Opinion

Colbert vs. O’Reilly

An unforgettable clash of the broadcast titans

By Sean O'Mara

Posted on Jan. 29, 2007, at 12:00 a.m.

Stephen Colbert is a name that is familiar to most college students. In the last couple years, he has successfully moved from being a staple of “The Daily Show” to finding his own comedic niche on “The Colbert Report.” His humor is based upon parody and exaggeration; he supports liberal ideas and pokes fun at the conservatives by mimicking them as best he can while simultaneously presenting their beliefs in a way that is irrational and politically incorrect. His show and his persona are modeled after the political pundits of Fox News, such as Bill O’Reilly from the “The O’Reilly Factor.”

Colbert has only alluded to this connection between him and O’Reilly in the past, like when he refers to O’Reilly as “Papa Bear” when pretending to support his ideas. However, the fictional closeness between these two became reality a week and a half ago when they exchanged guest appearances on each others’ shows. The guest appearances brought big ratings boosts to both hosts, according to Reuters. I had missed the original showings on Fox News and Comedy Central, so I watched them on YouTube, which I would encourage everyone to do.

At first, I was amazed that O’Reilly would agree to this whole scenario. I’m sure that both men wanted to raise their ratings, but also both “The O’Reilly Factor” and – to a lesser extent – “The Colbert Report” are intended to win support for their opposing political ideas, and they both rely on pleasing their conservative and liberal bases, respectively. This set the stage for a game of high-stakes one-upmanship similar to a presidential debate. In this type of environment, I couldn’t imagine that the serious political commentator would fare well against his own parody, as it’s hard to rationally debate a punch line. Colbert’s strategy in this meeting was, in fact, easy: The closer he appeared to relate with O’Reilly, the better. Then his sarcastic and irrational television personality would be directly related to O’Reilly.

Aired first was “The O’Reilly Factor,” on which O’Reilly attempted to emphasize the fact that Colbert was a comedian, while also attempting to unravel his television personality. He did this by pressing Colbert on the apparent name pronunciation change he had undergone since moving to Manhattan, and on the fact that Colbert is a French name.

Colbert didn’t miss a beat, countering that the French pronunciation was simply a ploy to confuse the liberals, and that he was as Irish as O’Reilly. He then managed to turn the tables a bit by saying they had both paid a heavy price for standing up to the “powers that be” in that they both have successful shows, books and product lines, an obvious jab at O’Reilly’s support of Bush.

Colbert then countered another round of questions from O’Reilly by making fun of the average age of O’Reilly’s viewers, saying “I wanted to bring your message of love and peace to a younger audience … people in their 60s . in their 50s, people too young for your show.” O’Reilly then tried to get Colbert to admit he was liberal, which, if he had succeeded, would have been a comedic K.O., but Colbert was able to sidestep it. O’Reilly at one point tried to get Colbert to break character by raising his voice, which Colbert countered by saying that he hates that O’Reilly’s critics never give him credit for how loud and how long O’Reilly says things. The Factor ended with a quick exchange of insults; Colbert making reference to the claims that O’Reilly doesn’t ask the tough questions of conservatives he interviews, and O’Reilly making fun of the fact that Colbert’s show is not aired during primetime.

Next was “The Colbert Report,” and this time Colbert was on the offensive. He hung a “Mission Accomplished” sign up behind his desk, put a portrait of O’Reilly over his mantle and put a 30 percent off sticker on O’Reilly’s forehead on the cover of his book. Surprisingly, most of the Report fans clapped when O’Reilly came onto the set, although a few booed, something that O’Reilly jokingly attributed to Jon Stewart being in the crowd.

Although I am a moderate Republican, I am a Colbert fan but not an O’Reilly fan. However, I do have to give O’Reilly credit for keeping his cool under fire. He played along with the jokes and nearly caught Colbert off guard at the end by changing his usual tough guy attitude. He said that it was all an act and that he was really sensitive, probably in an effort to get Colbert to admit that his show was all a facade.

All in all, I would call it a draw, though I’m sure fans of both sides will claim victory. O’Reilly did make himself look less stiff and more accessible, while Colbert got a number of hits in on both shows and kept the act up the entire time. Colbert finally did leave character when O’Reilly left the Report to say, “he seemed like a nice enough guy.”

Sean O’Mara is a third-year psychology major.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2007, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.