seem more authentic by means of ap- pearing authorless, and therefore somehow outer-worldly or even holy, try to evade inspection. The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert (TCR) delves into the topic of the authorless object by asking its viewers to scrutinize those cultural narratives that try to evade inspection. Being a fake news comedy show that airs nightly in the U.S. and Canada right after The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, TCR deals with topics ranging from the constructedness of news to the truth and ethical relativism of news discourse to the construction of identity. With a focus on identity, this paper will analyze the construction of the Colbert persona and exam- ine how this multifaceted persona is negated if TCR is solely interpret- ed as a satire instead of as a parody or even satiric parody. Through his megalomaniacal character, which is constituted by all of the broadcast news personalities he parodies, he presents an identity with seemingly clear boundaries, unwavering beliefs, and a certainty unbeknownst to most. Yet the theoretical and televisual framework in which the pro- jection of this singular, essentialist, Colbertian identity occurs not only undermines it, but also replaces this singularity of self – Colbert’s de- lusion – with an at times incoherent, disjointed collection of identities belonging to the same person, media persona and parodist Stephen Colbert. By interpreting the TCR as a satiric parody, which would give one an apolitical focus on how and why narratives are used and main- tained, and not as a parodic satire, which would focus one politically 1 »Authentizität läßt sich aber auch auffassen als eine spezifisch moderne Wahrheitsfigur, eine Kompensationsfigur, die in der Moderne an jene Stel- le rückt, welche durch Aufklärung und Entgötterung leer wurde.« MONOLITHIC AUTHENTICITY AND FAKE NEWS | 65 on social mores, one is able to draw conclusions about Colbert’s pluralistic self. Yet, therein lies the main problem involving most current interpretations of TCR. Despite many available interdisciplinary theories of alterity and constructive identity, media critics for the most part disregard any notion of a pluralistic self when analyzing TCR.2 This, in turn, leads to the common interpretation of TCR as news satire, which it is, in a way. However, it can be much more than that. The difference between interpreting something as a parodic satire or a satiric parody might seem nitpicky, but this difference in interpretation is tell- ing of how theories of fragmented identity are failing to find any cultural resonance and impact in U.S.-style communication studies or even within the news media itself. The labeling of TCR as a deadpan satire, where the satirist never breaks character such as Colbert always remaining within his conservative persona, or just plain satire with elements of news parody mirrors a cultural desire not to acknowledge the constructedness of our own identities. Furthermore, any notion of an authentic, singular self hinders us from maintaining and developing other selves and in the case of TCR, negating parody as the dominant comedic device in turn negates Colbert’s overt presentation of a dialogical self. Satirist Col- bert is singularized and purposively utilized for socio-political means, whereas parodist Colbert, in the name of intertextual decoding, de- mands that the decoder enter into dialogical relations with the present- ed narratives. However, rather than enter into the narrative collision zone, most opt for the singular path of direct criticism of social mores via satire. I instead will traverse the road of narcissism, narrative cha- os, and dialogism, via parody. COLBERT PERSONA Stephen Colbert, the persona, who can be described as a right-wing, blow-hard, ignorant-of-the-facts, God-praising, George Bush-loving, and highly narcissistic late night news pundit, has been attributed with being a satirist (cf. Stanley; LaMarre, Landreville, and Beam) or the »Man in the Irony Mask« (Mnookin 1), all the while using elements of 2 Cf. Dowd; LaMarre, Landreville, and Beam; Mnookin; Stelter; Stanley. 66 | SETH HULSE parody to make fun of news media (Stanley). The interpretations of Colbert’s comedic performances always involve the descriptors satire, parody, and irony, though the dominant descriptor depends on the author of the article, as descriptions of Colbert vary not only between firms but also from within publishers such as The New York Times (compare Stanley to Stelter) and Schiller. Further compounding prob- lems of interpretation are Colbert’s narcissism and his persona’s rela- tion to actual news pundits. While Colbert was interviewed by veteran CNN desk anchor Larry King, King referenced an interview in which he himself was a guest on TCR during which Colbert basked in the interview spotlight instead of focusing it on his guest. King gave Colbert a good-natured chastis- ing for having employed poor interviewing techniques that were narcissistic in nature in comparison to King’s own journalistic standards (cf. »Episode 3028« and King). King exclaimed that when conducting an interview, a television host should avoid using the words ›I‹ and ›me‹ as much as possible. Colbert, who, unannounced, does interviews in character, informed King that TCR is chiefly about Colbert, and furthermore, that if it could have been done, the interview would have centered itself more on Colbert (cf. »Episode 3028«). To add to the narcissistic dismay, Colbert, whose anchor desk takes the shape of a C, has his name displayed in over 14 on-camera set-locations, in case the viewer fails to recognize that TCR really is really about him. In his introduction to I am America (And So Can You!) and while referencing his self-evident truths, which brings one back to authorless authenticity, Colbert denies having done actual research for this book project since the only type of research that was needed »was a long hard look in the mirror. For this book is My Story and, as such, it is the American Story« (ix, capitalization in the original). In megalomaniacal style, Colbert never overtly hints at the other media personas present within his own persona, as that would undermine the essentialist, singular identity his conservative character has come to represent. He fittingly concludes his self-absorbed introduction with a quote from Walt Whitman, who »defined the character of this new nation« with lines such as »I celebrate myself, and sing myself, / And what I assume, you shall assume« (Whitman qtd. in Colbert et al. ix). The obvious narcissistic characteristics, such as the aesthetic self- consciousness displayed by the television and author persona of Ste- phen Colbert, draw overt attention back onto the content creator, pro- MONOLITHIC AUTHENTICITY AND FAKE NEWS | 67 moting a focus on self-reflexivity and identity in Colbert’s mediated products. Referring back to King’s concern about journalism standards, Col- bert tries to distance TCR from direct journalistic responsibility by saying that »it is incumbent upon us [Colbert and Jon Stewart] to be funny, not necessarily to get [the news] exactly right […] accuracy comes second.« To understand how he distances his nightly, pretaped performance enough so that TCR’s remediated content does not seep onto the creative turf of Bill O’Reilly and other news anchors, Colbert explains that he models his persona after a »cult of personality,« which takes on the facets of many night time news anchors all at once. Yet Colbert confuses this creative distance when he escalates his cult of personality to delusional heights by grossly exaggerating his overt, self-serving narcissism and subsumption of other pundit figures to such an extent that the Colbert persona no longer recognizes its own genesis.

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