Humour at DU - Democratic Underground

DemBones DemBones

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Tue Aug-24-04 05:53 PM
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Humour at DU

Right up front I'll acknowledge that everyone's sense of humour is different. Being of British descent, I have a sense of humour (and a quirky one, like many Brits) while most of you have a sense of humor. Beyond that, opinions on comedy and satire vary widely. Generally, though, DUers seem to appreciate Doonesbury and Boondocks and The Daily Show, all of which focus on political satire.

The response to troublemaker's satire on how political smear stories are started suggests that some people have trouble recognizing political satire when it's not in a cartoon format or presented on The Daily Show. People are focusing on the vehicle used for troublemaker's satire, "allegations" about Laura Bush being a prostitute, instead of the underlying theme, which is how political smear stories are started.

"Sexist!" and "We shouldn't go after Laura Bush" and "I don't think this is true at all" are the three basic types of comments made against the satire, with at least three spearate threads examining the satire. Let's look at each:

"Sexist" -- As a woman myself, I'm sensitive to women being stereotyped. It's a terrible fact that when women are stereotyped, it's often by the use of sexual stereotypes. But humour often involves using stereotypes and exaggerating them to show how ridiculous they are. It's difficult, often, for humour to avoid being at least borderline offensive to someone. Would a satire based on the idea of George Bush or Dick Cheney being male prostitutes be less offensive? Would it be less sexist? I'm not sure we can sort this out. For myself, I'm more concerned about the use of sexist language at DU than about the sexist implications of a satire. But opinions will vary and I don't claim to be the ultimate arbiter here.

"We shouldn't go after Laura Bush." -- Remember what the Bush minions did to Kitty Dukakis? Remember what they did to John McCain's wife? Remember what they did to Hilary Rodham Clinton? Remember the things they've said about Teresa Heinz Kerry already? Can we afford to play nice? Beyond that, remember that this is a DU post, not a story we're planting in the media. It is encouraging that some DUers always stand up for Laura or the twins if others dis them, and even for Dubya is he's unfairly criticised. Fairness is important to most of us. My opinion is that humour can't be too fair and remain humourous, at least not in the realm of political satire.

"I don't think this is true at all." -- Have some coffee. It's not supposed to be true,
it's satirical.

In the end, some will still not find troublemaker's satire amusing. I just hope that we don't take it too seriously, either. To me, it is a humorous send-up of how political smears are started and promulgated. It provides some comic relief against the success of the swift boat smears. Sometimes gallows humour is all you've got to get you through dark days.