People like to throw the word “satire” around a lot these days, but the term is rarely understood or applied properly. I say this after reading a review of what sounds like a dog of a movie, Hamlet 2, in The New York Times. At several points, the reviewer, Stephen Holden, refers to the satire in this film, only I don’t see anything satiric about it. It’s merely a spoof, and Mr. Holden seems to think that sending up Dead Poets Society–however abysmal and worthy of derision that film may be–qualifies as satire. However, it doesn’t, at least not to my mind.
Satire is a political and social weapon, and it has one target: Those who have too much, control too much, and think that they have a right to dictate what sort of lives the great mass of humans get to live. It is a cudgel that should be used in defense of the defenseless and against those in power. You can make fun of a cripple, but a cripple can’t be satirized. Neither can someone who is poor.
However, it seems to me to have been a trend in this country over recent years to attack those without power while giving those with power a relatively free ride, the main exception being partisan caricatures. The Daily Show is capable of rising to the level of satire, but not much else that I see. In the main, we spoof the rich and powerful–the “how stupid is Bush” trope is more spoof than anything else– while attacking the poor and downtrodden.
Let me use a couple of examples to show what I mean.
The first is an example of how popular it is these days to kick the poor. It’s a sketch from That Mitchell and Webb Look concerning two homeless men, Sir Digby Chicken Caesar and his cohort, Ginger. Now, I like Mitchell and Webb. I’m not here to run them down. I just found this sketch disappointing because it does nothing except reinforce stereotypes and take potshots at people who are already down. This takes no courage, no wit, no incisiveness, nothing. At best, it takes a bit of a mean streak.
Contrast this with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer as Tom fun and Derek:
There is an element of understanding and sympathy here that makes it poignant in a completely unsentimental way. The small stain of satire in the piece is inherent in its sympathy with the characters and addresses the narrowness of a society that pushes some of its weakest members to homelessness for their eccentricity (in losing their lodgings for Derek’s “unconventional way of eating an arctic roll“–a kind of dessert) and to theft in search of a bit of fun.
Satire denies the supremacy of the powerful by invoking laughter, but it is a laughter tinged with outrage. Satirists are injured idealists, disappointed lovers. They are people who use wit in order to defend those who cannot defend themselves and to deflate pretension. And of all the things that one might claim about the homeless, calling them pretentious isn’t one of them.
