Stephen Colbert's commencement address to the University of Virginia class of 2013

¶ … Stephen Colbert's Speech to the Class of 2013

Stephen Colbert's commencement speech at the University of Virginia blends a keen sense of current events, an innate sense of the student experience, and the foundational precepts the school was founded on. He successfully brings in the prestigious ratings of the university with the more notorious, including leading the Playboy ranking of party schools. This is achieved with exceptional insight and comedy, creating an experience for the audience appreciates and immediately identifies with. His closing statements galvanize the entire speech together as a call to students to live their lives by the freedoms the university's founder, Thomas Jefferson, articulated so well centuries ago.

Analysis of the Speech

Known for his show on Comedy Central, Stephen Colbert is highly regarded as being brilliant at comedy, both from a writing and performance perspective. He brushes aside his fame and makes light of it with the donation check the Class of 2013 gave the school, further puncturing holes in his own self-importance in the process. Mr. Colbert realizes he must connect thoroughly with the audience and win them over for his particular brand of comedy to resonate with them. He uses stories of being at a men's-only college a short distance away, makes jokes of his not being accepted at the University of Virginia because of not having an essay done in time, and shows the audience that he sees them as superior than himself. He does this in a very caring, non-patronizing way, showing respect for their abilities while also illustrating his keen sense of their culture and university lives. This immediately creates a level of trust with the audience that just grows stronger over the duration of the speech. He further solidifies this point of humility and self-deprecation of personal stories showing how he has always admired the university and how he sees the students as exceptional.

Having crafted this platform of trust and ensuring there is a strong resonance with the audience, Mr. Colbert gets even more daring and pokes self-deprecating humor at Thomas Jefferson's own unique behavior. Only after building such a strong foundation of trust does the joking come across well.