Today is the debut of Right Network, which is a project by Kelsey Grammer, best known as the title character in the TV comedy, “Frasier.” I’ve been recruited to write a gardening column — my first one is headlined, “Gardening: The Delectable Addiction.” (I was tardy with my photos, so the one there is not mine.)
I was just on Twitter and someone linked MSNBC’s post about it and the reporter only worked in one knee-jerk Leftist condemnation of it, which follows Grammer’s description of Right Network’s mission, to wit:
“We’re not out to vilify or accuse or identify anybody as an enemy,” Grammer said. “We’re out there to encourage people to open their minds and take a look at some things that we as a group of people believe is the right direction for the country.”
Jeff Cohen, an Ithaca College journalism professor and liberal activist, questioned whether the kind of audience that likes conservative talk shows want something similar in entertainment, and whether it can be pulled off.
“Comedy requires irony,” Cohen said. “It can’t be frothing with hate or fear. Drama requires complexity. It can’t be all black and white.”
So true, Prof. Cohen, so true. And spoken with so little sense of — what’s the word I’m looking for? — oh, yes: irony.
My sense is that Grammer is taking a similar approach with Right Network that I’m taking with this blog, A Conservative Lesbian. I figured I would be the only lesbian that many of my conservative readers would get to know. So I include personal posts to become a real human being to my gentle readers and un-demonize lesbians and gays. It looks like Grammer is doing the same thing with Right Network — providing common sense, warmth and humor and including a wide array of topics to present conservatism at its very best to show people what there is to love about it. I’m very proud to be included in this noble venture.
What would a journalism professor know about comedy? If he should watch Def Comedy Jam or Margaret Cho he’ll hear the hate. I could name other liberal “comics” that spew their hatred of Jews, whites, gays, disabled and conservatives throughout their “acts”.
“Drama requires complexity”
Yet if a show has more than one subplot the good professor would say it was too busy.
What I find odd is that people who like Tyler Perry and Madea voted for Obama.
One minor quibble with your post. You are not the only lesbian most of us conservatives know, unless one lives in a cave and sees less than ten people a year, one knows gays and lesbians. True, we don’t talk much about the inner details of our lives with everyone we know but, still.
As to whether we know those lesbians well enough to know whom they sleep with, well, every year we meet more and more folks who have gone from the spinster category to the lesbian category. Most conservatives simply shrug their shoulders. Notice that when Dick Cheney’s daughter came out, it wasn’t conservatives who cared. The Cheneys are still a force on the right.
You are, my dear, as much a product of your times as I am of mine. My outright hatred of the left comes from my service in the ’60s and pinning that star on in the early ’70s. Your ideas about what people accept is somewhat older. Alright, the Mormon bigwigs helped bankroll the Prop 8 thing. Whoopee. How many Mormons are there? Prop 8 passed because Blacks and Hispanics voted for it. Few of them are Mormon. The conservative Christians? Yeah, few of us are wild about gay marriage although we are the ones who will come to your aid if attacked by, say, wild-eyed Muslims. Not BECAUSE of gay or lesbian but because you are human and are our friends and neighbors.
This is too long already but please don’t confuse being friendly to, say 75% of your agenda to being your enemy. A guy like me who thinks that gay marriage might or might not be a good idea, let’s look long and hard about the whole issue before deciding is not your enemy.
“And spoken with so little sense of — what’s the word I’m looking for? — oh, yes: irony.”
I just sprayed coffee on my keyboard.
I forgot to congratulate you on your new column! And, as a fellow gardener, I think you will find this video as fascinating as I did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJeVT434J7c&feature=related