Picture this: A timid, 10-year-old girl encounters a group of kids on the playground. They ask what her name is, and she unfortunately replies: “Yaroslava.” Immediately, all the kids around her start bombarding her with questions “What kind of name is that?” “Can I call you something else?” “Where are you from?” She replies, “I am from Kazakhstan, but people don’t really know or understand what that means so I just say Russia.” Right after they hear that, the jokes come flooding in. “So is your dad like Borat? Do you drink a bunch of vodka to keep warm and ride to school on a polar bear? So you’re a communist?” Little did Yaroslava know that by revealing this information, she would stumble upon an open forum of questions and inquiries., This anecdote of my childhood portrays how television and other forms of media shape even very young minds. I did not know if I found the jokes funny or offensive, and generally did not know what to say back. Now, the topic of Russia, race, and other important political issues are discussed constantly in the media, and I want to look in to how comedic media can be used in an effective and progressive conversation about those issues.  

Media today is, whether people want to admit it or not, one of the biggest ways humans form major opinions on their beliefs and values. Late night shows such as Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and television sit com shows such as Fresh off the Boat, and Black-ish, have a very progressive movement that is dominating Hollywood today. On the liberal side of the spectrum, it seems that there is a lot of television shows that portray similar messages. So many in fact, that people complain about it. Eric Wemple discusses liberalism in the media posing the question: “Mainstream media, why so liberal?” Although his article is swaying against the fact that liberal media is good media, his point that mainstream media is very liberal is still valid.

Meanwhile, it seems that conservative America does not use television to convey their feelings and views—but rather turn to the internet and applications such as Facebook and Twitter to reach their audiences. They seem to think that comedy is not the route to take when it comes to talking about issues, but instead use scare tactics to get into young minds that use these social media applications. The Republican party has come to be known as the party of fear, and it has been working. Peter N. Stearns states in his book American Fear, “[there are] either more fearful Americans than there once were, or that their voices are louder or more sought after and publicly authorized—or both.” 

Although there are many differences between the conservative and the liberal party, there are two very important things they have in common. One of them is the most obvious reason, they both use the media in some way shape or form to convey their messages. Although the left uses more of a comedic approach whereas the right uses fear tactics through social media, the opinions of both sides are being reached to large audiences. Both sides also seem to be aware of the fact that they are targeting a younger audience and younger voters, knowing that the youth of today is the future. Another important similarity between the two is the fact that the extremes of each—extreme liberals and extreme conservatives—are not loved by those who are not extreme. Those who are extreme do not help discussion but actually stop any kind of progress that has been done from either side. 

As mentioned before, liberals use more of a televised and comedic approach to convey their messages—and that starts a very productive conversation about the issues of today. Although Hollywood is notoriously white and conservative when it comes to television shows and movies, there is significant progress that is being made to change that. Not only is Hollywood diversifying its characters, the shift from a conservative viewpoint (especially on big topics such as racism, sexism, and homophobia) has gone to a more openminded and therefore liberal viewpoint. “In other words, Hollywood likes Democrats because they support social freedom” (Dalmia). 

Let’s look at some examples of this, starting again with Late Night Television Shows. The liberal Late Night Shows seem to be dominating the nights, with The Late Late Show with James Corden, who openly discusses the flaws of Donald Trump and conservative ideals, using his humor to guide his talks, for example when Trump was trying to ban transgender from serving in the American army, he wrote a song about how Donald Trump is spreading hate and is making a move that is not for the better of America. But it is not just him, it is most of the late-night shows on television today. With the most popular television shows having liberal ideas, It is hard to name a conservative late-night show (Welch).

Another example of liberals using media to discuss politics is television shows such as Fresh off The Boat and Black-ish. These shows use their status in a progressive way by discussing different political issues in a family perspective. ABC’s Black-ish has been the most controversial, tacking social questions such as racism head on throughout the seasons. Creator Kenya Barris points out, “They want us to tell honest stories and stories that are affecting us," Barris said. "What we've been able to do is tell it in a really comedic way. We're able to do it with a spoonful of sugar so people can hear and absorb the message but still laugh." (Alexander). Fresh off the Boat, however, offers a different conversation. Although they are not direct in discussing their social issues, they make a show that is relatable and make fun of stereotypes, which helps open up conversation about those social issues. Instead of making the issues front and center, they weave those issues into the plot, making it just as powerful as blatantly stating the issues. 

So why does television lack conservative ideas? The dictionary definition of a conservative is “a person who is averse to change and holds to traditional values and attitudes, typically in relation to politics” The party is centered around the idea that they do not want change in a society, and watching a show that only reflects what people already say would not succeed in television. It is easier for liberals to make a comedic television show because ideas are constantly changing, and even though those ideas are not always perfect they choose to either laugh about the failures or comedically point out how helpful they are to society.  

For example, this can be seen through Chelsea Handler’s “Chelsea Does Racism” in which she creates a Docu-Comedy that goes in depth into the issue of racism that is still present in the United States. She takes a wild, comedic approach where she says anything on her mind and lets others do the same, and in the end the viewers are the ones who make a choice about how they feel. The way that she approached the subject is parallel to the rhetorical strategies that Raul Perez discusses in his journal article, strategies to “couch ethnic and racial stereotypes in more palatable ways, in order to be ‘funny’ rather than ‘offensive’ in public” (Perez). Conservatives, however, do not really leave it up to the viewer to decide how they feel. They either spread their message through fear or attack liberals for how they spread their messages. 

The way we see conservative America spread its message is through fear based tactics. Although there are not late-night television shows that share conservative ideas, there are online videos that spread conservative ideas. Those videos are spread through various social medias such as twitter and Facebook. One of the biggest examples of this is Tomi Lahren, a twenty-five-year-old conservative political commentator, whose show runs through Facebook. The way her show works is like this: She sits in front of the camera, head on, and spouts her opinions based on loose facts. She angrily is spreading her ideas, some would say she is yelling them. She is also very active on Twitter, and is constantly spreading her ideas in a fear-based way. Some of her quotes include: “Meet the new KKK, they call themselves ‘Black Lives Matter’ but make no mistake [sic] their goals are far from equality” (Lahren) and she has also said that President Obama "half-way, half-baked, tip-toe, be-friendly-to-jihadis mentality" (Lahren). In both quotes, she is playing on America’s fear of extremists such as the KKK and fear of terrorists and terrorism in America. 

Another reason Conservatives might use social media, instead of comedic talk shows and sitcoms, is the fact that the conservative party is less educated than the democratic party.  The Pew Research Center concluded that in the Republican party, 58 percent of whites are non-college educated. Whereas in the Democratic party, this number is only 32 percent (Blake). Furthermore, there has been scientific evidence that shows that educated people are more likely to understand and respond to comedy (Briggs).  This shows that there is a link between educated adults and comedy shows, and within that, shows that democratic adults are the more educated ones that can have an educated discussion about today’s issues compared to conservative adults. 

  All of this information is all pointing to one thing—comedy is the smarter way to convey messages to a larger audience. It is fair, because it does not play on the emotion of fear, and more people can relate to comedy. No matter what you identify as in any aspect, all can agree that comedy is important in their life. Understanding and using comedy is the way to be educated, and being educated about the issues of today will help society become smarter and stronger, and through that maybe even mend and become less divided. 