The Risks of Satire

Reading Swift's "A Modest Proposal" made me wonder about the power of satire. Certainly, we've been presented (and are likely to continue to be presented) with political satire on every side. Particularly memorable satirical moments from the past presidential campaign came to mind.

Tina Fey's eerie mimicry of Sarah Palin provided a much-needed boost to SNL's ratings. Palin was already a common topic of mockery across the internet and, in some cases, even on news stations. Fey managed to catch the essence of the most commonly cited visual elements of satire: the hair, the glasses, the unidentifiable accent, and the catchphrases. As far as the things Fey actually said, they didn't stray that far from Palin's actual remarks. The satire came mainly in taking these actual quotes and isolating them, bringing even more attention to them.

Speaking of visual elements, who can forget the uproar surrounding the satirical New Yorker cover?

The New Yorker tried without much luck to defend the decision to print this cover. America was outraged by the portrayal. This incident clearly illustrates that satire is not always going to work.

Despite that risk, however, several politicians took a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach to satire. Sarah Palin herself later appeared on Saturday Night Live, standing next to her doppelganger and cracking jokes about her air headed persona. John McCain likewise appeared on SNL, mocking his own campaign strategy in a very amusing QVC satire. Perhaps my favorite example, Huckabee, during the primary season, appeared on the Daily Show and laughed off the fact that it was statistically impossible for him to win his party's nomination.

My question, then, is what makes satire work? It obviously can. Then again, it can obviously fail. And, like most humor, it can work for one person and fail for another.

Swift's proposal mocked not only the attitude that some had about the underprivileged children they saw in the streets, but also Aristotelian argument itself. However, if the reader doesn't recognize that he's using Aristotelian argument, that part of the satire fails. One factor for satire, then, is knowledge. The audience must be knowledgeable about the topic at hand. McCain's QVC skit probably wouldn't be funny to someone who wasn't following the campaign. The New Yorker cover required the reader to be familiar with the recent criticisms of Obama and his wife (that his wife was anti-American, that the two of them participated in a "terrorist fist bump," that Obama was a Muslim). Did this cover fail to gain popularity because it tried to satirize too many things at once? Did it fail because it picked up on some of the comments from a marginalized group of people?

I wonder, then, if in order to be successful, satire must also discuss something that a majority of people are (at least partially) guilty of doing? Though I can't pretend to be an expert on the subject, I'd imagine that most of Swift's contemporary readers would have to feel a pang of guilt while reading the essay. Of course their first reaction would be indignation at the horrendous suggestion that we eat children, but they would then have to compare that defense to the indifference or annoyance they likely felt towards those same children moments before. Though Swift's essay is not a modern piece, it has staying power with readers because the mistreatment of our most impoverished citizens is an issue we still struggle with today.

Another example of a piece that meets these standards is this Onion piece about a man with Hodgkin's Disease that no one "would hold up as a model employee" that is costing his co-workers "$22 per employee per month" because of his health care costs. Most readers should be familiar with the health care problem in America and recognize the satire of it. At the same time, I think that most readers feel that familiar pang of guilt. How many of us have looked at the taxes we pay and complained that they are too high? It also satirizes consumerism's tendency to put a dollar sign to everything, to judge merit in productivity.

I realize that I haven't really made any conclusive statements about much of anything in this post, but I find satire fascinating and confusing. And while it sometimes makes me feel guilty, I usually find it hysterical.