Satire

Satire is a wonderful thing. The satirical writers of our world make us laugh by pointing at those who should be laughed at.

Satire isn’t cruel or mean. It never picks on people who are the underdogs or are genuinely pathetic or in need of help and understanding.

That’s not satire.

Satire picks on people who really should know better. Satire caricatures the dogmatic and the obsessive, those with closed minds or opinions, those who can’t see beyond their own mirrors, and it gives us wonderful comedy based on people who really really should know better.

In more modern times, well, I guess starting about a decade ago, we have had David Brent in The Office, an awful self-obsessed man, but hilariously funny to laugh and point at. A character who can be identified by many who have known or had to work with hybrids of this man.

Along the way we send up the jobsworths and make fun out of nerdy folk who are the collectors and anoraks of this world, or those wrapped up in ritual and cult. Blind faith is an easy target for satire, as it is probably the biggest thing that people wrapped up in really should know better about.

The interesting thing about satire is that those who are the targets – the real David Brents – actually don’t get it. They can’t see it, and protest that it isn’t funny.  Instead, they carry on with their uniquely odd take on life and wonder why they are relatively alone in dismissing the satirical representation of their strange values. They will moan about Ricky Gervais and how he is just not funny. Meanwhile, the rest of the country watches and laughs and the awards start piling up.

Confused, the target of the satirist will continue to complain and justify his approach to life. He may even try satire, but usually ends up picking on people in a way that is cruel and hurtful and nobody but he thinks is funny.  His idea of funny is always to make sure there is a single victim, and to be very specific and personal about his victim.

True satire highlights the things that are wrong in this world, pointing to the opinions, personalities, beliefs and actions that are laughably wrong.  Larger than life caricatures like those seen in Ab Fab or even Monty Python are usually of people who have the intelligence or authority to know better and shouldn’t be that way.

The satirist has to thank these odd people, for without them there would be nothing for those in the real world to laugh at.