CBS is canceling “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” next May, citing financial reasons. The announcement came shortly after the comedian criticized a settlement between President Trump and CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global, prompting questions about the timing.
David Shoemaker, a professor of philosophy in the College of Arts & Sciences who studies the moral psychology of humor, says that political satire – long a staple of late-night TV – plays a critical role in democracy, cutting through partisanship and exposing hypocrisies that traditional news often can’t.
Shoemaker says: “Mockery can make the mocked person feel smaller, as it effectively pokes holes in gassy ego balloons by revealing something ridiculous about them. This is a very familiar form of humor between friends and family: When one of our own starts acting too big for their britches, pointed mockery shines a spotlight on some failure of theirs, and the joined-in laughter about it brings them back down to size.
“This is why political humor is such a powerful tool against the powerful: making fun of some puffed-up politician for some bit of ridiculosity unites their constituents into one big howl of a laugh that pokes a hole in their ego balloons, revealing them to be small, pinched, and downright silly — just like the rest of us.
“Politicians typically despise such humor: it brings them back down to our size. And for grandiosely narcissistic politicians, such laughter is sometimes the only thing that can find a way through their supporters’ ideological armor.”
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