Why We Can't Get Enough of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher

By Jeffrey Jones and Jonathan Gray and Ethan Thompson, NYU Press. Posted May 9, 2009.

Bookending Bush

by Jeffrey P. Jones

That’s My Bush! and Lil’ Bush bookend the Bush presidency. Both proved popular with audiences, but more important, both served as vehicles for processing the “meaning” of the president in real time (as does the news). If the president himself spends great effort in manufacturing and shaping his own imagery (again, as does the press), then it is rather significant that satirical television programming does the same, for the president is nothing if not symbolic.

As bookend means of making sense of George W. Bush, the changed and different portrayals over the span of six years are instructive. Bush moves from being a father figure to a small child. His stupidity is no longer harmless but instead quite dangerous. He is no longer simply daft yet affable and loveable but now stupid, arrogant, and mean-spirited. The caricature changes from Bush as President of the United States (“He’s the president in residence, he’s kind of in charge,” as the theme song puts it) to Bush as “Resident of the United States” (as the presidential seal that comprises the Lil’ Bush logo states). The image thus moves from Bush being “kind of in charge” to simply being an occupant of the residence/office (as are the other “unelected” children of presidents). The portrayal of Bush’s consorts has changed as well—from neighborly and sexy to vicious and wicked. And the political issues highlighted no longer transcend the Bush presidency (gun control, the death penalty, abortion). Instead, they are political issues and events that are specific to Bush’s time in office—Al-Qaeda, the Iraq war, relations with North Korea, global warming—and, in particular, issues that his administration has handled poorly.

The different portrayals are the result, of course, of the specific historical context in which they were written and appeared. Yet it is too simplistic to argue that one represents a naive pre-9/11 America and the other a wiser but disillusioned post-9/11, post–Iraq war nation. The writing in That’s My Bush! certainly reflects the political mood and culture of pre-9/11. There are seemingly no pressing political issues, only intractable ones that politics either exacerbates or can’t resolve. The comedic interest in the president is not his conduct as a politician but his characteristics as a man. As noted earlier, Trey Parker and Matt Stone argued that they weren’t out to make Bush “look like an idiot” because “he’s going to do that fine on his own.” Instead, they argued, by placing him in a situation comedy (even as a parody), they were going “to do something very, very subversive and actually make you really love this guy.” But perhaps Parker and Stone can be forgiven for their immature conception of politics and even political satire. The country had just spent eight years in a seemingly constant battle between Republicans and President Bill Clinton, waged largely at the personal level (what Clinton labeled the “politics of personal destruction”). Clinton proved so politically similar that Republican Party officials in the 1996 election complained that he had stolen their political ideas. But that didn’t stop them or right-wing media commentators from waging war daily on Clinton and his wife for their supposed personal failings as human beings.

In that context, the South Park approach to placing characters in stupid situations, offering up double entendres, and relying on puerile sexual humor fits well with both the popular culture and political culture of the Clinton years. Besides living in a thoroughly sexualized culture, Clinton himself sexualized the office of the presidency by engaging in actions that led to accusations against him for sexual indiscretion from numerous women. Therefore, the play on Bush’s name as female anatomy in the show’s title and in the episode “The First Lady’s Persqueeter” is not only what passed for political humor and commentary by 2000–2001, but also the language offered up by politicians themselves (see, for instance, The Starr Report). With that said, perhaps That’s My Bush! was exactly the type of political humor needed at that time. If these two candidates (Bush and Gore) were the best the two major political parties had to offer, then parodying the president as the central figure of a dysfunctional family in a parodic sitcom not only summarizes the moment but also created a scenario in which either candidate or president could be ridiculed on those terms. With Bush as the eventual lead character, those terms became (as one critic put it) “President Dumbass.” Those terms, then, were the “language” of the moment.

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Jeffrey P. Jones is Associate Professor of Communication and Theatre Arts at Old Dominion University.

Jonathan Gray is Assistant Professor of Communication and Media studies at Fordham University.

Ethan Thompson is Assistant Professor of Communications at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi.

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