In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet


30 thoughts on Jessica Valenti on The Colbert Report

  1. I only know Jessica from reading the blogs, so it was great to see what she’s like in person. Great job! It’s hard for guests to keep up with Colbert’s rapid-fire quipping, but she was witty and sharp and on target. She was very impressive. YAY JESSICA!

  2. Wow, she really was pretty great on the show! It’s nice when the guests understand what they’re doing on The Colbert Report, but she went even further and just did a fabulous job.

  3. I do love Colbert. Love how he started cracking up when he said, “Isn’t that all there is to feminism?” He also brought up several issues that have been debated within the feminist blogosphere regarding this book (the cover photo, for one). The guy knows his stuff.

  4. He also brought up several issues that have been debated within the feminist blogosphere regarding this book (the cover photo, for one).

    I don’t think he brought up the cover because it’s been debated on the feminist blogosphere. I think he brought up the cover because the “Stephen Colbert” character is a lech, and the cover is the kind of image that lecherous guys are used to drooling over.

    I thought she did well, although he went pretty easy on her.

    However, I’m not so keen on this Colbert guy. He makes me want to drown things.

    Huh. Have you ever seen his show? It’s a parody of right-wing American news shows, and it’s pretty awesome.

  5. Right, I didn’t mean I thought he’s in here reading Feministe or anything, I just meant that he seems to know the sort of hot button issues that feminists grapple with. It wasn’t just the cover; he discussed her language as well, which is something else I’ve seen people arguing about.

  6. Not a bad “interview” — so much as anything Colbert does could be considered “interview”.

    Great rip on third wave fem: “And this is what she fought for, right? The ability for women to appear naked on book covers?”

    I’m glad she has a strong opinion on GGW, “I have a hard time believing that they’re actually flashing their boobs for their own pleasure.”

  7. Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were fairly savvy about such things.

    I actually thought he seemed pretty sympathetic to her. He didn’t exactly break character, but he let her make her points, which he doesn’t always do.

  8. He was downright nice to her. I’ve seen some of his interviews where the guest was lucky to draw breath to speak before Colbert overran them and Kirsten, he isn’t doing his job if someone doesn’t want to drown him by the end.

  9. I hadn’t seen anything from him before, and a lack of context is probably part of why I had such a negative reaction. I wasn’t at all aware of his normal interview style.

    And I didn’t want to drown Colbert himself, just things in general.

  10. I thought it was something like that, Kirsten. De-contextualized, Colbert looks like Bill O’Reilly. You don’t necessarily realize that he’s actually a parody of Bill O’Reilly. But please don’t drown him! He’s one of the few bright spots in the American media landscape! (If you wanted to drown Bill O’Reilly, I would not be as upset, although I don’t advocate murdering right-wing blow-hards.)

  11. I don’t watch many of Colbert’s interviews because he doesn’t tend to let the other person speak very much–which bothers the hell out of me–so this isn’t really representative, but the last three interviews i’ve seen him do were Jessica, John Amaechi, and Al Gore. If what i saw in those three interviews is typical for Colbert, then the pattern seems to be this: If the interviewee is a well-known public figure (or government official), then Colbert does his usual schtick and the interviewee can’t get a word in edgewise. If the interviewee isn’t one of those things, then maybe Colbert tones it down a little and let’s them get their message out there. Hence, the Gore interview was what you would expect, while Amaechi and Jessica were able to talk a little bit more about their issues/books.

    Anyone who watches more frequently can feel free to correct me.

  12. Kirsten and others…Colbert did the best job of speaking truth to power I’ve seen in a long long time. Granted, that was over a year ago, at the press corps dinner in washington. Attendees included most of the supreme court justices, the president, and gobs of other vips…whose clocks were essentially cleaned by Colbert in the guise of his right wing telly presenter.
    http://www.dailymotion.com/sensemilia/video/143459
    Go, see.

    Love the Jess interview, did a great job by not being a stereotype, by being well spoken, intelligent and by having a sense of humour to go along with it. Nicely done.

  13. Speaking as one over-qualified Colbert fangirl, I thought this was a great interview. Jessica kept up with Colbert (which I gather is hard to do), and Colbert gave her a friendly amount of space. Also, loved the shirt she gave him.

    My sense of the pattern is that Colbert always goes for the joke he thinks of, no matter who the guest is. For example, when Amy Goodman was on the show, the first 75% of the interview was dominated by Colbert, but then he gave her the rest of it. Goodman doesn’t have the status that randomliberal hypothesized is important.

  14. Hawise is right–he WAS especially nice, considering his skill at skewering. He joshed her a little, in his faux-O’Reilly persona, but he didn’t try to make her look ridiculous (which he is SO good at doing). I guess he’s a fan. Right on!

  15. Colbert’s interviews tend to go very well when the person on the other side knows the show is parody, and doesn’t take it seriously; isn’t an asshat (Colbert’s takedown of Dinesh D’Souza is classic); and doesn’t try to take it seriously.

    Jessica was great. On the other hand I saw Amy Goodman on the show during her last book tour, and it was clearly a miserable interview. Amy didn’t get it, and tried to be serious.

    That’s waving a red flag in front of Colbert. He really rolled right over her, O’Reilly-style. I’ve seen him do it to numerous others who thought they were going to be taken seriously.

    But…IT’S A COMEDY SHOW. If you don’t know that beforehand, or can’t play with that, you’re so out of your depth on that stage with him.

  16. I was surprised to see him searching for words a couple times. He doesn’t usually have any trouble keeping the patter going but it looked like he wasn’t sure which way to go. A good thing, I think. Always nice to dispel the humorless feminist myth by silencing Stephen Colbert, even momentarily.

  17. Whoever here hasn’t seen much of Colbert should google “Cooking With Feminists” and his follow-up interview with Jane Fonda. Hi-LAR-ious!
    But anyway good job, Jessica.

  18. I don’t know, but I thought that “I thought we had a she-male on our hands here” comment of his (after he raised the f-bomb issue and Jessica said “it’s the Queens in me”) crossed the line into rank transphobia, and I am damned disappointed to add Colbert to the list of “progressives” who think it’s ok to slander trans people for a joke. Overall, his whole shtick was pretty damned sexist. I’m pissed enough to spit nails.

  19. Hawise is right–he WAS especially nice, considering his skill at skewering. He joshed her a little, in his faux-O’Reilly persona, but he didn’t try to make her look ridiculous (which he is SO good at doing). I guess he’s a fan. Right on!

    Thanks You 🙂

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  22. Yay, I love Stephen and I love Jessica, so this was a dream come true for me. I cracked up when she gave him the “Feminist Chicks Dig Me” tshirt, in light of his “freaky three-way with Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda.”

    I think she did a good job holding her own against Stephen, but I agree that he went super-easy on her… I do think that a lot of times he is nicer to the guests who are relative unknowns – he wants to give them a chance to sell some books through the show. With famous people, he’s pretty ruthless – and I love it!!!

  23. I’m sort of sad to see how many readers of such a smart blog as Feministe don’t get that Colbert’s thing is an act. The lechery particularly is clever to me, since he’s mocking the barely-concealed lechery underpinning the moralistic blather of pundits like Bill O’Reilly. He’s sort of the anti-lech in real life, I’ve heard, as his massive humiliation when Jane Fonda sat in his lap shows.

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