HOW LAZY SATIRE KILLS
Alice Duer Miller
"Why We Oppose Votes For Men" (1915)
If you like parodies, strong social and political commentary and laughing, than you'll love satire comedy.
In Arexis Fongman’s article When bad satire is served up as a thin veil for hate she describes satire as needing “to take a position and — through a deft balance of irony, sarcasm, and exaggeration — to argue so convincingly in favour of that position that you effectively and humorously argue against it.”
Also enforcing that the audience needs to understand a piece is satirical, which is done by the performer giving a “not-so-subtle nudge or exaggeration near the end” to emphasize that fact.
Satire is one of the best defenses against bigotry, hateful, extreme behavior. Although, if done incorrectly, can cause massive amounts of harm.
Normal comedy is extremely difficult to execute and satire is commonly known as the hardest form of comedy. To execute satire correctly, what your trying to comment on has to be said in the perfect words and in the perfect tone. If you do that wrong, than the irony is lost and along with that the purpose of the message you're trying to convey.
Many people enjoy satire online and on social networking sites, but that is also the perfect place for satire to be misconstrued. Reading online does not have the diction and nuanced tone needed to tell if someone is making strong commentary on racism, for example, or just is a racist.
It's the satirist's responsibility to convey they are being comedic. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter the intention of their words, it matters how it is taken by the reader.
Whether your not specific enough in what you are satirizing or maybe your just a bad performer, satire can easily not translate to the reader.
Although, the most common way satire does more harm than good is by the writer/performer just being... lazy.
It is so easy for the scale to tip, from words being scathing social commentary, to adding fire to the flame. Putting out lazy, half thought through satire is contributing to the problem in a ginormous way and is extremely irresponsible.
Comedy doesn't seem like a huge deal, but when done on a huge scale at all hours of the day (online for example), it adds up and can hurt countless amounts of people.
Satiric comedy is passion of mine and seeing such a powerful tool against hate being wasted is just unnecessary and irresponsible. Lazy satire is the most common way satire can be done incorrectly, and the more lazy satire there is, the more accidental hate is spread to a wider audience.