The context of satire
(Apparently I need more than one "writer" avatar. Maybe I can track down some more pictures of Matt ...)
I have a question to put to my writer friends who frequent this LJ. It's about the success of satire.
The dictionary definition of "satire" is: a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule. Satire is offensive; it's meant to be. In practical usage, satire isn't hard to find - "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" are obvious contemporary examples. So are most political cartoons, some celebrity blogs, and websites that skewer popular culture and mores.
But what the dictionary can't give you is context - that comes from experience. Satire needs a target, but more importantly, it needs a powerful target. For a successful satire, you can't ridicule just any old thing. A political cartoon or story that makes fun of the U.S. president for starting an unnecessary war or for driving the final nails in the nation's economy can be quite funny (and sad); it gives the common person some sort of outlet for impotent frustration and anger. This is because the president has vastly more power than you or me, or even the artist, and while we may live in a democracy, the fact is that there's precious little we can do to quickly change the course of whatever fool notion (s)he's taken into their head. Satire also works for a frustrated minority fighting a powerful majority. Something aimed at the Pope and millions of blind adherents to poorly-thought-out edicts, from a population suffering very real effects of that - such as anti-abortion laws based on Biblical belief - is, again, one of the last resorts of a nonviolent population.
Now disagree if you must; but where satire fails for me is when making fun of those with fewer numbers and equal or less "voice." It'd be like the priest of a Catholic parish delivering a sermon cutting down the Anglican church across the street (just an example; no offense to Catholics), or men airing a television show for the purpose of making fun of the average woman, while including none to few potshots aimed at their own masculine folly. It might be a little offensive ... but not particularly funny or enlightening. (Although, the reason these very things do work for Stephen Colbert is because the character he assumes to deliver them "seriously" is, in itself, a satire on conservatives. When he's making fun of gay people for being gay, you realize what he's doing is skewering those who do it seriously.)
I see this every so often, and it makes me wonder if those who produce it understand only the mechanics of satire - the dictionary definition - and not the context. It also makes me wonder if those on the receiving end always know enough to be flattered that they are viewed to have such "power" - even as they may lament that they really don't.
I have a question to put to my writer friends who frequent this LJ. It's about the success of satire.
The dictionary definition of "satire" is: a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule. Satire is offensive; it's meant to be. In practical usage, satire isn't hard to find - "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" are obvious contemporary examples. So are most political cartoons, some celebrity blogs, and websites that skewer popular culture and mores.
But what the dictionary can't give you is context - that comes from experience. Satire needs a target, but more importantly, it needs a powerful target. For a successful satire, you can't ridicule just any old thing. A political cartoon or story that makes fun of the U.S. president for starting an unnecessary war or for driving the final nails in the nation's economy can be quite funny (and sad); it gives the common person some sort of outlet for impotent frustration and anger. This is because the president has vastly more power than you or me, or even the artist, and while we may live in a democracy, the fact is that there's precious little we can do to quickly change the course of whatever fool notion (s)he's taken into their head. Satire also works for a frustrated minority fighting a powerful majority. Something aimed at the Pope and millions of blind adherents to poorly-thought-out edicts, from a population suffering very real effects of that - such as anti-abortion laws based on Biblical belief - is, again, one of the last resorts of a nonviolent population.
Now disagree if you must; but where satire fails for me is when making fun of those with fewer numbers and equal or less "voice." It'd be like the priest of a Catholic parish delivering a sermon cutting down the Anglican church across the street (just an example; no offense to Catholics), or men airing a television show for the purpose of making fun of the average woman, while including none to few potshots aimed at their own masculine folly. It might be a little offensive ... but not particularly funny or enlightening. (Although, the reason these very things do work for Stephen Colbert is because the character he assumes to deliver them "seriously" is, in itself, a satire on conservatives. When he's making fun of gay people for being gay, you realize what he's doing is skewering those who do it seriously.)
I see this every so often, and it makes me wonder if those who produce it understand only the mechanics of satire - the dictionary definition - and not the context. It also makes me wonder if those on the receiving end always know enough to be flattered that they are viewed to have such "power" - even as they may lament that they really don't.