I Am Super PAC and So Can You! Stephen Colbert and the Citizen-Fool

This essay analyzes Stephen Colbert's 2012 "out-of-the-box" prank in which he created and operated a legally recognized Super PAC during the 2012 election cycle. Contextualized by the Supreme and District Courts' decisions to allow unlimited contributions to Super PACs from corpo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inWestern journal of communication Vol. 81; no. 2; pp. 262 - 279
Main Author Meier, Matthew R.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Salt Lake City Routledge 15.03.2017
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act 2002-US
Citizens
Citizenship
Colbert, Stephen
Comic Frame
Elections
Fool
Law
PAC
Political action committees
Political culture
Political finance
Politics
Stephen Colbert
Super PAC
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Summary:This essay analyzes Stephen Colbert's 2012 "out-of-the-box" prank in which he created and operated a legally recognized Super PAC during the 2012 election cycle. Contextualized by the Supreme and District Courts' decisions to allow unlimited contributions to Super PACs from corporate entities, Colbert's prank took advantage of a loophole in campaign finance law to extend his character's parody into the most sacred realm of American politics-the elections themselves. Drawing on Kenneth Burke's notion of the comic frame and rhetorical conceptualizations of citizenship, I argue that Colbert's Super PAC antics permitted his character to perform citizenship. The resulting performance constitutes a model, the citizen-fool, as a potential comic corrective for overly tragic manifestations of democratic political culture.
ISSN:1057-0314
1745-1027
DOI:10.1080/10570314.2016.1239026