Satire and Stereotype

One of the issues with satire is that it relies so heavily on the audience knowing it's satire. If you don't know that Stephen Colbert is playing a role and espousing views he disagrees with, you aren't getting the joke (and The Colbert Report becomes an entirely different show). With good satire - and I think Colbert is an excellent example - you have to get the joke. I don't think you really can watch that show and not recognize the satire, because the writing is skillful enough that you are aware of it working on the "real" and on the satirical level. You don't sit and wonder if it's really satire, or worry about what happens when someone doesn't see the satirical point and takes it seriously. Family Guy, I think, also tries to walk that line, but judging by audience responses, has not been doing so very successfully; too many people aren't recognizing the satire, and while you can kvetch about what's wrong with the audience, I think that audience is a vital and almost interactive part of good satire, and you ignore it at your peril.

Which brings me to this article/essay from Newspaper Rock. Unsurprisingly, it involves the South Park writers. South Park is another show that people argue about a lot, and I think sometimes what they do works, and sometimes it doesn't, and again, a lot of it is about audience. It's much harder to satirize something that most of your audience isn't really aware of, and you just can't do it in the same way, and expect it to have the same effect, as satirizing something people know and can understand on multiple levels. For example, when South Park does antisemitism (which South Park excels at), most people get the joke and understand they're supposed to be laughing at the antisemites, not the Jews. (However, it's precisely this issue which made me nervous when I heard the show was going to air in Germany.) But when South Park satirizes Indian stereotypes, I'm not so sure the audience gets that they're supposed to be laughing at the stereotype - not at the Indian. (And frankly, I'm not convinced the writers know that either.)

Well, yes...the characters did mention once or twice how odd the Japanese "Indians" seemed. But there was no deep or enlightening commentary on the subject--just the characters' noting the obvious. I'd say it's a stretch to call that a "satire." If a kindergartner draws dinosaurs dressed as cowboys and Indians, is that a clever satire or a juvenile daydream?

It's the difference between laughing at and laughing with. You're supposed to be laughing at the stupidity of the stereotype, which puts you in solidarity with the people being stereotyped. When satire isn't written skillfully enough, with enough audience awareness, what happens is that people are laughing along with the stereotypes, not at them - and they're seeing them being reinforced instead of questioned.