Satire Is Not for Wimps
Satire Is Not for Wimps
By Joe Bob Briggs
February 14, 2003
"Forget Spanish," the frowzy matron shot back. "Who speaks it that you are really desperate to talk to? The help? Your leaf blower?"
Protest! Outrage! Letter-writing campaigns! Latinos are offended! Blah blah blah.
Let me say at the outset that I find the piece very funny. This is not one of those, "Well, personally I don't find it funny, but he has a right to say it" columns. Nor is it one of those, "Well, the real problem with it is that it's just not funny" columns. These are the two ways people pontificate while sabotaging the credibility of the person they're pontificating about.
It's funny. I could enumerate the reasons that it's funny, but who cares? I think virtually everything that drops out of Dame Edna's mouth--she's currently appearing in Philadelphia, by the way--is funny.
What's not funny is that Vanity Fair actually apologized. They apologized for an intentionally outrageous remark tossed off in a satirical column written by a non-existent British woman who is actually the pseudonym of an American man in drag--and it was all perfectly in character! Retractions were once reserved for real people stating actual facts. Should the Joseph Papp Public Theater issue a formal retraction for everything said by Shylock the next time they stage "The Merchant of Venice"?
What kind of Wimp Gene has been raging through the media the past twenty years? I can understand politicians having to kowtow to mobocratic fads, but magazines and newspapers and TV networks are owned by the private sector and don't need to grovel in the gravel. Moreover, it's against their self-interest to grovel. The more times you grovel, the more often you'll be asked to publicly atone for your sins, and each time you'll find that you're grovelling lower in the gravel. You'll need a gravel pit and a shovel.
Unfortunately, I know how these things go. First there's the phone call: "Joe Bob, personally I think it's funny. I don't have any problem with it."
This is your signal to check your rent contract and update your resume.
"But quite a few people have complained, and Dave thinks we should say something to them."
"Say something" means: Beg their forgiveness.
"Dave" means: The executive who told somebody else to call and tell you he's about to publicly disavow you.
If you object that a) it's a fictional character, b) it was intended to offend in the first place, c) that's what satire is all about, d) most of the protesters probably don't even read the magazine, you get:
"Again, Joe Bob, I personally don't have any problem with it. But Dave thinks we're taking a lot of heat."
If you point out that it's Dave's job to take heat, the level of the conversation is likely to deteriorate. Anyway, it's all leading up to:
"Would you like to draft some kind of letter or response? You know, saying you didn't intend to, you know, whatever."
To which any self-respecting writer of comedy should say: No way in, you know, hell.
This will lead to a number of philosophical observations on the nature of satire:
"You know, these satirical things are kind of tricky."
"Some people don't get jokes like this."
"In the world we live in today . . ."
When you get to the "world we live in today" part of the conversation, the best thing to do is hang up on the guy. What you're being presented with is a Hobson's choice: "You either write an apology or we're going to write one for you."
In my case, they've always been written for me. Once I agreed to write one, but only on the condition that it would be written in character, with humor, and that I didn't want it edited.
"I'm not sure we could go for something like that, Joe Bob."
So they've all been written for me.
What's truly craven about most of these decisions is that the executives you're dealing with don't really care what's right, wrong, funny, unfunny, appropriate or inappropriate about the piece. They just want their phones to stop ringing and their email load to slow down. Whatever happened to "We stand by our story"? (Answer: it's reserved for "real news," whatever that is.)
What's happened is that too many media titans have MBA's. It's not an editorial problem, it's a "customer service" problem. It's not a journalism matter, it's a "brand identity" matter.
I have my own euphemism: cowardice.
Joe Bob Briggs writes a number of columns for UPI and may be contacted at joebob@upi.com or through his website at www.joebobbriggs.com. Snail mail: P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, TX 75221.
© 2003 Joe Bob Briggs All Rights Reserved