Satire
Public acceptance of satire has been anything but static, particularly in the United States. In the 1930s, apologists saw “the derision of satire” as “a survival of our earlier barbarism which it is not honorable to cultivate.”[1] Nonetheless, some literary scholars defended satire’s cruelty as an “instrument of moral and social reform.”[2] Louis Bredvold, writing in 1940, pointed out that there is a “profound distinction” between the derision found in ordinary comedy and the indignation found in satire.[3] Bredvold continued, illustrating the importance of indignation:
Indignation is “an indictment, and as such appeals to some sort of categorical imperative, to what is right and just. It springs from some over-individual principle within us, not merely from our ego. Its harshness is not cruelty, but a judgment against the avoidable errors, vices, and absurdities of life…. It is more than a perception of comic incongruity; it is a reproach addressed to some responsible individual who has deviated from a right and reasonable standard.”[4]
Satiric indignation is awakened when the audience understands the juxtaposition of a comic in an immoral situation. In order for satire to be successful, however, the audience must share the comic’s antipathy toward the iniquity in question. Satire—when it’s done correctly—pulls the audience from its apathetic state and restarts its “sluggish moral muscles,” thus causing laughter and indignation.[5]
As previously discussed, satirical news programs like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report parody televised news. Most often, the object of their satire is directed at the media or hypocrisies in politics. According to Darrell West and John Orman, "[Satire] is a way to boost public interest in a subject about which many Americans are not deeply absorbed. The idea is that politics doesn't hurt as much if you are laughing at public officials."[6] Indeed, as Bredvold claimed, satire can be used to set aside apathy and invoke genuine interest in a political discussion. Joseph Kirman contended that satire can help deliberative debate by “giving people power… [as] a tool that can help to make them effective critics of politics and society.”[7]
Craig Stark took these concepts even further in his discussion of satire’s ability to help teach media literacy. Viewing the world through satire, Stark argued, could lead to students engaging in activism to help fix whatever structural incongruity the satire was aimed at.[8] Satire can potentially help a student see the world in a different way and even spur the student to work for change in the realm of politics or journalism.
Indignation is “an indictment, and as such appeals to some sort of categorical imperative, to what is right and just. It springs from some over-individual principle within us, not merely from our ego. Its harshness is not cruelty, but a judgment against the avoidable errors, vices, and absurdities of life…. It is more than a perception of comic incongruity; it is a reproach addressed to some responsible individual who has deviated from a right and reasonable standard.”[4]
Satiric indignation is awakened when the audience understands the juxtaposition of a comic in an immoral situation. In order for satire to be successful, however, the audience must share the comic’s antipathy toward the iniquity in question. Satire—when it’s done correctly—pulls the audience from its apathetic state and restarts its “sluggish moral muscles,” thus causing laughter and indignation.[5]
As previously discussed, satirical news programs like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report parody televised news. Most often, the object of their satire is directed at the media or hypocrisies in politics. According to Darrell West and John Orman, "[Satire] is a way to boost public interest in a subject about which many Americans are not deeply absorbed. The idea is that politics doesn't hurt as much if you are laughing at public officials."[6] Indeed, as Bredvold claimed, satire can be used to set aside apathy and invoke genuine interest in a political discussion. Joseph Kirman contended that satire can help deliberative debate by “giving people power… [as] a tool that can help to make them effective critics of politics and society.”[7]
Craig Stark took these concepts even further in his discussion of satire’s ability to help teach media literacy. Viewing the world through satire, Stark argued, could lead to students engaging in activism to help fix whatever structural incongruity the satire was aimed at.[8] Satire can potentially help a student see the world in a different way and even spur the student to work for change in the realm of politics or journalism.
“Where are the positive or negative sanctions for journalism? The only criticism consists of satirical spoofs such as that on the Puppets,”[9] sociologist Pierre Bourdieu wrote in On Television, referring to Les Guignols, a French weekly satirical program where political figures are represented with caricatured marionettes.
Bourdieu observed that traditionally, critics are concerned with attacking a particular hypocritical person. However, sociology teaches that these men and women are responsible, “but what they can or cannot do is largely determined by the structure in which they are placed and by the positions they occupy within a structure.” [10]
Bourdieu observed that traditionally, critics are concerned with attacking a particular hypocritical person. However, sociology teaches that these men and women are responsible, “but what they can or cannot do is largely determined by the structure in which they are placed and by the positions they occupy within a structure.” [10]
Here is where satirecan offer valuable criticism. Satire “often emphasizes the weakness more than the weak person, and usually implies moral judgment and corrective purpose,”[11] and is not to be confused with parody or caricature, which typically attacks only the weak person. Satire can answer Bourdieu’s call for greater analysis and criticism of structure; after all, the entire purpose of satire is to call attention to society’s follies and hypocrisies. In the book Satire TV, Jonathan Gray writes that modern political satire, such as The Daily Show, is “something that entertains, yet also makes us think critically, something that hails us as audiences looking for a laugh, yet also as citizens desiring meaningful engagement with public life.” [12] This engagement, induced by political satire, causes critical discussion and debate that ultimately leads the way to a more deliberative democracy.
However, satire having the potential to spur this change does not address whether satirists intend it. In 1920, C.W. Mendell wrote that if we were to judge the satirists’ intentions by their statements, we would conclude that ethics and practical philosophy was their principal field.[13] However, even the great satirist Jonathan Swift noted that his satire would not change the hearts or minds of those at whom it was aimed in an added passage to the Faulkner edition of Gulliver’s Travels in 1735. In the passage, Captain Gulliver writes, “I cannot learn that my book hath produced one single effect according to my intentions…. And it must be owned that seven months were a sufficient time to correct every vice and folly to which Yahoos are subject….”[14]
In his book, What’s So Funny?: The Comic Conception of Culture and Society (1993), sociologist Murray S. Davis argued that a comedian’s role is to deconstruct and debunk status quo social expectations and structures, reorder the audience’s perspective, challenge hypocrisy, and compare social ideas to reality, among others.[15] “Many comedians have succeeded where most academics have not—they have captured the social conscience of the American public, and in that process, gotten Americans to think about important social issues,”[16] sociologists Shawn Bingham and Alexander Hernandez wrote.[17] Lawrence Mintz’s research in the mid-80s led him to conclude that comedy in American culture is an important form of social commentary, challenging social norms.[18] Many comedians feel the same way. Lizz Winstead, the creator of The Daily Show, spoke about the value in comedy for people to mock political institutions. “In the world of sound bites and stump-speeching we live in now, none of it is very inspiring, and a satirist’s job can be to break through. We have a freedom that politicians and journalists don’t have; we have no agenda other than to speak our minds.”[19]
Of course, satire is not known for directly changing the mind of the target, but instead influencing public opinion by encouraging discussion of the revealed hypocrisy. This nature of satire makes it an excellent tool for deliberative democracy, since the focus is on debate and consensus building. Satire also possesses the positive elements of infotainment—namely its popularity—as well as elements mediaocracy lacks, such as the encouragement of interpersonal discussion.
Mediaocracy and infotainment spawn apathy for the political process. This contention, however, does not mean that every political program on TV—or on the Internet—infects viewers with media malaise. Satire, particularly satirical news, works to counter any negative effects Neil Postman rails against, such as political stupidity. These shows use humor as a pin to pop the apathetic bubbles infotainment creates in place of political knowledge. “Satire is provocative, not dismissive,” and that is “a crucial point that critics typically ignore when assessing its role in political discourse.”[20]
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[1] Louis Bredvold, "A Note in Defence of Satire," A Journal of English Literary History 7, no. 4 (1940): 255.
[2] Ibid., 256.
[3] Ibid., 258.
[4]Indignation is “an indictment, and as such appeals to some sort of categorical imperative, to what is right and just. It springs from some over-individual principle within us, not merely from our ego. Its harshness is not cruelty, but a judgment against the avoidable errors, vices, and absurdities of life…. It is more than a perception of comic incongruity; it is a reproach addressed to some responsible individual who has deviated from a right and reasonable standard.” See Louis Bredvold, "A Note in Defence of Satire,” 259.
[5] Louis Bredvold, "A Note in Defence of Satire," 264.
[6]John M. Orman and Darrell M. West, Celebrity Politics, (Alexandria, VA: Prentice Hall, 2002), 98.
[7]Joseph M. Kirman, “Using Satire to Study Current Events,” Social Education57 (1993):139-141.
[8]Craig Stark, "’What, Me Worry?’: Teaching Media Literacy through Satire and Mad Magazine," The Clearing House 76, no. 6 (2003): 306.
[9] Pierre Bourdieu, On Television, (New York: The New Press, 1998), 53.
[10]Bourdieu, On Television, 54.
[11]Satire, Dictionary.com Unabridged, Random House, Inc, accessed September 25, 2010, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/satire.
[12]Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey Jones, and Ethan Thompson. Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era. (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 32.
[13]C.W. Mendell, "Satire as Popular Philosophy," Classical Philology 15, no. 2 (1920): 139.
[14]Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1994).
[15]Murray S. Davis, What's so Funny?.
[16]Shawn Chandler Bingham and Alexander A. Hernandez, “’Laughing Matters’: The Comedian As Social Observer, Teacher, and Conduit of the Sociological Perspective,” Teaching Sociology 37, no. 4 (October 1, 2009): 335-352.
[17]Ibid.
[18] Lawrence Mintz, “Stand Up Comedy asSocial and Cultural Meditation,” AmericanQuarterly 37, no. 1 (1985): 71-80.
[19] Dan Dion and Paul Provenza. Satiristas: Comedians, Contrarians, Raconteurs & Vulgarians. (New York: Harpercollins, 2010), 148.
[20]Gray, Jones, and Thompson, Satire TV, 13.
However, satire having the potential to spur this change does not address whether satirists intend it. In 1920, C.W. Mendell wrote that if we were to judge the satirists’ intentions by their statements, we would conclude that ethics and practical philosophy was their principal field.[13] However, even the great satirist Jonathan Swift noted that his satire would not change the hearts or minds of those at whom it was aimed in an added passage to the Faulkner edition of Gulliver’s Travels in 1735. In the passage, Captain Gulliver writes, “I cannot learn that my book hath produced one single effect according to my intentions…. And it must be owned that seven months were a sufficient time to correct every vice and folly to which Yahoos are subject….”[14]
In his book, What’s So Funny?: The Comic Conception of Culture and Society (1993), sociologist Murray S. Davis argued that a comedian’s role is to deconstruct and debunk status quo social expectations and structures, reorder the audience’s perspective, challenge hypocrisy, and compare social ideas to reality, among others.[15] “Many comedians have succeeded where most academics have not—they have captured the social conscience of the American public, and in that process, gotten Americans to think about important social issues,”[16] sociologists Shawn Bingham and Alexander Hernandez wrote.[17] Lawrence Mintz’s research in the mid-80s led him to conclude that comedy in American culture is an important form of social commentary, challenging social norms.[18] Many comedians feel the same way. Lizz Winstead, the creator of The Daily Show, spoke about the value in comedy for people to mock political institutions. “In the world of sound bites and stump-speeching we live in now, none of it is very inspiring, and a satirist’s job can be to break through. We have a freedom that politicians and journalists don’t have; we have no agenda other than to speak our minds.”[19]
Of course, satire is not known for directly changing the mind of the target, but instead influencing public opinion by encouraging discussion of the revealed hypocrisy. This nature of satire makes it an excellent tool for deliberative democracy, since the focus is on debate and consensus building. Satire also possesses the positive elements of infotainment—namely its popularity—as well as elements mediaocracy lacks, such as the encouragement of interpersonal discussion.
Mediaocracy and infotainment spawn apathy for the political process. This contention, however, does not mean that every political program on TV—or on the Internet—infects viewers with media malaise. Satire, particularly satirical news, works to counter any negative effects Neil Postman rails against, such as political stupidity. These shows use humor as a pin to pop the apathetic bubbles infotainment creates in place of political knowledge. “Satire is provocative, not dismissive,” and that is “a crucial point that critics typically ignore when assessing its role in political discourse.”[20]
___________________________________________
[1] Louis Bredvold, "A Note in Defence of Satire," A Journal of English Literary History 7, no. 4 (1940): 255.
[2] Ibid., 256.
[3] Ibid., 258.
[4]Indignation is “an indictment, and as such appeals to some sort of categorical imperative, to what is right and just. It springs from some over-individual principle within us, not merely from our ego. Its harshness is not cruelty, but a judgment against the avoidable errors, vices, and absurdities of life…. It is more than a perception of comic incongruity; it is a reproach addressed to some responsible individual who has deviated from a right and reasonable standard.” See Louis Bredvold, "A Note in Defence of Satire,” 259.
[5] Louis Bredvold, "A Note in Defence of Satire," 264.
[6]John M. Orman and Darrell M. West, Celebrity Politics, (Alexandria, VA: Prentice Hall, 2002), 98.
[7]Joseph M. Kirman, “Using Satire to Study Current Events,” Social Education57 (1993):139-141.
[8]Craig Stark, "’What, Me Worry?’: Teaching Media Literacy through Satire and Mad Magazine," The Clearing House 76, no. 6 (2003): 306.
[9] Pierre Bourdieu, On Television, (New York: The New Press, 1998), 53.
[10]Bourdieu, On Television, 54.
[11]Satire, Dictionary.com Unabridged, Random House, Inc, accessed September 25, 2010, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/satire.
[12]Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey Jones, and Ethan Thompson. Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era. (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 32.
[13]C.W. Mendell, "Satire as Popular Philosophy," Classical Philology 15, no. 2 (1920): 139.
[14]Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1994).
[15]Murray S. Davis, What's so Funny?.
[16]Shawn Chandler Bingham and Alexander A. Hernandez, “’Laughing Matters’: The Comedian As Social Observer, Teacher, and Conduit of the Sociological Perspective,” Teaching Sociology 37, no. 4 (October 1, 2009): 335-352.
[17]Ibid.
[18] Lawrence Mintz, “Stand Up Comedy asSocial and Cultural Meditation,” AmericanQuarterly 37, no. 1 (1985): 71-80.
[19] Dan Dion and Paul Provenza. Satiristas: Comedians, Contrarians, Raconteurs & Vulgarians. (New York: Harpercollins, 2010), 148.
[20]Gray, Jones, and Thompson, Satire TV, 13.