I’ve spent a considerable amount of time recently being told that I don’t understand satire, that I’ve lost my sense of humour, that I’m a retard, insane & that I should simply accept certain political cartoons as harmless entertainment.
Well, perhaps it’s time we examined what satire actually is.
Satire is an artistic or literary form that uses humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose human foolishness, hypocrisy, corruption, abuses of power or the absurdities of society.
At its best, satire does something rather clever. It makes us laugh while simultaneously making us think.
It challenges authority. It exposes contradictions. It strips away pretence. It holds a mirror up to society & invites us to recognise something about ourselves or those who govern us.
And it can be savage.
But here’s where I believe an important distinction needs to be made.
Not everything that is offensive is satire. Not everything that is cruel is clever. And not everything that makes someone laugh deserves to be defended as humour.
Consider some recent examples served up as satire in this country. The depiction of a woman being disembowelled with a stick. The deliberate ridicule of a political opponent’s medical condition.
What hypocrisy is being exposed? What abuse of power is being challenged? What foolish political behaviour is being revealed?
A medical condition is not a moral failing. It isn’t a political decision. Nor is it evidence of corruption, incompetence, or hypocrisy.
And depicting the disembowelling of a woman as entertainment raises an entirely different question. What exactly is supposed to be funny about that?
When someone’s medical condition becomes the object of ridicule, we have moved away from political criticism & into personal humiliation.
And when grotesque violence becomes the centrepiece of the joke, surely, we are entitled to question whether there is any meaningful political commentary beneath it.
Calling something satire doesn’t magically transform it into something intellectually worthwhile.
Then we have the use of words such as traitor to describe political opponents.
Political betrayal can certainly be a legitimate subject for satire. But simply labelling someone a traitor is not satire. It’s an accusation.
Where is the irony? Where is the clever observation? Where is the underlying criticism that invites the audience to think?
And then we come to the depiction of political opponents being mowed down by a vehicle, with a beloved children’s character incorporated into the imagery.
Yes, satire can employ violent imagery. It has done so throughout history.
But context matters enormously.
What is the message? What exactly are we being invited to laugh at? Is the violence exposing some political absurdity, or is the humiliation or destruction of political opponents itself the entertainment?
And why introduce a character associated with childhood innocence into imagery depicting political violence?
What does that add beyond shock value?
These are perfectly reasonable questions.
And dismissing those questions by declaring that anyone who objects doesn’t understand satire is not an argument. It’s an evasion.
I have no objection to politicians being lampooned, ridiculed, or subjected to merciless scrutiny. I’ve contributed more than my fair share of that by way of memes I’ve created, posts I’ve made & blogs I’ve written.
They occupy positions of public authority & should expect their decisions, contradictions & behaviour to be challenged.
But there is a difference between ridiculing what someone does & degrading who someone is.
There is a difference between exposing political hypocrisy & exploiting personal vulnerability.
And there is a difference between using humour to challenge power & using humour as a convenient disguise for hostility.
The fact that an audience finds something hilarious doesn’t settle the question either.
People have laughed at cruelty throughout human history. Laughter is not, by itself, evidence of intelligence, insight, or moral justification.
Nor does describing something as satire absolve its creator or audience of responsibility for the message being communicated.
We are often told that people should be free to express themselves. I agree.
But freedom of expression also includes my freedom to question, criticise & reject what others choose to express.
You cannot demand freedom to ridicule others while insisting that your own preferred form of ridicule must be immune from criticism.
And that brings me to the broader issue that concerns me far more than any individual cartoon.
We are living in a society where political disagreement is increasingly becoming personal hostility. Where contempt is mistaken for conviction. Where cruelty is excused as humour. And where questioning the appropriateness of something is met not with reasoned argument but with another barrage of insults.
Instead of repeatedly telling people to lighten up, we should be asking ourselves why we have become so comfortable laughing at the humiliation of others.
Because satire at its best exposes what is wrong with society.
But when cruelty itself becomes the entertainment, what is being exposed is something rather uncomfortable about us.
