Conservative Comedy: When the GOP Gets Laughs

When Sarah Palin was asked about Tina Fey’s Memorex-quality impersonation of the GOP vice-presidential candidate, she responded that she thought it was great, but admitted that she had watched the sketch on mute. When I tried a similar tactic with the trailer for “An American Carol,” David Zucker’s new film parody of Michael Moore, I thoroughly enjoyed the visual likeness to the filmmaker, which seemed to me spot on. It wasn’t until I reprised the trailer with sound that I realized that it was a not-so-subtle conservative “spoof” on liberal ideas that featured racial, religious, and sexual stereotypes and unabated nationalistic symbolism.

That viewing got me thinking about what went into conservative humor, who is considered its audience, and how it differs from a lefty approach to comedy.

You probably know writer/director David Zucker best for making “Airplane!” and the “Naked Gun” series. He has self-nominated himself as the “Master of Movie Satire.”

On the surface, the trailer for “An American Carol” isn’t really a deviation from that of any potentially mediocre comedy: a rough plot is introduced, star power is announced in big captions, and the majority of the movie’s jokes are revealed in less than three minutes. A casual once-over would divulge to the audience that Chris Farley’s brother was playing the role of fat, angry, and ultraliberal “Michael Malone,” who is joined in his onscreen shenanigans by stars like Kelsey Grammer, Dennis Hopper, James Woods, John Voight, Trace Adkins, and Bill O’Reilly.

Before you ask, “Why O’Reilly?,” it’s important to understand something about each of the people in the above list: they all love the GOP. Woods, Grammer, and Voight were big fans of Guiliani before publicly announcing their support for McCain. Grammer was a celebrity attendee of Bush’s first inauguration, and Voight makes appearances on “Fox and Friends” and wrote an anti-Obama op-ed for the Washington Times in July. Hopper likes to donate thousands to the RNC, and Adkins is a conservative country music star. Bill O’Reilly is the rule rather than the exception in this cast.

Zucker himself was, at one point, a supporter and contributor to the DNC, but he is rumored to have had a change of heart after 9/11. His most recent campaign contributions went to Giuliani’s presidential campaign.

All of this political categorization would be mere speculation if it weren’t for the content of the trailer. In just one minute and 44 seconds there are: two jokes disparaging homosexuals, a longer riff on Muslims, a scene in which Gary Coleman portrays a modern slave, one random shot of Trace Adkins in front of an American flag shouting “This is the greatest country in the whole wide world,” one suicide bomber joke, and two ridiculous quotes from the fake Michael Moore (“I love America and that’s why it needs to be destroyed!” and “We are gonna abolish July Fourth!”).

The plot? Michael Malone decides to abolish the Fourth of July, but before he can do so, three ghosts (George Washington, General Patton, and JFK) appear to him in Dickens-like fashion to “Teach him the true meaning of patriotism.”

It seems clear that this film was created for a conservative audience, or if nothing else, a xenophobic, interventionalist, sexist, and racist one.

With this conservative comedy in mind, I started thinking about the “liberal” approach to poking fun at conservative politics and society. This election has provided a healthy portion of such media, from heavyweights like The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Saturday Night Live, but there’s something remarkably different that sets their style apart from that of the conservatives. At the bottom of it all, what I think it comes down to is truth. More and more of John Stewart’s laughs come from beautiful montages of actual video illustrating the hypocrisy of Bush, McCain, and Karl Rove, and SNL’s highest ratings in years had Tina Fey portraying a Palin so true to life that even the dialogue was barely altered.

In an era when one candidate can compare another to Paris Hilton, the humor is right there in reality, and all people like Colbert have to do is repackage it on a Comedy Central platter; the laughs and good ratings follow naturally.

Though founded on pure humor and even some flat-out fabrications, shows like Colbert’s and Stewart’s have become an outlet for actual truth in a moment when the mainstream media can’t capitalize on lies and gaffes without coming off biased. Even Letterman was scolded for continually berating McCain for skipping his show.

Conservative humor like “An American Carol,” on the other hand, makes use of much less “elitist rational thought” and instead capitalizes on offensive, lowbrow humor while delivering a “patriotic” message.

It’s also interesting to note that the company “American” enough to produce “An American Carol” is called Mpower. The company’s mission statement is “To engage, inspire, and empower a global audience through film and television content that promotes truth.” Mpower’s CEO, Steve McEveety, has produced films like “The Passion of the Christ,” “Braveheart,” and “We Were Soldiers.” Why does suddenly throwing Mel Gibson into this mix make it even scarier?

I honestly hope that “An American Carol” is not the beginning of a trend because I like my truth truer than Mpower’s. Most people laugh in movies because they think, “Yes! That is so true!” And yet, I am sure that when this film gets released on October third, one month before the election, people all around the country will laugh at it and say, “Yes, Bill O’Reilly, that is so true!” If this humor based on irrational untruths, out of date stereotypes, and fear is gratifying to most Americans, then maybe we’ve got bigger problems coming.

—Columnist Andrew F. Nunnelly can be reached at nunnelly@fas.harvard.edu.