I Am America (And So Can You!)

Review

As unearthly hysterical as I found Stephen Colbert’s I Am America (And So Can You!), the only audience the book would likely entertain would be those who already enjoy his scathingly over-the-top sense of humor. If you love The Colbert Report, then you’ll love the continuation of his satirical take on bombastic, right-wing pundits such as Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter. If you don’t, then chances are there’s not much for you. But that’s for you to decide.

With I Am America, Colbert pokes fun at the blind, unquestioning conservatism espoused by the aforementioned television and radio personalities. Desiring to “impregnate the country with [his] mind” (vii), his musings on religion, gay rights, immigration, and other issues serve the dual purpose of encouraging laughs and exposing the self-serving hypocrisy of media figures on all sides of the political, social, and sociopolitical spectrums. Like all intelligent, competent parody should, I Am America turns an insightful eye towards the negative aspects of the attitudes and perspectives espoused by the Bush administration and those who embraced them without thinking. It would be easy to dismiss the book as merely a commentary or a mockery of conservatives, but Colbert’s ire is reserved more for those who willfully accept their views from others rather than forming them on their own as opposed to those who merely espouse a well-informed, personal stance.

Likewise, he satirizes public figures who abuse their positions in order to insult anyone and everyone that disagrees. In doing so, he delves into logical holes present in arguments against nontraditional sex, homosexuality, immigration, the rights of the elderly, the treatment of animals, and other issues. My favorite chapter involved a rundown of every major world religion and how they relate and compare to Catholicism, which Colbert oftentimes touts as the only belief system that isn’t “one of these Goat Paths to Nowhere” (53). It’s a snicker-inducing send-up of the self-aggrandizing mindsets plaguing many organized religions today – Colbert simply elected Catholicism as his primary emphasis since that was the culture he grew up with.

Bibliographic Information

Colbert, Stephen. I Am America (And So Can You!). Grand Rapids: Grand Central, 2007.

Further Reading

It helps to have read literature by many of the media figures Stephen Colbert parodies. While I try to check out books from all points of view, I do tend to shy away from those written by people who are so dead set in their opinions that they don’t approach the opposition respectfully. The only book I can think of that comes closest to being a serious version of I Am America (And So Can You!) is Bill O’Reilly’s The O’Reilly Factor: The Good, The Bad, and The Completely Ridiculous in American Life. Having read this prior to Stephen Colbert’s rise to popularity, it certainly made his schtick all the more clever, biting, and hysterical.

~Riot