Satire Is Wack

My dad often uses a tremendous amount of horatian toward my sister, criticizing her in a joking way that often offends her. She doesn’t understand that he means well by the joking, just trying to make the people around him laugh rather than make her angry; however it never ends up like this. When satire is used in a work, aside from my dad’s bad jokes, people lose the true meaning of the work itself. A satirical author’s message can be misconceived and lost because of misconceptions brought by satire.

Any naive person would have a hard time understanding satire without deep evaluation of of the text, movie, TV show, etc. Take Karel Capek’s novel, War With The Newts; I mean, what’s actually happening in that book? Overall, Capek has many messages conveyed through satire such as imperialism, nationalism, capitalism, communism, etc., however, it is easy to simply get lost in Capek’s jokes. For example, when GH Bondy is meeting with Captain Van Toch and he says, “that I was. Of course, you were such a weak little Jew…” Funny? Insulting? Are we okay with it because most of us happen to not be Jewish? It’s hard to understand that with this ongoing Jew joke Capek is critiquing nationalism. As the audience, we understand the nature of the joke but not the meaning of it because, let's face it, we’re all morons, according to journalist Arwa Mahdawi. Laughing can become a distraction, making a statement like the one said my Captain Van Toch a gag that can go right over the heads of readers. Not to mention, we are also living in a world where videos of dogs make us laugh, limiting the sense of value in a satirical piece. Since people tend to laugh at anything and everything, it’s easy to get lost in satire. For example, the movie Mean Girls is well known, making Regina George and Glen Coco practically household names. The movie hits the audience hard with the high school jokes that apparently pertain to self esteem, self image, finding one’s true self, and overall learning to be nice to people. Does the audience remember that message? Be honest, of course not. Only thing I remember is when Damien yelled, “she doesn’t even go here,” from the back of a girl’s assembly in a blue hoodie and sunglasses. Mean Girls is an example of satire being over-used, once again losing the audience in the hilarities of a ‘“natural” highschool setting.

Not only is satire often an obstacle to readers, but generations have practically ruined it with common media. Parodies are commonly used as a type of satire as evidenced by the many mimicked scientific reports that don't make sense in Capek’s War With the Newts. However, more common to younger people are the movies and songs that have been turned into something completely different from the originals. Take the movie The Starving Games, a successful parody of The Hunger Games, that literally has no real purpose in it. Yes, it makes us laugh, but what was the point of spending thousands on production of a movie that has no meaning? Also, song parodies are some of the most common forms of entertainment for young people. There’s an older YouTube channel (from those long-ago FRED days in 2010) called The Key of Awesome that has been remaking songs into parodies for years. They hit all artists, turing their songs into even catchier versions that often have cringy lyrics; a complete insult in general. These types of videos and movies are practically satirical criticism toward satire. It’s hard to understand why these people spend their time making useless entertainment, but once again, we are all just morons (thank you, Arwa Mahdawi).

Satire is touchy, meaning if you use it, I hope you can use it well (better than I did). Whether it’s a novel, movie, music video, or dad jokes, satire can be misleading. Messages can be lost or misinterpreted, overall causing those who are naive to become insulted or uncomfortable.