“THE JOY OF SATIRE!”

I went to the Tucson Festival of Books two years ago, I met some “publishing consultants” who's company was there to help improve your book and get it published. When I told them I was working on a satire, they said that would be a “hard sell” and that maybe I should try writing a chick-lit romance. Well if I did that it would have to be satirical, I just cannot help myself.

Webster's Dictionary defines Satire as a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn .

The Wikipedia definition:

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon.

Now despite those well intentioned people at the TFOB, I think satire is an easy sell, it is all around us in the Western world and is probably the most desperately needed in places where there are regimes that would do anything to prevent them from being mocked. You see it all the time in TV and Movies.

An example: Trey Parker and Matt Stone are the creators and main writers of South Park. Those guys are Satirists of the highest level, then add some toilet humor to let everyone enjoy their show. But my example from them would be their marionette movie “Team America: World Police”. Here is a list of what this movie lovingly mocks: Hollywood, world politics, national pride, pornography, and I am sure I am forgetting something, it has been a while since I have been able to see the movie since I now have a 5 year old son and a 2 year old daughter. (While the movie has got puppets, IT IS NOT FOR KIDS!) But one of the best parts is the portrait of Kim Jong-Il, the “dear leader” of North Korea. That country is in serious trouble. This 'leader' has led those people into starvation and squalor while he eats flown-in lobster and kidnaps his favorite starlet to force to make a movie with him. If anyone needs to be mocked it is him. Someone who hasn't had much of the mockery is Robert Mugabe the 'dear leader' of Zimbabwe, I hope it is out there but I have not seen it.

Ok, maybe it is not an easy sell to many people, but it is out there in ways that sometimes are hard to spot. I consider the “Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mystery Series” by Charlene Harris and the HBO show True Blood, based on those novels to be fantastic satire. The novels are a bit more subtle and the show is really in your face about issues of religion, sexual orientation, racism/hatred of all kinds. And it is really funny, rather perverted (it is an HBO show after all) quite gross, but worth it. There is a reason my friends and I (who gather on Sunday's to watch it, with no children nearby) call it Vampire Porn.

You would think a show called “Nip/Tuck” and being about plastic surgery would go nowhere near satire. Well, you would be wrong; and it is cheesy, also rather perverted, and lovingly mocks vanity. It showed that one person's extremely expensive surgery of liposuction and a tummy tuck could then help the surgeon to do pro bono work on cleft palates. I am not through the entire series on Netflix (another show to not let the kiddo's watch, by the way), I am at season 5 where the crew moved the show to Hollywood and really let the satire fly. They go after reality shows, (literally) predatory agents, and even mock their own show, which I thought was awesome. I guess I should expect nothing less of the shows creator Ryan Murphy, who is now doing a little show on Fox about a certain group of rag-tag show-choir geeks, which ventures into satire, but I think could go a lot further. Give the audience some credit, Ryan! Here is hoping that the next year in “Glee” will be a little more consistent and push the satirical envelope.

You may have noticed something in common with all of those examples I have given, they all add extra dramatic license besides satire to keep their shows watched, lots of sex. I am not crazy about it but it does get people to read/watch something that is making fun of something they may not want to hear: all the consequences of such carnal abandon. You know what I mean: the STDs, crazy-ex's, and unplanned children. At least these stories might get people to think twice before getting plastered and having a one-night stand. But probably not...

And that is what satire is supposed to do, it is supposed to jokingly point out problems, so that perhaps people might think about fixing them. And anyway, I prefer to laugh not cry.

To end I thought I would give a list of popular examples of satire in TV: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live, South Park, Family Guy (when not doing odd pop-culture references, fight scenes, or fart jokes), Futurama, 30Rock, Arrested Development (may she RIP).

And then there are some unexpected examples of satire in TV:

- “The Penguins of Madagascar” and “Spongebob SquarePants”, (yes, we watch a lot of kids TV).

- The underrated and short-lived “FireFly” showing the no matter our technological advance, humans may not live in utopia like “Star Trek”.

- “The Big Bang Theory” may be a sitcom, but it mocks arrogant scientists, which is much needed and very funny to a geeky nerd like me.

- “Two and Half Men” mocked Charlie Sheen, whether he knew it or not, I may actually start watching that show now that he is not on it, but probably not...

- “Sarah Palin's Alaska” ok, that is another lil' joke. He, he!

In a later blog post I will discuss the 'Joy of Satire' in it's original form, my favorite form, in literature.