Satire can be a dodgy thing. Do it too well and you risk slipping your wit past
the more literal-minded among us.
Just look at how various officials have taken articles from The Onion,
the satirical New York-based weekly humor publication, as legitimate news. A
few months back, The Beijing Evening News swallowed an Onion
dispatch indicating that members of Congress had threatened to move out of
Washington unless a fancy new capitol is erected. Last week, the sheriff's
department in Branch County, Michigan, apparently running with another
Onion exclusive, sent out a news release warning that Al Qaeda members
were "making phone solicitations for vacation home rentals, long distance
telephone service, magazine subscriptions, and other products," according to
The Battle Creek Enquirer.
Dissent, of course, is a different story. Unconventional and unpopular views,
particularly those of the political variety, can find an unfriendly reception
even in the best of times. During periods of heightened national anxiety - such
as the post-September 11 era - the general amount of acceptance for questioning
viewpoints typically takes a turn for the worse.
In keeping with the theme of "Security First" for 2002, the Action Speaks
lecture series continues Tuesday, October 8, with an examination of "Dissent
and Satire: Can We Afford It? Can We Afford To Be Without It?" The hook used
for exploring these questions will be the 1952 publication of the first issue
of Mad, a periodical that would become a favorite for many future
satirists and rabble-rousers.
Action Speaks, which highlights under-appreciated days that changed America,
is a production of AS220 and the Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities.
Here's a rundown on subsequent weeks in this year's Action Speaks lineup:
October 15, "Hays Moral Code Introduced Into Hollywood (1934): Sex and
Pessimism: Does the American Public Need Protection?"; October 22, "Rockefeller
Drug Laws (1973): Drug Laws Introduced On the Heels of the 1960s: Prison
Population Swells"; October 29, "Reagan's Department of Education Publishes `A
Nation at Risk' (1983): Massive Assault on Public Education Begins"; and
November 5, "Sugar Hill Gang Releases `Rapper's Delight' (1979): First
Commercial Rap Hit Breaks Out: A `Mad' New Culture Is Born." Each forum runs
from 5:30 to 7 p.m., and will be broadcast on WRNI (1290 AM), on the subsequent
Sunday at 8 p.m.
The Phoenix, a co-sponsor of Action Speaks, is previewing the series by
offering an interview with a panelist in advance of each discussion. The guests
for next Tuesday's program are Paul Buhle, a professor of American civilization
at Brown University; Andrea Miller-Keller, a former curator of contemporary art
at the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford, Connecticut; and Peter Schuman,
director of Vermont's Bread & Puppet Theatre.
Buhle, who has written, co-written, edited, or co-edited 24 books, including
Radical Hollywood, traces his critical view of government to a
great-grandfather's work as an abolitionist in Illinois and his own protests
for civil rights, and against the Vietnam War, in the 1960s. Buhle spoke with
the Phoenix from his East Side home last week.
Q: How does the American notion of free speech compare with the
actual amount of tolerance for dissent and satire?
A: I think that's a very good point. I would say that freedom of speech
is extremely limited at times of crisis and during waves of repression. [Just
in the 20th-century], there was the Red Scare in the 1910s, the Palmer raids;
the 1940s and the ensuing rise of McCarthyism; and the late 1960s and early
1970s and the use of domestic surveillance and intervention by intelligence
agencies.
It's important to add that for large numbers of people, especially people of
color, freedom of speech was very rare until recent times. Satire would be the
next question. I would say that satire has been acceptable within middle class
society and among white people for a very long time, especially if it is within
certain prescribed limits. [But there is a] lack or limited criticism of
business, moral hypocrisy, sexual morality, race relations, and other sensitive
points. It isn't that satirists would be arrested, but they'd simply lose their
jobs.
Q: What are the origins of satire?
A: They really lie within oral culture. The first expression we can see
in the high culture is Greek classical theater, which offers many of the
expressions of satire that we still recognize today.
Q: Have Americans lost their cultural literacy when it comes to
understanding satire?
A: No, I don't think so. To speak of comic strips for a minute,
Zippy the Pinhead, by Bill Griffith, and what's that black strip I like
so much that isn't in the ProJo? It's an extremely satirical daily comic
strip and I'll tell you in just a minute what it is. Boondocks. There
are also two or three [others]: Doonesbury, and Sylvia.
Q: Why is so much satire in popular culture oriented around social
situations, like Seinfeld, rather than political satire?
A: Television has historically had a sort of neutering function. It
draws everything toward the center. It hasn't held true over at Fox News. In
the world of drama and comedy, there's a desire to stay away from criticism
that would be seen as offensive to large numbers of people -- which wouldn't be
to say that there haven't been some remarkable exceptions. I would say
Saturday Night Live in its moments of glory, M*A*S*H, still the
most popular television show in terms of residuals, and Roseanne and
The Simpsons. But they're distinctly exceptions.
Q: What are your favorite works of satire?
A: Old-time Mad comics, from 1952-55. That would be true for
many people in my generation. It remains the standard of satire. It was written
and edited by a guy named Harvey Kurtzman, and it was a satire of the emerging
commercialization of culture. It satirized existing comic strips, it satirized
tabloid newspapers, it satirized movies, and it satirized political life.
[After becoming a magazine], it lost a great deal of its edge in terms of some
of its outstanding artists, but it did continue to exert an important role. It
was domesticated.
Q: Why did the original Mad comics provoke such criticism
from self-appointed cultural arbiters?
A: The most crucial point here was that it was at the same time as the
Red Scare in Hollywood. And throughout American culture the fear of internal
subversion was turned from fear of communist to fear of negative effects of
comic books on children, but it was the same overriding sense of anxiety. And
Mad itself and a sister magazine, Panic, several issues were
banned in several states, Massachusetts being one of them, for a satire on
Santa Claus, which was considered unpatriotic. Large areas of comic book
publication were driven out of business and the Comics Code enforced by the
Catholic Legion of Decency, which decided whether comic books could be sold.
All of EC Comics, the publisher of Mad, disappeared. Only Mad,
which became a magazine in order to avoid the Comics Code, remained.
Q: How do you view the tension between security and dissent and
satire in the post-September 11 era?
A: I'm a great deal more worried about the terrorism at the Pentagon
than from other sources. It seems the key source of world terrorism at the
moment, much larger than others. The determination to dominate the entire world
by force prompts irrational resistance, as well as rational resistance.
Terrorism of the state provokes many other forms of terrorism The most
important role of the satirist is to ridicule the state.
Q: Your book Radical Hollywood documents the effect of
radical influence in Hollywood at mid-century. How has the center-right
political orientation in America influenced the popular culture?
A: I would say the spectacular films based on special effects and
intergalactic warfare would be a perfect example -- no plot, but lots of
action. I guess you would have to consider cable news to be a major facet of
popular culture. So the impossibility of glimpsing the role of the American
empire in the world would be a result of center-right control. I suppose our
vapid magazine culture would be another example.
Q: How would you rate the outlook for satire and dissent
post-September 11?
A: It's probably good in the long run, in part because of the Web.
Satire that could not be published is available on the Web. I've seen several
wonderful satires about the coming invasion of Iraq, but not in newspapers, not
in magazines -- on the Web. The overreaching opportunism of the Bush
administration will ultimately make them look crazy as well as powerful, making
them perfect objects for satire. Satirists play a very important role in
society and have never been needed more than they are today.
Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis[a]phx.com.
Issue Date: October 4 - 10, 2002
