Easy to Get
(My goal to write weekly has obviously been waylaid. I am suitably shamed.)
This spring, apparently Chinese news media were fooled by an article in the New Yorker that was a piece of satire. The imbroglio is outlined in this article. I’m actually less interested in the incident itself than the writer’s take on what happened — and how satire works in this current political and cultural moment — than that it happened, because such “mistakes” have been happening forever.
First, she sets out to identify when satire works:
Satire works within a context that signals this is humor. The Onion has deep brand recognition, as it’s become synonymous with the unbelievable; “Not the Onion” is shorthand for an article so crazy that it sounds like a joke, but it’s actually real.
So, first quibble. That isn’t really how satire works. Satire is constantly being misinterpreted, if it is actually working. Satire works for those who get the joke. It’s that simple. Rarely does satire appeal (or even appear) to everyone because if you do not think that the object of satire is worthy of criticism, then you won’t get the joke.
She does eventually blame the reader for not getting satire, but she doesn’t get it quite right.
If readers paid closer attention to labels and clicked through to read stories before sharing them, they wouldn’t be fooled. But as it stands, plenty of people skim social media and are still reacting to just the headlines, not realizing they’re intended as jokes.
Certainly this is a problem. We live in a tl;dr world, which is sad enough on its own. However, again I would argue that even if a reader took the time to read the satire, that reader would still have to have the same values and beliefs as the author of the satire to recognize it as such.
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For instance, the most famous satire of all time is likely A Modest Proposal. Many readers thought that Swift was seriously advocating for the consumption of children. They believed this not because they didn’t read carefully; they believed it because they didn’t share Swift’s view that the Irish were being unfairly treated by the English.
The writer then tries to stipulate what satire will work these days:
Critics of Borowitz Report point to the jokes as part of the problem. Slate described the humor as “so tepid that people often share it without realizing it’s supposed to be funny.” Particularly now, if satirical headlines lack bite and are just a hair off the truth, then they aren’t all that funny.
What the writer here is doing is actually privileging a certain kind of satire over another. (Entering pedant zone) Satire is commonly divided into Horatian or Juvenalian after Horace and Juvenal, the Roman fathers of satire. Horatian satire is more gentle; Juvenalian harsher. Mark Twain is typically considered Horatian; A Modest Proposal, Juvenalian.
Why make the distinction? (Why, indeed, asks everyone) Well, satire’s purpose is to change minds and/or reinforce what right-thinking people think. The satirist needs to figure out how to get the wrong-thinking person to think the right way. Depending on the subject matter, the cultural context, and myriad other factors, it might work best to either elicit a wry smile from a reader or a gasp.
Perhaps this writer is correct: that Juvenalian satire is the only way to go these days — that to shock is the only way to get people to change their minds in this particular cultural moment. However, her implication that Juvenalian is the only satire limits the uses of satire and, potentially, coarsens our discourse.
