Diet Satire. New Theory of Humor in Uniformed Society
Frank A. Hilario
April 11, 2009
That´s my caption. The world today is too serious it needs some solemn jokes; it is too gross it needs some coarse jokes; it is too conceited it needs some self-important jokes – the world needs a dose of its own medicine, and only satire can give it. Hurray for satire! Nice work if you can get it. And you can get it if you try. (George & Ira Gershwin)
Note the uniforms of Michelle Obama (radical chic) and Barack Obama (radical sheik) complementing each other, standing in the Oval Room of the White House and bumping their left and right fists while not paying attention to each other. Ah. It is radical attire, but is it radical satire?
The New Yorker has always been excellent with satire chic. The whole idea for the cover is ´The Politics of Fear´ according to illustrator Barry Blitt (quoted by Rachel Sklar, 13 July 2008, huffingtonpost.com). New Yorker Editor David Remnick said of it by way of explanation, ´It´s a satire about the distortions, misconceptions, and prejudices about Obama´ (quoted by Mahzarin R Banaji, ´The Science of Satire,´ 1 August 2008, chronicle.com). Andrew Malcolm of LA Times reported that The New Yorker´s own press release said, ´Artist Barry Blitt satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the presidential election to derail Barack Obama´s campaign´ (13 July 2008, latimesblogs.latimes.com). Remnick also said, ´In fact we´re not even satirizing the Obamas, we´re satirizing these rumors, the lies that have fed into the politics of fear´ (quoted by James F Smith, 14 July 2008, boston.com).
So, how do I rate this satire: 5 stars?
5 laughs.
Are you laughing yet? The illustrator and the editor of The New Yorker expected their target readers to have gotten the joke. Instead, there was an outcry, to say the least; the Internet was flooded with fury (if you want a count, go visit Rachel Sklar here) – some from dedicated readers of The New Yorker.
Ms Banaji, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, was outraged (cited above). She was not satisfied with Remnick´s explanation, to say the least. She said: ´The responses of both (illustrator and editor) can most parsimoniously be explained as ignorance about the mind and how it learns.´ She didn´t get the joke. Malcolm explained that it wasn´t the magazine´s fault that readers didn´t get the joke either (as cited). Then whose fault was it?
NPR quoted Remnick as saying (14 July, 2008, npr.org):
The intention is to satirize not Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, but, in fact, to hold a pretty harsh light up to the rumors, innuendos, lies about the Obamas that have come up – that they are somehow insufficiently patriotic or soft on terrorism.
In other words, they were trying to bring the argument to an absurd situation? That´s ridiculous. Gentlemen, this is supposed to be satire, not debate.
Some readers said there should have been a caption. Here´s a reply to that (Paul Lewis, 14 July 2008, guardian.co.uk):
A caption? What would it have said? ´The New Yorker would like to inform readers that the above depiction is supposed to be funny. We don´t really think Obama is a terrorist and we like Michelle´s hairstyle as it is. Just in case any of you should think us unpatriotic, we remind readers that the Stars and Stripes should be kept away from fire at all times.´
That´s satire.
On 15 July, Larry King interviewed Barack Obama on CNN (thepage.time.com), and Obama said, ´I know it was The New Yorker´s attempt at satire. I don´t think they were entirely successful with it.´
On that same subject, Gwen Ifill interviewed sociology professor Eric Dyson of Georgetown University, and he said (pbs.org):
Ifill: When do you cross the line? When does satire begin to give offense?
Dyson: Well, certainly when you have to explain it or deconstruct it. ... The line here is crossed, I think, when the intent of the mockery is obscured by the busyness of the interpretation that surrounds the art, and not in an edifying, uplifting fashion.
Look at the image again. The question is: Is it satire, or is it satire?
It´s a joke.
I note: ´Not in an edifying, uplifting fashion.´ Obama himself said it was an ´attempt at satire´ and that the attempt was not ´entirely successful.´ He´s being polite. In effect, what Dyson said was that if you have to explain a joke, it´s not a joke – it´s a joke.
I say, very simply, as satire, that New Yorker Obama cover is a good example of a bad example. As it stands, satire is irony, sarcasm, or caustic remark that offends and at the same time is funny. It´s irony when you use words to mean something different from their literal meaning, very often the exact opposite, for humorous effect. It´s sarcasm if you use words that bite even as they are funny; my research tells me the word is used interchangeably with caustic remark or caustic wit. On that cover, I find no irony, no sarcasm, no wit. Whatever happened to The New Yorker?
Satire? I´ve walked this way before, if only in virtual company of others. Even before I discovered that I could write circa 1957, I was already a wide reader and a lover of satire. I probably learned my satire from the Reader´s Digest, which I began reading in high school – yes, we had ´British and American Literature´ as a subject in high school – more than 50 years ago, and from such authors as Oscar Wilde (example of work: The Importance of Being Earnest), George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion, which became the basis for the musical My Fair Lady), William Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing), Mark Twain (Huckleberry Finn), Jonathan Swift (Gulliver´s Travels), George Orwell (Animal Farm), not so much from Aldous Huxley (A Brave New World), Joseph Heller (Catch-22), Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird). I loved Hans Christian Andersen (The Emperor´s New Clothes).
I love the satire of Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury), Eric & Bill Teitelbaum (The Pink Panther), Lynn Johnston (For Better or For Worse), Charles Schulz (Peanuts). Most American comedians use satire on political and movie personalities to entertain their audiences.
Saturday Night Live is satire but I don´t get to watch it except once in a blue moon. I love the satire of Shrek (Dreamworks Animation, 2001). Junius Wright writes (´Exploring Satire with Shrek,´ readwritethink.org):
Because students are typically familiar with the characteristics of fairy tales, the movie Shrek, which satirizes fairy tale traditions, serves as an introduction to the satirical techniques of exaggeration, incongruity, reversal, and parody.
For instance, at the end of Shrek 1 (2001), you would like Princess Fiona the ogre to turn back to her beautiful self, but she doesn´t, she´s still an ogre, and Shrek thinks she´s beautiful! That´s what satire does to you. Or love. Whichever comes first.
I uploaded at 1423 hours 9 April Manila time my essay ´Satire & Still. Servants of music, servants of cheapskates´ (dietsatire.blogspot.com). I believe it´s the world´s first satire upon satire ever written; at least, it´s the first double satire I´ve read since high school, and I am a wide reader. Satire upon satire, a Filipino writer doing a satire on a Chinese writer´s satire. Is mine worth a Guinness Book of World Record? I know it´s worth a laugh.
What prompted my satirical essay was Chip Tsao´s satirical column ´The War at Home´ (HK Magazine Online, 27 March 2009), which raised a howl among Filipinos in Hong Kong and all over the world. Tsao´s sarcastic remarks did not sound funny to many Filipinos. Among other things Tsao said about the Filipinos was his reference to ´a nation of servants.´ Filipinos took the satire as a racial insult – Tsao is Hong Kong Chinese.
When I read the full text of Tsao´s column (it´s in my essay ´Satire & Still´ mentioned above), I decided to have fun with it, and I did. It is racial insult (his, not mine), but it is supposed to be funny. And I wanted my satire to be at the expense of another´s satire.
Satire is biting humor intended not to humiliate but to humanize people. However, it can be misunderstood, as what happened to Chip Tsao´s ´The War at Home.´ That´s quite an insult to a satirist. If also misunderstood, my ´Satire & Still´ would be adding injury to insult.
To avoid a repeat of what happened to the New Yorker cover cartoon and to Chip Tsao´s column, since we are at it, we might as well study satire.
Robert Harris tells us about the purpose and method of satire (virtualsalt.com):
The best satire does not seek to do harm or damage by its ridicule ... but rather it seeks to create a shock of recognition and to make vice repulsive so that the vice will be expunged from the person or society under attack, or from the person or society intended to benefit by the attack (regardless of who is the immediate object of attack); whenever possible this shock of recognition is to be conveyed through laughter or wit: the formula for satire is one of honey and medicine.
The best satire dresses you down, if you will pardon the expression, only because it wants you to recognize that the emperor has no clothes, if you will pardon the mixed metaphor. The emperor is you. You are foolish, and you don´t know it.
Satire makes fun even as it makes a point for everyone who cares to listen, watch or read. Satire wants you to change. Satire is directed to human vice and folly (1 November 2002, Ian Gordon, latencyc.com). If you can´t beat them, satire them. If you can´t teach them, make fun of them.
Roman Friedman tells us about his ´analysis on the use of satire´ (associatecontent.com):
Satire is the use of ridicule or humor in an artistic work with the purpose of exposing or denouncing vice or folly. Although it is usually subtle in nature, it is used to bring light to contemporary societal problems and provoke change within a culture. Many artists have tackled serious issues using this form of comedy to appeal to their audience. Satire has been used for centuries as a means of assessing the faults of society.
I note 2 things there: ´To bring light to contemporary societal problems and provoke change within a culture´ and ´as a means of assessing the fault of society´ – now then, once satire has provoked change, once it has assessed the errors of our ways, what now? Go on; you can´t stop now!
If to analyze the status quo and subsequently provoke change while being funny all the time are the twin purposes of satire, then satire is merely humorous critical thinking and does not necessarily lead to creative thinking. I have been writing about creative thinking since at least 2 August 2005 (see my ´Edward De Bono & scientific thinking,´ worper.blogspot.com). We have enough critical thinkers already, and most of them are not funny! Like The New Yorker sometimes.
Wyatt Mason says about the power of satire (´My Satirical Self,´ 17 September 2006, nytimes.com):
Satire, then, signals both the sickness and health of a society in equal measure: it showcases the vigor of the satirist and the debility of the satiree. As such, we might conclude, in America, that its abundance suggests a normal balance of destructive yin and creative yang, a human need to view the most vexing frailties of a culture through the liberating prism of lampoon.
Mason is thinking too much of the power of his satire, or someone else´s. There is no liberating prism of satire (that´s laughable) yet. There is no creative yang yet. When people tell you, ´We just want you to hold a mirror up to truth,´ that´s critical thinking; that´s not funny. When satire wants you to drink the poison of truth laced with humor, that´s funny.
But funny is not enough.
George P Landow tells us that Alec Derwent Hope, contemporary Australian poet, agrees with Alexander Pope about satire and quotes Hope as saying (´Satire,´ 2004, victorianweb.org):
(Satire) has a social function that places it on a level with Religion, Law, and Government. Though its tone may be light, its function is wholly serious; and as for passion, it is actuated by a fierce and strenuous moral and intellectual enthusiasm, the passion for order, justice, and beauty. . . . It keeps the public conscience alert, it exposes absurdity for what it is and makes those inclined to adopt foolish or tasteless fashions aware that they are ridiculous. It shows vice its own feature and makes it odious to others. . . . Satire is an aristocratic art. It is not afraid to tell unpopular truths, but its habit is to tell them with the assurance and detachment of ridicule, and ridicule is the weapon of contempt.
The Australian advocates of satire think too lowly of themselves. Satire cannot be on a level with Religion, Law, and Government – in fact, it is higher. You said ´aristocratic art,´ didn´t you? Otherwise, Satire cannot ridicule Religion, Law, and Government.
But is satire impassioned with order, justice and beauty? No. It´s the opposite. Satire is impassioned only with disorder, injustice and ugliness. It assesses the disarray, the inequality, the repulsiveness – but it does not advocate what to do with them except to get rid of them. It´s not in the nature of satire to promote change; its nature is only to provoke change. Yet.
Let me now return to Harvard psychology professor Ms Banaji, who lectures us about the role of satire: ´It is the moral responsibility of the artist to know about how (one´s) art is received by its intended audience´ (source as cited). That is not new, Ms Banaji; it has been the debate ever since Michelangelo came out painting the naked giant figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel under the watchful eyes of Pope Julius II some 500 years ago (1508-1512). Nevertheless, caveat, emptor! Buyer, beware!
The whole problem stems from the fact that there are no rules for satire. I would like to go beyond saying that and say we need a theory of satire. No, Ms Banaji, there is no science to satire; all you need to have is a nasty sense of humor. Yet.
Did you know that ´the rude satire of the Romans was also punished by a law of the Decemviri?´ (a commission of 10 men) (John Dryden, ´Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry,´ downloadable from Project Gutenberg, May 2001). There ought to be a law.
There´s more on satire from the English John Dryden, poet, literary critic, translator, playwright, who died 300 years ago. He writes that Ennius ´rather imitated the fine railleries of the Greeks, which he saw in the pieces of Andronicus, than the coarseness of his own countrymen in their clownish extemporary way of jeering´ (as cited). Ennius, an Italian writer, according to the judgment of Dryden, is the first author of Roman satire.
The best satire is a fine insult, not simply a jeering.
Dryden quotes Terentius Varro, whom he calls ´the most learned of the Romans,´ as saying:
Notwithstanding that those pieces of mind wherein I have imitated Menippus, though I have not translated him, are sprinkled with a kind of mirth and gaiety, yet many things are there inserted which are drawn from the very entrails of philosophy, and many things severely argued which I have mingled with pleasantries on purpose that they more easily go down with the common sort of unlearned readers.
To which Tully adds, addressing Varro, ´And you yourself have composed a most elegant and complete poem; you have begun philosophy in many places; sufficient to incite us, though too little to instruct us.´
I note the content: Satire with pleasantries and philosophy. I note the problem: Satire enough to incite, not satire enough to instruct.
Dryden quotes Casaubon:
Moral doctrine and urbanity or well-mannered wit are the two things which constitute the Roman satire; but of the two, that which is most essential to this poem, and is, as it were, the very soul which animates it, is the scourging of vice and exhortation to virtue.
I note the need for the scourging of vice and exhortation to virtue.
Dryden says, ´Satire is of the nature of moral philosophy, as being instructive.´ And that moral philosophy is that of the Stoics:
The philosophy ... is the Stoic – the most noble, most generous, most beneficial to humankind amongst all the sects who have given us the rules of ethics, thereby to form a severe virtue in the soul, to raise in us an undaunted courage against the assaults of fortune, to esteem as nothing the things that are without us, because they are not in our power; not to value riches, beauty, honors, fame, or health any farther than as conveniences and so many helps to living as we ought, and doing good in our generation. In short, to be always happy while we possess our minds with a good conscience, are free from the slavery of vices, and conform our actions and conversation to the rules of right reason. See here, my lord, an epitome of Epictetus, the doctrine of Zeno, and the education of our Persius; and this he expressed, not only in all his satires, but in the manner of his life.
There must be a philosophy to satire. Satire must aim to free us from the slavery of vice, folly, ignorance, error. Satire must free us from our passionate embrace of riches, beauty, honor, fame, health more than we ought to. Free us not simply to be better but to be good.
Dryden on Persius:
Persius is everywhere the same – true to the dogmas of his master. What he has learnt, he teaches vehemently; and what he teaches, that he practices himself. There is a spirit of sincerity in all he says; you may easily discern that he is in earnest, and is persuaded of that truth which he inculcates.
So, the best satire belongs only to those who practice what they preach. I also note the importance of being earnest.
John Donne writes in his ´Satire III´ (luminarium.org):
Kind pity chokes my spleen; brave scorn forbids
Those tears to issue which swell my eyelids;
I must not laugh, nor weep sins and be wise;
Can railing, then, cure these worn maladies?
Scolding even with humor cannot cure any malady, social or otherwise. Even in the Philippines, mass media-noisy as they are, the critics belong to a society with a uniform, singular 3-word reproach: Bad, bad, bad.
They only call attention to the bad. And then what?
From all that, I can see that satire is critical thinking, and we need it; science too is critical thinking, and we need it, too; but we need more than critical thinking to survive ourselves, the fools that we are.
Look at what we have done to others, to Mother Earth. We have the nerve to search for intelligent life in outer space, when there´s doubt that we have it in our space.
We need more creative thinking than ever before, more than the satire we know. For change we can all live in, to laugh is not enough. Live well, laugh often, love much, Bessie Anderson said 100 years ago. Even if well-intentioned, our best satire today is not good enough.
To live well, we must take care of Mother Earth. To laugh often, we must learn more than just our satire such as it is. To love much, we must treasure ourselves, our family, our neighbors.
I go back to Michelangelo´s paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Wikipedia says:
The subject matter of (Michelangelo´s collected paintings on) the ceiling is the doctrine of humanity's need for Salvation as offered by God through Jesus. It is about Humankind's need for a covenant with God. The old covenant of the Children of Israel through Moses and the new covenant through Christ Jesus had already been represented around the walls of the chapel.
Salvation. That is what is missing in our satire. Satire is only laughter. There is no life to it. There is no morality. There is only a sense of humor. Until we rescue satire from its historical box of irrelevance, we will never be able to think out of the box; satire will always be open as the last refuge of scoundrels who happen to be comical.
Humor is cathartic, but our satire must go beyond mere humor – it must hurt and it must help. ´He has right to criticize,´ Abraham Lincoln said, ´who has a heart to help.´
Nonetheless, Leonard Pitts warns us of the immanent danger of satire (miamiherald.com):
Satire is tricky. It makes its point by exaggerating wildly with a straight face. In inflating a thing beyond all common sense or propriety, it seeks to render inconsistencies and hypocrisies glaringly apparent. Satire seeks truth in the ridiculous.
From all the hullabaloo raised by the ridiculous New Yorker cover that in effect labeled the Obamas as terrorists and the ruckus arising from the absurd HK Magazine Online column that in no uncertain terms called the Filipinos ´a nation of servants,´ I say we need a new theory of satire, and by God, as a Filipino I´m going to theorize it, and terrorize you with it, if I die laughing.
Now then, let me do some creative thinking. We already have Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, which get their inspiration from diet sugar: cyclamate, saccharin, aspartame, sucralose, lead acetate whatever. So that our satire becomes more filling and less tricky, so we can more easily tell whether we´re swallowing and absorbing good satire or bad, to require those attempting at satire to do some creative thinking of their own, let me give you my Double Diet Satire criteria. If the answer is Yes to all the questions below, it is excellent satire:
Double Diet Satire
Does it aim to:
(1) dress down & delight?
(2) instruct & inspire?
(3) exemplify & exhort?
(4) transfix & transform society?
Dress down & delight, not simply denounce. Instruct & inspire, not simply impart. Exemplify & exhort, not simply expose. Transfix & transform, not simply terrorize.
So, my Double Diet Theory of Satire proposes adult double servings of dressing down & delight, instruction & inspiration, and exemplification of & exhortation to virtuous behavior that initially transfix & aim to later transform people in a socially responsible manner, any time of day or night. At the very least, satire gives us insight into the human condition, always with humor. The best satire reminds people to learn it, live it, love it. It´s non-flattering, but it´s non-fattening – to the ego; in fact, it deflates it.
So, I´m offering to the world my new definition of satire, which is this:
Satire is a frank, abominable and hilarious language, image or event that provokes and points the way to change for the good.
Double Diet Satire. I hereby prescribe it for everyone, whether your medium is Braille, print, radio, TV, audio, video, or the Internet; whether you have diabetes or high blood pressure; whether you are fat or thin; whether you are male or female, black or white or yellow or brown; whether you are a Protestant or a Roman Catholic; whether you are preacher or president; whether you are editor or editorial cartoonist.
Like all diets, my Double Diet Satire is not easy to follow or maintain. But if it´s easy to do, what´s the good in that? As things stand, even the turkeys come up with their extreme satire and if you confront them, they explain, and they tell you it was an attempt at satire, and you don´t know how to refute them.
The international furor that accompanied the March 2009 HK Magazine column calling Filipinos ´a nation of servants´ reminds us that some few words are worth a thousand lousy pictures. The intercontinental brouhaha that accompanied the July 2008 New Yorker cover on the Obamas as terrorists reminds us that a good picture is worth a thousand words. That´s the problem!
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