White House Correspondents Dinner, Celebrity Culture and Media
The 2013 White House Correspondents Dinner, colloquially referred to as "nerd prom" or "douchepalooza," is analyzed for its shift from a professional gathering to a celebrity-driven spectacle. Named entities including Claire Danes, Bob Schieffer, and Kevin Spacey are highlighted for their participation in the event's red carpet and promotional videos. Tom Brokaw is criticized for his public disapproval of the event's "down market" evolution while simultaneously praising specific high-profile celebrities like George Clooney.
white house correspondents dinner· nerd prom· c-span· kevin spacey· claire danes· bob schieffer· tom brokaw
00:00 It's going to create a nuclear winter. Adam Curry, John C. DeVore. Sunday, April 28th, 2013. Time for your Gitmo Nation media assassination episode 508. This is no agenda. See QDX for all stations worldwide from the Travis Heights hideout. In the capital of the drone star state, Austin Tatehouse in the morning everybody. I'm Adam Curry. And from northern Silicon Valley, 73, I'm John C. DeVore. Spoken like a true ham who doesn't do anything about it. Who has no idea what he's talking about. That's right, I don't know nothing. 73s. 73s. You might say that at the end of the show.
00:47 Saying it at the beginning is a little lame. Hey, dude, dude, dude, we missed an opportunity. We must remember to do this properly next year. Because I think it's like the third year in a row I'm probably saying this. Whenever they have the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C., also known as What was it? It was like hashtag nerd prom? Hashtag douche fest. Douchepalooza. They were using douchefest as a hashtag for C-SPAN. But somehow they thought it was, C-SPAN thought it was cool to call it nerd prom. This is not nerd prom, douchepalooza. Yeah, but let's face it, that was sent down obviously by the group. They told C-SPAN to do that because that was the punchline
01:38 To that lame video that the operation put together. Wait a minute, which video is that? You mean their... It's a Kevin Spacey video. I didn't see the Kevin... How did I miss this? I missed the long introduction video and Ed Henry, the head of the organization that puts on this thing, he played, the guy's not funny by the way, he's a Fox guy. I think Fox people generally have no sense of humor. Let's just explain to people who do not, in fact most people have no idea what we're talking about except, you know, because who the heck cares? Who knows about this? So every year the White House correspondents, that would be the
02:21 The people who sit in the White House and ask questions or basically receive the script and then read it on their cable channels airwaves. They have a dinner and this dinner has progressed over the decades. into a total douche fest but of course it kind of I don't have a problem with it makes a lot of sense because you know you can only get a table if you're a news organization but then you'll have to buy the tables at $2,500 a pop per seat right not per table. Oh no, I thought it was perceived. You can't they explain you'd miss this to the guy went through long details about the menu the prices and all no I missed all of this this is annoying you told me you were watching for two hours when I was watching it for two hours and that was the red carpet which there was no Ryan Seacrest this is the mistake no but they had Claire Danes who I didn't realize it but apparently cannot walk in high heels
03:17 No, but I'm talking about I'm talking about the press so anyway, so you use $2,500 a table apparently which I think is cheap the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is 10,000 a table for 10 seats Yeah, this is a very cheap but you can't not anyone can buy a table. It's exclusive in that regard. Right. Exactly. So you have to be a press organization and then you can invite whoever you want to invite. And of course, this has gotten a little more crazy over the years, although I don't think so, because this is these celebrities who are invited. They are the true bread and butter of the news industry. So to me, it makes total sense that they invite these people. I mean, I don't see any any issue with it at all.
03:59 But this has now become controversial. So, but typically this is kind of like a roast, if you will, also a very traditional American kind of thing where the president will make fun of the either a little bit of himself, a little bit of the relationship between him and the press, but then also, you know, just about whatever's going on at the moment, current events. You know, we've had President Obama say some pretty interesting things in the past. This is one of my favorites. I have two words for you.
04:41 predator drones. Which of course, you know, it's always hilarious. It's hilarious. And so I feel that, you know, the truth is often spoken and they bring in... I agree. And they bring in a, you know, a celebrity comedienne to, you know, to host the evening. So basically it's just who has You know, it's joke writers because both the president and in this case Conan O'Brien are just reading off the jokes. President I will say, very relaxed. I felt he did a good job. You know, it wasn't like, it weren't like knee slappers, you know, it was like okay, it was pretty, you know, it was okay. Then he was appropriate and you know how he toned it down because of the tragedy. But of course it really is a whole, you know, shut up and let them eat cake
05:25 Thing that's happening here and then nothing is more funny to me when you see Celebrities and new celebrities on the red carpet and they're waiting in line to walk the red carpet and you see how it's stupid you see how the women are turning and posing and what that needs John what that needs is you and I they're idiots it needs you and I you know doing a voiceover and talking about them I mean can't you just see how that would be perfect it'd be great and we could have miss Mickey for color when we don't remember who you know who's we don't know who someone is because I won't know who half of them are but no no I think we would look you know you probably would know more than me. No no I think no I think I mean it took me 10 minutes to figure out that her name was Kathleen Turner. I'm like who's that fat one? You know what I mean? No but I was like is it Sybil Shepherd? No it's like but but I think we could totally do it you know we could do let me see do we have a
06:24 Do we have a crowd thing? So what we need, what we actually, you know I'm thinking we should actually do this. We need the feed. I think we could get people watching. No, I think, no, it's just making fun of people. No, I think that what we can do next time, because it's live on the internet so anyone can listen, you know, so you can have like the simulcast, you could be watching the video and then have our voiceover. You know, because we'd be like, oh there's George Stephanopoulos, you know, and we could talk about how tiny he is. Oh wait, Conan did all those jokes already. But you know, it's like, it could be fun. I can see where that would be worthwhile. So my favorite thing... I'm not convincing you. Besides the red carpet, they also had a little photo shoot area that... With one of those backdrops. With a backdrop, but shooting away. So apparently it's CBS that brought in Claire Danes.
07:17 and so they, so who was her, who seemed to be her, I think her date. Oh, it was Bob Schieffer. Yeah. Oh wow, this guy, talking about perks for the job. Did you see him, did you see that shit eating grin he had on his face when he came in? He had a huge shit eating grin. And he had Claire days who couldn't stand up for the life of her. I mean she's just bopping all over the place. I didn't realize that she was, you know, a... Well let me, this leads right into two clips that I have. So the person who was made a stink about this thing, it started last year and this year, you know, oh there's that grump, in fact he is now the buzzkill of the news and entertainment industrial complex is Tom Brokaw. And Tom Brokaw, he actually gives a very good rundown of the history of this and how it changed into this Celebrity Fest and he pinpoints when it changed
