Jon Stewart, Highbrow? Team Matrix Responds!

Slate just unveiled a new format for its “Other Magazines� column, which includes various critical categories (Sports Piece of the Week, Weirdest Stunt, etc.). One such category was “Oddest Approval-Matrix Placement,� in which a Slatester commented, “As usual, the good people of New York have some suspicious judgment calls: Jon Stewart as Oscar host is highbrow?�

Well, we couldn’t let that go by without a response, so we sent out a dispatch to Team Matrix, which as everyone knows is located in an underground cave surrounded by fifties-style punch-card supercomputers. Their response, after the jump.

Team Matrix writes:

Of all our usual suspicious judgment calls, this one seems unusually unsuspicious. What isn’t highbrow about Jon Stewart hosting the Oscars? It’s an awards show (highbrow) involving fancy award-worthy movies (highbrow), to which people wear tuxedos (highbrow). Jon Stewart hosts a not-particularly-widely-watched-but-very-influential-among-the-chattering-classes (highbrow) comedy show about politics (highbrow).

Sure, he makes the occasional fart joke (lowbrow), just as they sometimes let Jim Carrey (lowbrow) talk at the Oscars. But sometimes it’s Helen Mirren! (Highbrow.) Plus, Stewart’s recently shown some distinguished streaks of gray in his hair (highbrow). And when he hosts the Oscars again, we’re sure he’ll be wearing a very nice tux (highbrow highbrow highbrow).

Other Magazines [Slate]

Related: The Approval Matrix: Week of September 24, 2007 [NYM]