(posted previously over at for a Better Discourse)
One of the aims of “Better Discourse” is to elevate everyone’s game. When you’re better able to articulate a point without resorting to bad rhetoric, strongarm tactics, emotional appeals or distoritions you stand a better chance of reaching someone who is undecided. The posture of the speaker has as much to do with the success of a message, and playing ‘the victim’ is not a posture of strength.
Here’s an example I see playing out right now:
Saturday Night Live did a skit this past weekend which clearly lampooned the New York Times. A large gathering of Times staff was brainstorming about possible stories about Sarah Palin, and the need to send a large contingent to Alaska to “dig up” whatever they could. Playing off the notion that Times reporters are clueless about Alaskan culture, guns, snowmobiles, or life without a nearby therapist, the skit was downright funny. (Upon seeing a picture of a shotgun, a know-it-all reporter proving his mastery of Middle America spouted ‘that is clearly a derringer, also known as a Saturday Night Special’, or something to that effect.)
However, some on the right are howling mad that a fake reporter – in a sketch about how overboard the media might be in finding dirt on Sarah Palin – suggests following “rumors” that Todd Palin molests his daughters. The way in which this is described is clearly a parody, and the target of the humor is the mainstream media, not the Palin family.
By whining about something that has never been alleged – and was served up as an absurd counterpoint to skewer the mainstream media – those on the right diminish their ability to be taken seriously on any assertion of media bias.
Grow a thicker skin, and show that you can at least comprehend a joke before reflexively flailing away at every possible grievance. It makes for a better discourse.
Yeah – “show that you can comprehend” is always a good policy.
There’s a joke about Tiger Woods dropping in at a country club in south Georgia – the butt of the joke is clearly the redneck country club manager, with a side-dressing of sympathy for what it must be like to be a highly successful black man in the deep south (and yes, I’m a southerner, so that gives me license to make fun of rednecks?). But I don’t tell that one much because if you only half-listen or cut me off in the middle you might think I was telling a racist joke.
Lesson in here somewhere about people hearing what they want to hear?
One of the side effects of our red/blue divisiveness seems to be a marked loss of a sense of humor, particularly with regard to political satire, which has a long and glorious history in this country. But those who want to stifle any or all criticism (real or perceived) also have a long-running history — see these notes at PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/mediahistory.html
Certainly, ‘grow a thicker skin’ is sound advice, and any response in a mass media culture that can be characterized at ‘whining’ weakens your credibility and public image.
However, there’s a just a little piece of me that wants to say that some topics aren’t funny. And SNL’s use of a topic that is so emotionally charged and brazenly loaded (incest) isn’t comedy, it almost appears demeaning. I’m not suggesting a form of censorship or control over SNL’s humor or that a particular topic is ‘offlimits.’ One can argue that humor is in the ear of the beholder, but I find it difficult to imagine a way in which a joke about children being sexually abused by an adult in the family is humorous.
Kyle, you raise a very valid point. There is a serious discussion that can (and ought) be had about the propriety of certain topics.
That said, if you look at the comment streams coming from the New York Post site and on the SNL site, you’ll find quite a bit of indignation that anyone would attack the Palin family with such a preposterous lie, and nary a peep about whether incest should be the subject of a joke.
You’re approaching this from an objective, firm position. The misplaced anger is in trying to read this as a smear on the Palins instead of as the setup to highlight the absurdity of mainstream media. Incest isn’t “the punch line,” nor should it ever be.
(When will you make it out this way? Would love to see you and meet the family.)
While I agree that satire is an important part of political discussion and entertainment, there is a certain point when it is just too much. I’m not talking about crossing lines in subject matter, I’m talking pure saturation.
I really don’t know which way I will vote at this point, but my inability to take celebrities serious has pushed me away from the Blue side of things. All of the jokes, the skits, the cute videos, the celebublogs, the personal digs, and the whole humor-bullying have turned this important political decision into a middle-school slam book.
The thing that I find strangest is that people seem to be thinking that Obama (and McCain, depending on where you live, I guess) have drug American politics into the cesspool of speculation on a candidate’s private life.
If I’m not mistaken, John Adams’ supporters were the ones who originally uncovered Thomas Jefferson’s affair with his slave, Sally Hemings, and turned that into a talking point and the subject of political cartoons (the original SNL, really.) The worst example of this was when Andrew Jackson’s opponents drug out his wife Rachel’s no-good ex-husband to proclaim that he never signed the divorce papers, effectively turning her into a bigamist. She was supposedly so traumatized by the subsequent shaming that she died soon after the election.
Justified or not, lampooning presidential candidates and their families is about as American as apple pie. And while people have always called foul, only now does it seem to be something that’s regarded as a character flaw of the opposing politician instead of sticking to the person who’s the subject of the innuendo and parody and the grain of truth that might be there.
I liked your comment on the Financial crisis over at wonderland. It was a good metaphor.
Yeah, people often like the victim role.
Conservatives (in my neck of the Indiana) are totally fruit loopy over Palin. (Knowing nothing about her. Hell, who really did? Until they looked?)
5 books of interest on that tell of what is currently, or what is to come:
Bad Money – Kevin Phillips
Trillion Dollar Meltdown – Charles R. Morris
Chain of Blame -Mathew Padilla, Paul Muolo
Twilight in the Desert – Matthew R. Simmons
The Dollar Crisis – Richard Duncan
There’s plenty more, but I think those tell some interesting things about where we are at.
Good Blog.