Seriously: How and Why Satire Works

Shakespeare was one of the great smart asses in the history of the world. Some of his characters that were cast as oafs, thieves, or swashbuckling double-talkers were real people who recognized themselves through obvious and intentional similarities. Do you know which characters were based upon actual people? Do you know the actual people who are portrayed as oafs through obvious and intentional similarities?

Neither do I. You know who else doesn't know the answer? Anybody who did not know Shakespeare, the actual person portrayed as an oaf, and the story behind why Willy Shakes might do such a thing.

Another great smart ass in history is a guy who wrote under the pen name Mark Twain but whose real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. The poor guy recently has been criticized for his use of words that were commonly used in his day. Criticizing his use of the N-word without knowing who he was, and discounting the context of its use and the days in which it was written, is sad, even if it is understandable. 

He offered us many seeming paradoxes to consider including his mother enjoying the difficulty she had raising him, that people who do not read lose any advantage that reading might give them over people who cannot read, and that the best way to lose one's prejudices about other people and cultures is to travel.

People who criticize him for use of a word must overlook that one of his best friends was Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom's Cabin), and the most difficult thing his mom had raising him was his inappropriate acceptance of Black people, especially one former slave who was then a freeman. If she enjoyed that difficulty about raising him, I applaud her for her parenting skills.

I terrifically enjoyed the difficulty my lesbian daughter gave me going to the school to talk to the principal about her beating up some kid who thought he was tougher than her because he was a boy and she was a girl. I don't recall the principal having me meet with the kid who she beat up and his parents after the first time they tried that. 

I didn't enjoy getting called to the school when she was getting kicked out for cussing in front of a teacher, but I was okay with her being expelled when she punched the kid in the mouth for laughing when I stood her up and spanked her upon my arrival to the principal's office for cussing in an inappropriate situation. Her punch came so fast that he didn't have time to wipe the smile off his face before she knocked him on his ass with that single straight shot to the lip. I made certain that he was also going to be expelled for starting the fight once he got out of the nurse's office. Once I was assured that he would be, I told the principal that I accepted the suspension and took her out for ice cream. That knockout with one punch was as impressive as THE SHOT!

I didn't enjoy all the difficulties my children gave me, but if Mrs. Clemens enjoyed the difficulty of dealing with people who complained that Samuel hung out too much or too often with the former slave whose stories he loved to hear, then I applaud her for enjoying that difficulty.

He did not hide what he was criticizing in his great satirical piece To the Person Sitting in Darkness. He was criticizing American imperialism under the guise of a good cause that we historically know now as The Spanish-American War. The people who were being criticized were those who were rallying over America's glory that was being lauded publicly while overlooking that step one was to free the people from existing oppressors and step two was to kill any indigenous people who fight America becoming the new oppressor. 

If you believed what was being publicly lauded, you were a person sitting in darkness.

So, is satire making fun of people through characters with striking similarities to actual people but that are in no way biographical? No. That would be comedy. Satire can be an element in comedy, but it need not be.

Is satire criticizing the way things are going in the world in a way that makes the reader understand the truth better from someone's point of view? No. That would be editorializing. Satire can be an element in editorials, but it need not be. 

So, what would be the greatest satirical piece ever written in my humble opinion? Before I answer that, I want you to think about whether you would like your roasted two-year old child decapitated, or if you would rather it be presented with an apple in its mouth.

If the idea repulses you, imagine how the Brits of the late 18th century felt when some jerk distributed a pamphlet that proposed literally eating children. Now, you may think that sounds barbaric to some people, but, in fact, it sounds barbaric to everyone except cannibals. However, in light of the events of the day, this anonymous suggestion made better use of the Irish children who were starving to death in full view of the public so the rich could get richer if they were sold to rich people who could then plump them up, butcher them, and consume them as meals.

This pamphlet that is the greatest of all known smart assed pieces of literature in my opinion went so far as to explain that it would be far more beneficial to the Irish to sell their children for money that could actually benefit them in exchange for a child that the rich would literally eat, but that it was far more humane than making them watch their child starve for figuratively the same reason.

This smart ass not only justified it as economically more humane to the Irish people who were relegated to less than squalor, he suggested that the rich might actually enjoy their fortunes more if they spent a little of it on the wasted meat that was the byproduct of their greed. If they gave the poor Irish people some money for the children that would starve anyway, they could save this child from withering away from a painful way to die to a less painful way of raising them to be healthy and then slaughtering them like one would do for any meat back in the day.

If that weren't enough to outrage the public, this anonymous smart ass even suggested recipes for the older children to make them go further and described the likely suppleness of a milk-fattened newborn for those special occasions.

The public was so outraged at the proposal that rich people came forward to help with the plight just to prove it wasn't them doing that. The public that was subjected to it demanded reforms so such an obviously smartassed proposal would never make good economic sense again. No one believed it was a legitimate proposal, and certainly not A Modest Proposal as it was titled.

It would later be discovered that the anonymous author was none other than the person who created the reality in which a bunch of Lilliputians tie down the relatively gigantic Gulliver when he lands on their shore neither invited nor announced, Jonathan Swift. When Swift died, his estate was left to a hospital dedicated to helping insane and spastic people. 

We don't use the term "spastic" any longer, but, in those days, it was used to generally describe people whose minds work, but whose bodies don't cooperate. Today we know these diseases as various palsies, scleroses, and dystrophies. To categorize these people generally as "spastics" today is insensitive, unlike as it was before people recognized that some people who were unable to function were able to think but not communicate. There is a huge difference between a person with cerebral palsy and a person with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), and neither of those conditions is considered insanity. It's quite the opposite, in fact.

It didn't solve the world's problems, or even solve that problem everywhere forever, but it drew attention to one problem and helped make it easier for a lot of people who were being overlooked. To me, A Modest Proposal is the greatest use of satire to bring social changes that occurred only because of it.

A person once said about pornography that he could not define it, but he knew it when he saw it. That is just the opposite of satire. Satire is a form of comedy through which social commentary is made by exaggerating that which is being criticized. It is disguised as news, an editorial, or as a pamphlet on why it is more humane to literally feed dead Irish kids to the rich along with some tasty recipes and recommended side dishes.

While I agree with the person who says you know pornography if you see it, satire should not be obviously satirical, or at least not necessarily obvious. On the other end, though, something satirical can never be claimed as truth. Good satire contains truth, but it exploits it for whatever reasons the author chooses to exploit. A satirical comment, post, or essay, if explained to be satire, loses its satirical quality. Besides, the various forms of comedies do not act independent of one another. 

It is possible to write slapstick comedy. That is how they script it, and slapstick can be conveyed in story form. If you think it is difficult to convey it in written form, I agree with you. I also don't understand why somebody would want to, but that is not for me to judge; it is only for me to buy or not buy. 

When Wanda Sykes was asked what soul food is, and she answered that it's the second-leading cause of death in Black men under 50, most people probably heard a funny quip. Others may have heard a deep social comment that is way more profound than it is funny, but who also laugh because that is what profound comedy makes us do. 

Imagine up in Heaven, though, Tamir, Michael, Philando, Terry, and too many others to mention, bragging that she's talking about them. I hope Breonna, Sandra, and Eric and all the others are giving them some guff back about it's not only men and it's not only shooting. I imagine Rodney in there saying even if you don't die from the brutality, you still might suffer tremendously from it, as he urges them to all get along. Just as they all are enjoying the camaraderie, in walks Tupac, Sam Cooke, and Marvin Gaye who will perform! They are followed by Medgar, Malcom, and Martin who will sit at the head table and lead the prayers and ceremonies! Meanwhile, in the audience supporting their slain brothers and sisters are Richard Pryor, Dick Gregory, and Bernie Mac whispering amongst themselves how they wish they had said what Wanda Sykes said!

I cannot literally create that for you, but I can try to create the image in your mind.

Unfortunately for many writers and professionals, satire and comedy do not mix well with other endeavors or interests, which needs to be considered in today's world. Even though I have no business interests to consider when writing satire, I must consider how to present it. Generally, I have limited my satirical essays, and put the few I have written on my personal blog, Goldwing Tom dot com. This post describing satire fits best on this blog, which is more about my philosophical and historical meanderings. However, satirical posts do not belong on this blog. 

If I am telling you what I believe, but I mix in things that you need to know are not true and are intended as comedy of some form, it becomes confusing. I want you to believe what you read on this blog, I invite you to know me better on my personal blog, and I had an opportunity to exploit a situation through comedy. On that site, it is important that people know it is comedy and not real news. My opportunity, however, was not appropriate for either blog I currently have going. 

I did what I did once before when I had an opportunity to exploit a situation. I bought a web name and made a few panels of an editorial cartoon. It was fun, but it was not a labor of love; it was a battle of wits. This time, though, it is not my battle. It is an opportunity. It is also an opportunity for me to draw some of my work from the past that is not appropriate for either of the blogs that are currently active and incorporate them into a blog for comedy.

I want to change the world. I cannot do it by myself, and there is not enough time for me to convince people one-at-a-time to see things the way I do. On this blog, the blog for my philosophical and historical meanderings, I want you to believe what I say. It is an appropriate venue for me to talk about satire. Ironically, the satirical blog would be the wrong venue for a discussion about satire.

I also want to change the world with Satirically Speaking, but it is more for cathartic writing by venting and making fun of people who need to be made fun of. My plan is for it to be a collaboration of creative people who have presences on the internet that are serious in nature. I want it to have diverse perspectives, and I want it to be enjoyable for both the contributing authors and the people who visit to read what is written there.

That is about as seriously as I can discuss how and why satire works. Due to other interests, however, many talented people hold back on their comedic creativity because it doesn't fit in with the public personas they are creating for professional reasons or for specific reasons. It isn't that our clients and readers won't enjoy our comedies; we may not want to mix business and politics, we may not want to confuse readers as to when we are and are not serious, or we may just want to take advantage of some talent to get some free advertising for our other interests. Each of us has our reasons for doing what we are doing and why we are doing it.

The one thing we all have in common is that we all seriously want to change the world in our own small way.

* * * * *

Other posts you might enjoy: 
Where Does Vision Originate?
Linear Thinking Versus Conceptual Thought
Plato's Allegory of the Cave Applies to Everyone
Questioning the Genius of Aristotle
You Cannot See a Hole