Media Diary Entry 1

Watching the Colbert Report does not always yield some sort of image of Latinos, and what we do see is, surprisingly, relatively sparse. It is obvious that he is not going to spend 30 minutes talking about Latinos, but I guess I expected a little more with all the talk of immigration lately. But this is not to say that what images we see are not interesting. The first time that I watched it for the class, Colbert did not at all touch on Latinos. However, there was a short commercial for his much-publicized “Rally to Restore Fear.” In this promo, Colbert was depicting various things that Americans are scared of. Among the images of homosexuals, Muslims, and various other images was a short clip of a Latino and Uncle Sam dancing together. I feel like this short little 15-second clip was able to make a huge social commentary on the status of America. I found it interesting that such a short little tidbit was able to so concisely illustrate many of the fears that Americans have. Many people simply do not want to see Latinos and the US government getting along – they do not want us to have anything to do with “them.” While it is a little difficult to pin down Colbert’s beliefs seeing as he is a comedian/pundit, it isn’t hard to pick up on his general beliefs. The impressively blunt satire of Colbert’s advertisement, while not necessarily courting Latinos, works to show that he is probably for immigrant rights, and dispelling the stigma against Latinos. Now, I’m pretty sure Colbert is catering to the 20/30-something educated male that has become disillusioned with politics or annoyed with the status quo of political rhetoric. Or maybe that’s just me. But either way, I don’t think he is working to pull in the Latino audience. Instead, I think he is playing on stereotypes for a laugh, as well as trying to call on people to look at how absurd their stereotypes might be.