A final thought on the cancellation of Stephen Colbert

Symbolism alert

There were so many pieces about Stephen Colbert’s final week—many of them really insightful—that I feel every imaginable thing that could be said about this troubling episode, has been said. I myself wrote this article for MS NOW (edited skillfully and quickly by Clarissa Pharr).

In that essay, I was at pains to reiterate a point I often find myself making in my recent book and articles on comedy. Namely, while comedians have a right, even a duty, to engage with politics, this doesn’t mean there are no risks involved. Recalling, Colbert’s ill-fated interview with Donald Trump in 2016, I noted:

The whole episode raises questions I have often asked about comedians, namely: How close to power do these guys want to get? How engaged in politics and partisanship do they want to be? And at what cost? Colbert, a persistent and principled critic of Trump, once flew very close to that orange sun. Too close.

Perhaps the proper ethical stance for the comic is to maintain a critical distance from all those in power. Skewer from a distance and skewer them all. That means no Trump on the show, and no James Talarico either (Colbert hosted the Texas Democrat and U.S. Senate candidate on YouTube because CBS blocked him from having him on his own show).

This point is extremely unpopular and I myself can identify its vulnerabilities. Too, Colbert is a thoughtful and gracious artist who doesn’t need to be raked over the coals for a bad decision. Still, I am one of those oldheads who always wanted art to remain at a certain remove from politics. What the parameters of that remove are—that is something I never figured out. I’m still reflecting on it.

But that’s not my final thought on Colbert. What I want to say is that I appreciated the way “The Late Show” used nuanced, and somewhat ominous, symbolism. During his lengthy chat with David Letterman, Colbert and his predecessor conducted their interview in the audience. That was thought-provoking.

So was the finale in which Paul McCartney and Colbert retreat to the backstage of the Ed Sullivan Theater during a pretty rendition of “Hello, Goodbye.” Alone in the bowels of the theater the two men crank a lever and down go the lights. Suddenly we see the theater from the outside. It goes dark. The edifice is then struck by a green ray which reduces the entire building to a tiny green dot. The green dot becomes a snow globe within which a miniature revolving version of the theater can be glimpsed. It is inspected by a curious dog.

Read it your way. Interpretive license belongs to you. I, for my part, saw the whole sequence as unsettling. And I’ll leave it at that.