For those of you who only met him recently, through his spoof on the Kumari allow me to introduce you to him.[break]
Colbert tagged the “ballsiest pundit” is a notorious comedian of epic proportions when it comes to political satire - his forte, but once in a while he does us a favor and just says hilarious things about all things non-American and non-political too. He’s a comedian; he makes jokes to make us laugh.
That’s all. He’s not the president of America nor is he representing the country in a non-humorous manner, so if you don’t think he’s funny that’s cool - not everyone has the same sense of humor, but please don’t speak on behalf of us Nepalis when you say we hate him - because I for one, as nepaliketi through and through, love him.
Call me a foreigner. A few of you have pointed out how I am not Nepali or at least “not as Nepali” as yourself, or a man since some of you are convinced I am, indeed, not a female, but I can’t help being a fan of Colbert. And, for that matter, I’m not going to produce a long-form (or short-form) birth certificate.
It’s hard to not be a fan of a man who is just so hilarious. Rather than being offended at his take on the Kumari, I sat in front of my screen and literally laughed out loud.
Maybe I was even delighted, nay, perhaps closer to being ecstatic that comedian king Colbert had not just mentioned Nepal, but had an entire clip dedicated to Kathmandu!
YouTube the following if you’ve missed all the rage: Stephen Colbert - Insulting Nepal.
The footage titled ‘Advice to the Gods - Nepalese Pre-Teen Goddesses’ has been on his own portal, Colbert Nation, for much longer and has received over 400 comments, mostly embarrassing gibberish and abusive.
You can taste the nationalists’ wrath and you can feel their vengeance - these nationalists are gung ho Nepali, Dhaka topi, khukuri and all! So Nepali in fact that they felt the need to forget that Colbert is a comedian.
Hello! That’s his job! He’s not representing America - in fact he’s mocking America and Americans in most episodes (please recall his address at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner circa Bush’s regime where he roasts Bush, the host, and the one that invited Colbert to begin with).
His job is to make people laugh - some get it, some don’t - but that’s what he does; jokes, mocks, etc.
But, some did not laugh when Colbert wrote up a rather amusing report of the Bhaktapur Kumari being stripped of her goddess-ness when she set foot in America to promote a documentary (we know how it ends, the priests re-goddesify her and all is fine), except that comment-ers and bloggers are not done with Colbert yet.
You just have to google Colbert and Nepal, you’ll then see endless streams of responses to a few blogs that go to great pains to give him a lesson on, “The Kumari, Nepal, and all things sacred”. I’m just adding mine because most hate him and a little love might mean he’ll do another one on Nepal. We could do with more humor around here after all.
What Colbert did was play up the spoof, that’s what comedians do - they take a morsel of truth and then add salt, pepper, jira, dhuko khursani, besar and anything else in the kitchen to take it as far from the truth as possible to have something funny presented to us but close enough to reality so that we have a base. But many Nepalis weren’t entertained, they were insulted.
Those that were laughing alongside Colbert got witty and clever response as posted by snjblon, @101101011010110 : “i don’t believe that u r nepali…. n u found it funny that how he talked about our land, our tradition n flag…. shame on u n just go to hell…” [sic]
Shame, because while I understand that just a few probably don’t know Colbert-the-comedian and hence, were not familiar with his routine (to mock and be mocked). What I don’t get is the brash show of nationalism displayed on this American comedian’s site.
It seems to me if you love your country so darn much, don’t spit on the streets, hassle its women or pee on the trees. Simple. What a comedian on the other side of the world says or not is understood to be humor by all should hardly matter to our pride. We are aware of what we love and hate around here.
If he picks on our economy, culture, religion, land, flag and what not as part of humor then let’s just laugh. In any case, he didn’t go too far, just far enough.
Loving your country means being able to laugh at its fallacies. Just like Colbert laughs at himself.
Case in point: At the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, the “America’s Presidents” exhibit Colbert sought himself a position. The museum thought that the most “appropriate place” to hang his portrait was right next to the bathrooms!
Museum spokesperson, Bethany Bentley said, “We agreed to go along with the joke and hang it for a short time in between the bathrooms. Let me tell you two key things here, his portrait is not be a part of the collection, and will not be hanging there permanently.
”If that’s not funny, what is? Because, honestly, if you don’t know the man, please, for the love of laughs, Wikipedia him!
Colbert’s reaction to where his portrait hung? It is “hanging in the hall of presidents, just a few yards from the father of our country - exactly where I believe it belongs.”
Because it’s not all about slapstick humor, sometimes sarcasm is the name of the game.
More of Nepali Keti can be found at nepaliketi.net.
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