Satire’s getting harder and harder to write

Why?

First, I’ll leave Andy Borowitz’s satircal column in the New Yorker out of that point of view. He’s a pro and manages to keep turning out good stuff.

Most of my satirical books disappeared when my former publisher suddenly closed without assiging the rights to its authors works to the authors.

Otherwise, I find that a lot of the real news sounds like satire (and might be) or is too grim to satirize. Even if it were funny, satire aboud the Israeli  war in Gaza and the latest mass shooting would be in very poor taste.

I tended to write satire about the parts of government I don’t like, the TSA and Homeland Security, for example. The most fun-to-write satire (for me) took something the government was actually doing and maded it worse than it was–assuming that was possible.

But now I find most of the news so grim, it’s hard to place a humorous spin on it. That’s too bad because satire has been a time-honored  method of  poking fun at inept leaders and  their policies. “MAD Magazine” was a favorite of mine when I was in highschool.  Even better was “Punch Magazine” (1841 – 1992 with a short-lived revival between 1996 and 2002) from Britain. I found it amusing even thouh I was never really up to dte about British politics.

I’m also a fan of France’s Charlie Hebdo which features work that’s a bit edgy.

The Shakespeare plays are filled with statire, lines that work within the context of the story and also poke at the existing monarchy. My favorite comes from Hamlet in the lines: “The play’s the thing/ Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.”

In satire, we’re always trying to catch the conscience of the king or the president or the head of some agency.

To my mind, government lends itself to satire because it’s so inept at everything.  That’s my Libertaian point of view. Like Jonathan Swift, we all want to write a modest proposal.

–Malcolm