Another pretend right-wing populist exposed - hilariously
Two thoughts come to mind after watching Jon Stewart's devastating takedown of Gretchen Carlson, who plays Chrissy on Fox News's version of "Three's Company."
The rule they always tell you in show business is be yourself, right? But not in conservative populist talk radio and TV. Look, I have no problem with conservatives being themselves. Bill O'Reilly and Dr. Laura and El Rushbo and (of course) Saint Paul Harvey all became huge in radio because radio values authenticity, and their essence bled through every second that they were on the air.
But it seems for every Billo these days there are three people like Carlson, Glenn Beck and Steve Doocy — people who probably have some Republican in them but are simply (and obviously) overplaying to the right wing because they know it sells. This is why I find most talk radio and cable yak so hard to take. (I know I could find some liberal examples of this, but let's face it, that exercise is a lot like scouting the Arena Football League.)
That said, it's hard to be yourself in populist media like radio and TV when the vast majority of your audience has less schooling than you. Craig Allen, whose book News Is People remains an essential text on this subject, says that this has been true for as long as there has been TV news: people with college educations conveying information to people with high school educations. Fox News acts sometimes like it invented the wedge between elites and "the people," but the divide has been there forever.
I've felt this tension myself. I remember doing a talk radio show about 10 years ago when I was visiting Los Angeles. I'd been invited by the host, a popular evening personality in L.A., and it was a lively discussion of race and television (the lawyer Gloria Allred, who I understand likes getting in front of a microphone, was also in studio). Afterwards, my host was very friendly and cordial with me as we talked about doing this again. He asked how it was that I got started and I said Well, I was paying off my student loans at a job that left me a lot of free time and he said What school? So I told him: The University of Chicago. And that's when his eyes sort of glazed over. He was still smiling, nodding his head, but the lights had gone out.
Later I learned that a lot of people who get into talk radio like to boast of having no more than high school educations, or being college dropouts, and that many have an active dislike for people who strut around showing off their degrees. I wonder, though, what "showing off" means. Is it the same as "showing"? Is it a no-no even to allude to the fact I made it to diploma day? But wouldn't that just be a case of "being myself"? (Maybe I could throw in the bit about working two jobs; that would make it seem more hardscrabble.)
America has always had an anti-intellectual streak, but it's also been very trusting of certain educated elites like ministers, astronomers, doctors ... and lots of so-called elitists are successful in media, usually thanks to something in their personality that let them "be themselves" and still be relatable across not only educational lines, but class, race and gender lines as well.
Lest Jon Stewart deceive you, Gretchen Carlson is doing quite well as the new E.D. Hill on "Fox and Friends." Is she "being herself"? I have my doubts. Then again, does it really matter?
