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October 21, 2007
Is Bill Maher's Audience A Greek Chorus?
It's right that a host would throw out any disruptive audience member regardless of the nature of the disruption. But I found one interesting moment in Maher's reaction that complicates things a bit. It was when Maher exasperatedly said, "'Audience' comes from the Latin word meaning 'to listen.'" A funny line at a tense moment, to be sure. It showed Maher's skill as an entertainer that he was able to be funny at a moment like that while still asserting control over his show.
But it did get me thinking about the audience in these sorts of shows -- shows that mix political opinion with comedy, like Jon Stewart's and Steven Colbert's. On these shows (unlike, say a sitcom with a live studio audience) the role of the audience is not merely "to listen." The audience is instead a character on these shows -- and the shows' directors and stars very much use them that way. These audiences audibly react -- often in quite predictable ways -- to the political opinions that the show and its guests present. The audiences boo and hiss jokes and opinions of which they disapprove (which are very often jokes and opinions advancing a perspective friendly to the policies of the current Administration) and react with glee and approval to the sauciest of the jokes and opinions with which they agree (which are very often jokes and opinions critical of the policies of the current Administration). Sometimes when the audience is being tough on a guest, the guest will either respond to the audience, or turn to the host and criticize it. At times the audience and the guest will get into a short back-and-forth.
My point here does not depend on the particular political alignment of the audience; it is instead that the audience on these shows really is a character -- not just a group of "listeners."
Does this fact make the audience a public forum, or make it appropriate for individual audience members to speak? No, it doesn't. But it does suggest that something more complex is going on on these shows than their hosts might have us believe -- something that places the disruptive 9/11 Truthers in at least a slightly different context than might first appear.
(cross-posted from Prawfsblawg)
Posted by Eric at October 21, 2007 1:26 PM