Docile Patriots: Jon Stewart's take on it...

In the article Monster, Terrorist, Fag: The War on Terrorism and the Production of Docile Patriots Paur and Rai they have a short section called, 'Docile Patriots I: The West Wing' where they talk about disciplines that aim to produce docile subjects through media.

"they use the figure of the terrorist-monster as a screen to project both the racist fantasies of the West and the disciplining agenda of patriotism. Infantilizing the pop-
ulation, they scream with what seems to be at times one voice: "The ter-
rorist is a monster. This monster is the enemy. The enemy must be
hunted down to protect you and all those women and children that you do
not know, but we know." (p 131)

What I appreciate about what Jon Stewart (and writing team) is doing in this clip is they are flipping it on its head. The above quote makes sense. Anyone who has watched the news knows a certain body is being produced when it comes to anything but especially terrorist. The Daily Show does the same thing but in reverse and by doing so makes it even more blatant on how the figure of the terror-monster gets produced. My assumption is most people would think that producing a terror-monster body for the United States as The Daily Show did is crazy. But is it really? The terror-monster can be produced anywhere to anyone. It is a constructed identity. A myth. That is part of what the article was trying to get at--how the terrorist is produced in our everyday life in blatant ways and not so blatant ways.