In defense of Jon Stewart

And the award for Worst Review of Oscar Night by a Newspaper Columnist goes to Tom Shales of the Washington Post. Among other blathering statements, he called Jon Stewart "a sad and pale shadow of great hosts gone by." Shales continued:

"Stewart began the show drearily, loping through a monologue that lacked a single hilarious joke with the possible exception of 'Bjork couldn't be here tonight. She was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her.'

That was about it -- and Stewart had five months, working with his legions of writers from the 'Daily Show' on Comedy Central, to come up with good material. It goes to prove that there's still a big, big difference between basic cable and big-time network television after all."

Perhaps Tom Shales, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1988, has fallen into that trap of believing his own press about how smart he is and taking himself too seriously. Seriously, some of these entertainment critics need to remember that they are dealing with entertainment! Admittedly, I am a big fan of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, but it doesn't take a dedicated fan to understand that the strength of Stewart's humor is not the same as a Chris Rock stand-up comedian. Stewart's deadpan, satirical presentation of his jokes may not be the roll-in-the-aisles humor of a Steve Martin, but I would argue that it is actually humor at a higher level than the Oscars have seen since the days of Johnny Carson. Personally, I think the always-great Ebert and Roeper had it exactly right when they compared Stewart to Carson. Carson was the master at satire, and there are few comedians today who come anywhere closer to his level than Stewart.

One of the key ways in which this can be seen is in the percentage of jokes that are sexual in nature. Don't get me wrong, sexual jokes are funny, I'm not knocking that. But they are also easy. It doesn't take as much effort to develop sexual humor, simply because there is an naturally higher-level of titillation surrounding sexual topics that are generally taboo in social settings. Thus, comedians have a tendency to gravitate to those jokes; indeed, comedians like Margaret Cho have made a living almost entirely out of such humor.

Stewart, on the other hand, raises his humor above this base level and has become a master of satire. Even his rare sexual references are functional for the purpose of his satire, as in his great line about sending money for the Hollywood actresses who were so strapped for money that they could barely afford enough dress fabric to cover their breasts. Throughout the night, both his prepared and ad-libbed lines were great: "In case you are keeping track, Three 6 Mafia, one Oscar. Martin Scorcese, none."

I can only hope that, when selecting the Oscar host for future shows, those who invite the hosts for the Oscars will listen to Ebert and Roeper or another intelligent man, Steven Spielberg, who said Stewart did "a fantastic job."