Reply #21: Here's a review of the satirical Fox programme "The O'Reilly Factor"

[muriel_volestrangler]

Some of his best material satirises the fashionable, redneck view of the French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys", and last night's rabid references to "the loathsome French president" and "Jacques Chirac, that weasel" cleverly exposed the absurdity of America's current knee-jerk Francophobia.

To keep his viewers on their toes, he recently slipped in a subtle line about "those French, they can keep their francs", neatly mocking the ignorance of those Americans who don't even realise that the euro has been in circulation for years, and that the franc disappeared long ago.

Just as Randy Newman was misunderstood by those who thought his Short People song was serious, so there's a danger, I suppose, that dullards might not realise that O'Reilly is a clever joke, and that he's a spoof bigot, rather than a real one.

To make the joke absolutely clear, an array of semi-senile retired generals from central casting were wheeled into the studio to deliver ever more ridiculous lines, with one proudly announcing, "We've killed an estimated 95,000 Iraqi soldiers," (perhaps they have, but only in a wicked satire would they boast of such a terrible thing), while the presenter added, "We paid for this war, so we get to say who gets the contracts". My favourite cameo role was a Dr Peter Singer, a "liberal" philosopher from Princeton University, who nervously suggested that perhaps Iraqi civilian lives were just as valuable as American ones, and was promptly shouted down by O'Reilly. Another running joke on the show is that the presenter believes so fervently in America values of freedom of expression that he bawls out anyone who dares to disagree with him.

"Viewers know who provided the accurate coverage of the war and who was flat-out wrong," he thundered (a sly dig at his own employers, who slapped "Fox News Exclusive" on stories about chemical weapons finds that soon turned out to be non-existent), and that's the one flaw in this otherwise brilliant comedy format.

http://anglonoel.blogspot.com/2005/05/i-need-laugh.html{/div]