I watched the RNC during most of the speeches, and despite my dizziness from all the derisive sarcasm, condescension, and bullying, it spurred thought about smart satire vs cruel derision. Now, I'm not sure there is a difference, unless we simply decide via subjective testing. So my Rorschach was peaked by Romney's presentation. Romney never disappoints if you want ridiculous, fact-free statements. You know stuff like, 'letting the Democrats win means surrendering to terrorists', and that sort of stupid.
But maybe there's a good side to ridiculous statements. I started thinking about how inspiring some of the players are to comics. As in inspiring to Stephen Colbert, one of my favorite geniuses. Could Mitt Romney be one of the characters Stephen found compelling, while designing his talented talk show host personality on 'The Colbert Report'?
If so, thank you, Mitt! Because you wield a lot of power and persuade a lot of people, it's pretty scary to some of us who read. What can we do to get point of fact across to the general public?
Comedy and art work. Both soothe my curious, obsessive political mind. It (maybe falsely) reassures me to see the difference in aesthetic taste and general coolness between the two major parties. The RNC seemed archaic, exclusive, bland and white, phony. The DNC was authentic, crisp, vital, and inclusive. The DNC had superior art. This time, they did it so right.
If the battle through November is going to be about who is the classier satirist, more intelligent musician, writer, or visual artist we win, hands-down. We have the comics. We have the musicians. (Proof: compare the convention entertainment.)
This image is not showing up when I preview the diary.
So to play it safe, I have the cartoon posted at http://heart4art.blogspot.com/.
If you, too, are in a creative mood, and have a great quip idea, submit your idea for this Romney inspires Colbert cartoon. What should Stephen be thinking, as he watches Mitt speak? Please enter your spunky (but G-rated) copy. My incentive for this project is that I can put it on a T shirt and hope to earn some profits to donate to the Obama campaign.
Another attempt to insert image here didn't show the image in preview. So I'll stick with the blog link.
Thanks for your support and fun ideas. Comment here or on blog with your idea.