Jim Emerson's Scanners Blog

Stephen Colbert on the role of artists in popular culture

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After Bruce Springsteen referred to "present company included, the idiots rambling on on cable television any given night of the week" in an interview with something called Soledad O'Brien (what is a Soledad O'Brien, and why was Springsteen having an interview with it?), Stephen Colbert was outraged. He offered these Words of Wisdom -- something to keep in mind during the summer movie season, as well:

"All Soledad did was ask a perfectly legitimate valid question about whether artists should do anything other than entertain us! I've said it before: Popular music should be a series of meaningless cliches strung together by a pleasing melody to help pass the time during long commutes or loveless marriages."

C'mon, people: Isn't willful vacuity, and the lack of any ambition other than the monetary, the very recipe for what makes life so worth living?

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I read about this but haven't caught the interview... What was her reaction? I can't imagine she expected that. Seems like Springsteen and Colbert are the only folks willing to recognize the shoddy state of journalism. Sadly, people like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity make names for themselves as mavericks, with vague superficial attacks on "the media", while Colbert and Springsteen (and Jon Stewart) are painted as partisan Bush-bashers who are destroying America.

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epigraphs

"I don't think you go to a play to forget, or to a movie to be distracted. I think life generally is a distraction and that going to a movie is a way to get back, not go away." -- Tom Noonan

"Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out." -- Martin Scorsese

“An idea does not exist apart from the words that express it. Style is not an envelope enclosing a message; the envelope is the message.” -- Dwight Macdonald

"There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear." -- Daniel Dennett

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