SATIRE: DEAD OR ALIVE?
It’s often said that satire is dead, that the actual events of the contemporary world are so bizarre and outrageous that a writer has little to work with—the would-be targets create self-parody so exquisitely absurd that it cannot be outdone by a mere writer of fiction. Maybe that’s true.
Satire seems to get more challenging every day. It’s hard to top some of what has gone on lately, from bleach and horse pills being pushed as cures to Covid, to the search for pedophiles guzzling baby blood in the basements of pizza parlors, to watch parties set up for the second coming of the long-dead son of a longer-dead former president. Do the research!
But satirists are not obsolete. The thing is, contemporary self-parodists, despite the sublime magnificence of their own insane creations, miss the point of satire—it should, at least arguably, have a point!
As Webster’s defines it, satire is “writing that exposes or ridicules conduct, doctrines, or institutions either by direct criticism or more often through irony, parody, or caricature.” Exposure implies correction. ''The motives that lead to satire are varied, but there is one motive that may almost be called a constant - the satirist is nearly always” a person “who is abnormally sensitive to the gap between what might be and what is.'' James Sutherland (quoted in “Satire from Aesop to Perelman Shown,” Herbert Mitgang, New York Times, June 19, 1981). Similarly, Robert C. Elliot says that in satire, “human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, parody, caricature, or other methods, sometimes with an intent to inspire social reform.” "satire". Encyclopedia Britannica, 19 Sep. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/art/satire. Accessed 30 October 2022.
Thus, when Jonathan Swift recommended chowing down on Irish babies as a cure for the country’s economic problems, he was putting the governing authorities in England and Ireland on the menu:
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasee, or a ragoust.
I do therefore humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle, or swine, and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune, through the kingdom, always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump, and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.
Dr. Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal.
Swift seemed to have a wry take on the power of satire, commenting in the preface to The Battle of the Books that “[s]atire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own….” Nevertheless, authorities do sometimes fear satire’s sting. When Chinese censors clamped down on Winnie the Pooh, they seemed to grasp the barbed irony in memes comparing the benign bear with their stern, unsmiling leader. And SNL has gotten under at least one president’s paper-thin skin.
Unlike satirists, self-parodists are irony-free, saying things with a straight face that would make a head of lettuce laugh, but, in the process, reaching for nothing beyond the parody itself. They work in a sort of art-for-art’s-sake zone, unburdened by any need to entertain an idea, as long as the performance entertains their fans. Nevertheless, their deranged absurdities can threaten to dwarf the exaggerations and caricatures imagined in a work-in-progress, as happened when I was writing Richter The Mighty!
I was looking to satirize an array of cultural and political phenomena, using as the vehicle various fictional characters, including a coke-sniffing septuagenarian president of the United States, a corrupt Russian ambassador, various hitmen and thugs, and the president’s kids, sweet but tough characters he wants to have whacked. The novel is inspired by recent events, but is not aimed at rendering any specific individuals.
As the work progressed, it was tough to come up with scenarios that would not be topped by unfolding events. I thought I had a good bit—the fictional president decides he wants to be on Mt. Rushmore, and engages his Russian buddies to get it done. But sure enough, I scroll through the paper, and the actual president is hinting around that he’d like to see his own face up there. Not one, tossed-off hint, but multiple insinuations—to such an extent, that the governor of South Dakota eventually tried to mollify him, presenting him with a small sculpture of the mountain that included his face! It was dubbed “Mt. Trumpmore”!
OK. But I was not getting rid of the bit in my book. I think I salvaged it by hooking up the Mt. Rushmore theme with ideas running through The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Now I am writing a legal thriller, and one of the characters, a little too fond of LSD, has various interactions with lizards, and in particular, lizard-lawyers.
Sure enough, however, I’m scrolling through the paper, reading about the attack on Paul Pelosi, and I discover that there are millions of people, apparently unaided by LSD, who “believe a reptilian alien race is posing as humans in order to enslave us in a new world order (which, by the way, appears to be largely derived from the 1980s television show “V”) — enough so that one California man killed his own children, believing that Qanon fantasy. DePape [the man accused of attacking Pelosi] had references to the theory on his social media.” Anita Chabria, “‘It's Getting Worse.’ The Sad Part Of The Pelosi Attack Is It Doesn’t Surprise Us,” LA Times, October 29, 2022.
Doesn’t surprise us!!? Sadly, millions of people believing in lizard people did surprise me! What am I going to do with THAT?
Tune in next November!
October 31, 2022
It’s often said that satire is dead, that the actual events of the contemporary world are so bizarre and outrageous that a writer has little to work with—the would-be targets create self-parody so exquisitely absurd that it cannot be outdone by a mere writer of fiction. Maybe that’s true.
Satire seems to get more challenging every day. It’s hard to top some of what has gone on lately, from bleach and horse pills being pushed as cures to Covid, to the search for pedophiles guzzling baby blood in the basements of pizza parlors, to watch parties set up for the second coming of the long-dead son of a longer-dead former president. Do the research!
But satirists are not obsolete. The thing is, contemporary self-parodists, despite the sublime magnificence of their own insane creations, miss the point of satire—it should, at least arguably, have a point!
As Webster’s defines it, satire is “writing that exposes or ridicules conduct, doctrines, or institutions either by direct criticism or more often through irony, parody, or caricature.” Exposure implies correction. ''The motives that lead to satire are varied, but there is one motive that may almost be called a constant - the satirist is nearly always” a person “who is abnormally sensitive to the gap between what might be and what is.'' James Sutherland (quoted in “Satire from Aesop to Perelman Shown,” Herbert Mitgang, New York Times, June 19, 1981). Similarly, Robert C. Elliot says that in satire, “human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, parody, caricature, or other methods, sometimes with an intent to inspire social reform.” "satire". Encyclopedia Britannica, 19 Sep. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/art/satire. Accessed 30 October 2022.
Thus, when Jonathan Swift recommended chowing down on Irish babies as a cure for the country’s economic problems, he was putting the governing authorities in England and Ireland on the menu:
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasee, or a ragoust.
I do therefore humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle, or swine, and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune, through the kingdom, always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump, and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.
Dr. Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal.
Swift seemed to have a wry take on the power of satire, commenting in the preface to The Battle of the Books that “[s]atire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own….” Nevertheless, authorities do sometimes fear satire’s sting. When Chinese censors clamped down on Winnie the Pooh, they seemed to grasp the barbed irony in memes comparing the benign bear with their stern, unsmiling leader. And SNL has gotten under at least one president’s paper-thin skin.
Unlike satirists, self-parodists are irony-free, saying things with a straight face that would make a head of lettuce laugh, but, in the process, reaching for nothing beyond the parody itself. They work in a sort of art-for-art’s-sake zone, unburdened by any need to entertain an idea, as long as the performance entertains their fans. Nevertheless, their deranged absurdities can threaten to dwarf the exaggerations and caricatures imagined in a work-in-progress, as happened when I was writing Richter The Mighty!
I was looking to satirize an array of cultural and political phenomena, using as the vehicle various fictional characters, including a coke-sniffing septuagenarian president of the United States, a corrupt Russian ambassador, various hitmen and thugs, and the president’s kids, sweet but tough characters he wants to have whacked. The novel is inspired by recent events, but is not aimed at rendering any specific individuals.
As the work progressed, it was tough to come up with scenarios that would not be topped by unfolding events. I thought I had a good bit—the fictional president decides he wants to be on Mt. Rushmore, and engages his Russian buddies to get it done. But sure enough, I scroll through the paper, and the actual president is hinting around that he’d like to see his own face up there. Not one, tossed-off hint, but multiple insinuations—to such an extent, that the governor of South Dakota eventually tried to mollify him, presenting him with a small sculpture of the mountain that included his face! It was dubbed “Mt. Trumpmore”!
OK. But I was not getting rid of the bit in my book. I think I salvaged it by hooking up the Mt. Rushmore theme with ideas running through The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Now I am writing a legal thriller, and one of the characters, a little too fond of LSD, has various interactions with lizards, and in particular, lizard-lawyers.
Sure enough, however, I’m scrolling through the paper, reading about the attack on Paul Pelosi, and I discover that there are millions of people, apparently unaided by LSD, who “believe a reptilian alien race is posing as humans in order to enslave us in a new world order (which, by the way, appears to be largely derived from the 1980s television show “V”) — enough so that one California man killed his own children, believing that Qanon fantasy. DePape [the man accused of attacking Pelosi] had references to the theory on his social media.” Anita Chabria, “‘It's Getting Worse.’ The Sad Part Of The Pelosi Attack Is It Doesn’t Surprise Us,” LA Times, October 29, 2022.
Doesn’t surprise us!!? Sadly, millions of people believing in lizard people did surprise me! What am I going to do with THAT?
Tune in next November!
October 31, 2022