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OPINION |
The Prater's Creek Gazette 15th Issue Fall 2007 Page #3 |
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Irving O. Tarbox Editor The Discussion Of The Use Of Satire In This
Newspaper
or:
Can't
Some
Of
Y’all
Take
a Joke?! "Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own"--Jonathan Swift “Satire” is a literary tone used to ridicule or make fun of human vice or weakness, often with the intent of correcting, or changing, the subject of the satiric attack. The Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines it as: 1. The use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc. 2. A literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule 3. A literary genre comprising such compositions The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as: 1. A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit. 2. The branch of literature constituting such works. Satire is a manner of writing that mixes a critical attitude with wit and humor in an effort to improve mankind and human institutions. Ridicule, irony, exaggeration, and several other techniques are almost always present. The satirist may insert serious statements of value or desired behavior, but most often he relies on an implicit moral code, understood by his audience and paid lip service by them. The satirist's goal is to point out the hypocrisy of his target in the hope that either the target or the audience will return to a real following of the code. Thus, satire is inescapably moral even when no explicit values are promoted in the work, for the satirist works within the framework of a widely spread value system. Although satire is usually witty, and often very funny, the purpose of satire is not primarily humor, but criticism of an event, an individual or a group in a clever manner. Because satire often combines anger and humor it can be profoundly disturbing - because it is essentially ironic or sarcastic, it is often misunderstood. Common uncomprehending responses to satire include revulsion (accusations of poor taste, or that it's "just not funny" for instance), to the idea that the satirist actually does support the ideas, policies, or people he is attacking. For instance, at the time of its publication, many people misunderstood Swift’s purpose in A Modest Proposal – assuming it to be a serious recommendation of cannibalism. Some critics of Mark Twain see Huckleberry Finn as racist and offensive while others claim it is one of the most powerful anti-racist works ever written. A few other excellent examples in the use of satire are the works of Chaucer, Charlie Chaplain in The Great Dictator, Steven Colbert’s television show The Colbert Report, the comic strip Doonesbury, and adult cartoons such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, and South Park, and the songs of Randy Newman. Another example of the use of satire is the newspaper that you are reading now. But it seems that went over a lot of our reader’s heads with the front-page article in the Spring 2007 issue. Folks, I was satirizing the events that happened back in February at nearby Clemson University, when some white students threw a “gangsta party” dressing and acting like the people, the black people, in the gangsta rap videos. But a lot of you did not get the humor, and thought the Gazette was being racist. We got so many phone calls and emails, some pro, but mostly con. And, I came to find out to my utter disbelief, some of our readers around the world think this paper is real news! If you got to see that original front-page article, you were one of the few thousand who did before we had to change it. After all, this paper is on a website for a bluegrass band who seeks bookings, so that kind of controversy would only shoot us in the foot. I wanted to write this editorial for the Summer issue, but I also wanted to publish the article about the soldier who died. That article was FICTION; Billy Ray was a GI Joe/Jane Everyman/Everywoman soldier. That article was NOT satire, and I knew if I published this editorial in the same issue it would seem that I was satirizing the deaths of our American soldiers which is the last thing I would want to do. Now of course, not everything we publish in this paper is fiction or satire. The editorials will always be dead serious, and the Arts section is real. But the rest is HUMOR y’all. Well, maybe the horoscopes are also real, at least to some of our readers. Please, go to your local bookstore and purchase, and read, Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. |
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