The Bitter Cup

Slate has an interesting article on the decline of television satire, The Satire Recession: How Political Satire Got So Flabby. The allegedly comedic trainwreck which prompted the piece is CNN's "Not Just Another Cable News Show," which, according to Slate, really is just another cable news show. More to the point, it (like Saturday Night Live often does) relies excessively on ad hominem attacks - basic mockery of a person without any insight into the underlying issues which prompt the mockery. And a lot of people are okay with this, because it allows people to feel edgy and countercultural without getting into any messy thought involved. It's pseudo-satire, which, as professor Russell Peterson of the U. of Iowa notes in his new book,

"... is often embraced by its supposed victims, who are eager to get credit for their good sportsmanship and to show they are impervious to such 'criticism.' "

Online satire is a different beast altogether, of course, largely because most websites, even the Onion, don't have to please core advertising demographics to the same extent that TV shows do. But if you write satire online, ask yourself: how comfortable would my targets be with what I'm writing? How strong is my criticism? There's nothing wrong with silly humor, but satire is, at its core, distinguished not by its subject matter but by the fact that it is a form of genuine criticism. Today, too many people assume that any humor dealing with politics or political figures is satire. The real stuff is supposed to be cutting and subtle, something that's only possible if you spend time getting to the deeper issues. It should push boundaries, at least occasionally, and have the capacity to make people uncomfortable. Otherwise, its value as a tool of social change is greatly diminished.

Labels: CNN, news satire, Slate, television

The Pew Research Center for Excellence in Journalism released a study with an ominous message for the state of news reporting everywhere. According to the report, financial woes are now the number one concern for journalists, overshadowing such minor things as quality and credibility. Staff is being cut at news organizations around the country, with more and more local news outlets (on and offline) relying increasingly on content generated by fewer and fewer sources.

This affects those involved in the production or dissemination of news satire, because most of us have fairly strong opinions about journalism. Usually, news satirists opt for a pseudo-journalistic approach precisely in order to highlight the problems of the real media. In other words, we care about good reporting, and challenge the mainstream media when it doesn't deliver by exaggerating (and thus highlighting) its flaws.

The web has had some positive effects on journalism, enhancing transparency of sources, for example, and making it easier to link related information. But it has had deleterious effects on the business end of the news, and ultimately, the bottom line is what it's all about. It's not just satire webmasters struggling with low AdSense rates of return - even the big media guys are having trouble making their websites a worthwhile return on investment. As a result, they're cutting corners, and the product suffers as a result. The drop in diversity and quality of news online may provide extra material to satirists, but we're not laughing about it.

Labels: media commentary, news satire, online news, Pew Research Center

In the past few months, a small bastion of wit and wisdom passed silently from the web. Thinkdammit (no link because the domain has changed hands) was a site not unlike many; in this case, two talented writers set out to periodically offer unabashedly biased views of current events, media culture, and foreign and domestic policies. Via the tried and true format of pseudo-news stories, Thinkdammit aimed its very sharp and largely accurate rapier wit at the foibles of modern politics from 2002 through 2007.

And then... it didn't. What happens when writers move on? It is easy to forget how ephemeral the world wide web can be. Even the oldest sites are often not more than a decade old, and many last far less long. The fact that domains must be actively maintained and paid for makes archival survival of inactive sites far less likely.

This is troubling, because a lot of good writing is poised to vanish into the wind. It may be easier to get published online, but it's much harder to establish a lasting legacy. The Wayback machine notwithstanding, if a site passes from its owner's hands, it's essentially gone, leaving behind a fragmented patchwork of broken links and, perhaps, quoted excerpts in forums. Compare this to the average age of the books on your bookshelf. Odds are, most of your books predate the web by years. On the other hand, who among us is prepared to, essentially, assume a lifelong commitment to maintain a website that was active for perhaps a few years? Few writers, unless they are professionals, would do so. Some (present company included) seek to make the leap from HTML to hard copy, though it's not easy to accomplish. Most humor-based websites surely won't result in a book.

It's hard to think about what will happen with our websites down the road: the web is, for better and for worse, a product of the "now". So live in the now. Raise a glass of something suitable to toast the departure of a fine collection of humor articles, and thank the writers for sharing their vision with us, however briefly.

Labels: going offline, satire news, wayback machine, website

Ever wonder where satirical giant The Onion gets its photos? One firefighter in Canada found out: his own backyard, so to speak. CBC News reported on how Captain Rudy Lindia discovered a photo of himself being used as accompaniment for a fictional obituary in a 2006 article. Lindia was appalled, of course, as was his octogenarian mother. He wants an apology. The Onion, according to the Ottowa Citizen, did apologize via a spokesman, saying - with characteristic elegance and a trademark gift for the mot juste - that they felt "crummy", although they insisted that they simply used a stock image provided by a service. When Lindia's picture was taken, he was under the impression (mistakenly) that it was for the City of Ottowa. Instead, his image resides eternally in the files of a stock image dealer.

Labels: copyright, fair use, image use, Rudy Lindia, The Onion

..but funny is a required component here at HumorFeed and Check, Please!, and with that in mind, allow me to nominate the five best comedy/satire movies of 2007 (links lead to reviews on RottenTomatoes.com):

Superbad
Juno
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Charlie Wilson's War
The Simpsons Movie

In true awards season fashion, The Bitter Cup award for best comedy/satire movie of 2007 will be announced later this month! And stay tuned for other nominations for performers, TV shows, and books later this month...

I wonder how it happened?

Go to IMDB, and check out the list of movies this guy's done. It includes The Perfect Storm, The Aviator, The Hours, Dark Water, Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Gangs of New York, The Thin Red Line ... this guy's a serious ac-tor.

If you dig, you can find a hint of comedy in more than 15 years of movie work - a part in Never Been Kissed, another in Anger Management.

But something's happened over the last couple of years. Of his (currently scheduled) five movies coming out in 2008, three are comedies. He was, arguably, the funniest thing going in Talladega Nights (especially in comparison to warmed-over Will Ferrill).

And now, he's the star of one of 2007's most highly praised comedies, Walk Hard. That would be John C. Reilly, and if anyone's seen or read an interview that explains how or why he's moving so strongly into the business of making people laugh, I'd love to know about it.

Satire and fake news (interchangeable terms for most people, though they're not the same thing) have become increasingly popular forms of social commentary. Well-written stories trade on their plausibility - absurd enough to catch the eye, but plausible enough not to be dismissed out of hand. It may be a bad sign, however, when 'serious' media feel a need to preface surprising headlines with a "non-satire disclaimer". Uruknet.info, a site dedicated to news about 'occupied Iraq', reports a surprising decision by the Swedish courts determining that Iraq is not under armed conflict. The headline is preceded by a large "* * * NOT SATIRE * * *" notice. Have we done our job too well? Will other media outlets follow suit (or will they be uncertain whether they can make the claim)?

Labels: fake news, iraq, media commentary, satire