Since you asked me to post this here, here's some thoughts on l!Stephen. I modified and expanded it from the original.
Both l!Stephen and c!Stephen have a common heritage in that they're both the products of Real Stephen, a Democrat. Thus, c!Stephen and l!Stephen stem from left-wing constructs, where Conservatives are unthinking and inelegant and Liberals are wishy-washy push overs. Notice how the Liberal stereotype takes a positive trait - open-mindedness - and pushes it to the extreme, while the Conservative stereotype is at best rooted in "they mean well." (I think r!Stephen's specific words were that c!Stephen is a "well meaning idiot.") This is a key trend.
A fun meta exercise: how would c!Stephen and l!Stephen look if they were created by an AU Stephen (AU!Stephen) where he was as much a Republican as r!Stephen is a Democrat? AU!Stephen version would be a lapsed Catholic, performing opposite a TDS hosted by Jon Lebowitz, who never works on Saturdays and doesn't eat pork. That is, how would a right-leaning or even Conservative (in the non-exaggerated real world sense) AU!Stephen satirize Conservatives and Liberals through his character of Stephen Colbert?
The GOP doesn't stereotype Liberals as wishy-washy, so AU!Stephen wouldn't create a hippie version. l!AU!Stephen would be more the hands-off, elitist, Ivory Tower liberal stereotype (popular with pundits like O'Reilly and based on a grain of true behavior like l!Stephen). He's willing to give someone the shirt off *your* back, speculates on policies in grand theoretical (but inherently impractical) terms, and never once got his hands dirty planting a tree - though he voted for a law to make someone else do it. Unlike l!Stephen, he'll argue - loudly and at length - for his beliefs and insist it's "for the children" or "for the greater good." But while c!Stephen shifts responsibility to God, l!AU!Stephen shifts it to the "responsibilities one person has for another." l!AU!Stephen likes to declare lots of things as "rights" and then advocate everyone have them, as opposed to c!Stephen who's all for differences in material wealth.
c!AU!Stephen would be made to represent the "silent majority:" firmly held, poorly articulated, beliefs, but too quiet for his own good and easily distracted from serious issues by pop culture. This matches the lament of conservative pundits who decry how the American public never seems to mobilize to fight for their freedoms. Those pundits argue America is a "center-right" country, so c!AU!Stephen is right there in that spectrum - reflected in how incredibly average he is.
c!AU!Stephen laments the status quo even as he sends incumbents back to Congress; he wishes politicians would listen to him, but is too busy reading news feeds on the Gosselins to call them; and loves going to Church, but doesn't wear his love of Christ on his sleeve to avoid seeming like a generic white guy - which, in turn, makes him more of a generic white guy. Like l!Stephen, he's polite to a fault, but would disagree with someone on issues - albeit quietly and with little exposition. While c!Stephen will blather on about a topic even when he has nothing to say, words just don't come easy to c!AU!Stephen. He's a painfully bland character, out of place on national TV. If c!Stephen interviewed him, he'd ask, "Tell me about the c!AU!Stephen no one cares about."
Here we see the same trend with r!Stephen's thinking copied with AU!Stephen: now it's the c!AU!Stephen who has a positive trait - normalcy - carried to an extreme, while l!AU!Stephen is the "well meaning idiot." Thus these two characters are not so much opposites of each other as they reflect the mirroring in techniques between AU!Stephen and r!Stephen.
For even more fun, add in Libertarian and Socialist/Fascist AU versions of r!Stephen to test the extremes. The only risk there is that they tend to see the two parties as the same (Libertarians see them both as Authoritarians seeking control, Socialists/Facists as too supportive of individuality and internal dissent), so there'd be hardly any distance between the two versions, save for some superficial differences meant for irony.
I enjoy picking r!Stephen's brain (and by extension the brains of his co-writers) even more than his characters, sometimes.
no subject
Both l!Stephen and c!Stephen have a common heritage in that they're both the products of Real Stephen, a Democrat. Thus, c!Stephen and l!Stephen stem from left-wing constructs, where Conservatives are unthinking and inelegant and Liberals are wishy-washy push overs. Notice how the Liberal stereotype takes a positive trait - open-mindedness - and pushes it to the extreme, while the Conservative stereotype is at best rooted in "they mean well." (I think r!Stephen's specific words were that c!Stephen is a "well meaning idiot.") This is a key trend.
A fun meta exercise: how would c!Stephen and l!Stephen look if they were created by an AU Stephen (AU!Stephen) where he was as much a Republican as r!Stephen is a Democrat? AU!Stephen version would be a lapsed Catholic, performing opposite a TDS hosted by Jon Lebowitz, who never works on Saturdays and doesn't eat pork. That is, how would a right-leaning or even Conservative (in the non-exaggerated real world sense) AU!Stephen satirize Conservatives and Liberals through his character of Stephen Colbert?
The GOP doesn't stereotype Liberals as wishy-washy, so AU!Stephen wouldn't create a hippie version. l!AU!Stephen would be more the hands-off, elitist, Ivory Tower liberal stereotype (popular with pundits like O'Reilly and based on a grain of true behavior like l!Stephen). He's willing to give someone the shirt off *your* back, speculates on policies in grand theoretical (but inherently impractical) terms, and never once got his hands dirty planting a tree - though he voted for a law to make someone else do it. Unlike l!Stephen, he'll argue - loudly and at length - for his beliefs and insist it's "for the children" or "for the greater good." But while c!Stephen shifts responsibility to God, l!AU!Stephen shifts it to the "responsibilities one person has for another." l!AU!Stephen likes to declare lots of things as "rights" and then advocate everyone have them, as opposed to c!Stephen who's all for differences in material wealth.
c!AU!Stephen would be made to represent the "silent majority:" firmly held, poorly articulated, beliefs, but too quiet for his own good and easily distracted from serious issues by pop culture. This matches the lament of conservative pundits who decry how the American public never seems to mobilize to fight for their freedoms. Those pundits argue America is a "center-right" country, so c!AU!Stephen is right there in that spectrum - reflected in how incredibly average he is.
c!AU!Stephen laments the status quo even as he sends incumbents back to Congress; he wishes politicians would listen to him, but is too busy reading news feeds on the Gosselins to call them; and loves going to Church, but doesn't wear his love of Christ on his sleeve to avoid seeming like a generic white guy - which, in turn, makes him more of a generic white guy. Like l!Stephen, he's polite to a fault, but would disagree with someone on issues - albeit quietly and with little exposition. While c!Stephen will blather on about a topic even when he has nothing to say, words just don't come easy to c!AU!Stephen. He's a painfully bland character, out of place on national TV. If c!Stephen interviewed him, he'd ask, "Tell me about the c!AU!Stephen no one cares about."
Here we see the same trend with r!Stephen's thinking copied with AU!Stephen: now it's the c!AU!Stephen who has a positive trait - normalcy - carried to an extreme, while l!AU!Stephen is the "well meaning idiot." Thus these two characters are not so much opposites of each other as they reflect the mirroring in techniques between AU!Stephen and r!Stephen.
For even more fun, add in Libertarian and Socialist/Fascist AU versions of r!Stephen to test the extremes. The only risk there is that they tend to see the two parties as the same (Libertarians see them both as Authoritarians seeking control, Socialists/Facists as too supportive of individuality and internal dissent), so there'd be hardly any distance between the two versions, save for some superficial differences meant for irony.
I enjoy picking r!Stephen's brain (and by extension the brains of his co-writers) even more than his characters, sometimes.