April 5, 2024: Satire Studying: The Big Short and Vice

[If ever ayear both needed and yet resisted a heavy dose of satire, it would be 2024. Sofor this year’s April Fool’s series I’ll share a humorous handful ofSatireStudying posts—please add your thoughts on these and any other satiricaltexts you’d highlight for a knee-slapping yet pointed crowd-sourced weekendpost!]

On thevalue and the limits of satire when it comes to contemporary, contested events.

One of themore interesting artistic transformations of the 21st century hasbeen that of writer and director . McKayrose to prominence through his collaborations with comedian Will Ferrell (andothers) on a series of extremely silly comedies: Anchorman (2004) and its sequel, Talladega Nights (2006), StepBrothers (2008), and The Other Guys (2010).If you haven’t had a chance to see any of those films, the most important thingto emphasize (and one you can gather from just about any clip from any of them) is thatthey are almost entirely, and very purposefully, non-thematic, overtly notinterested in social or cultural issues and just trying to make audiences laughas consistently and hard as possible. But in 2015, McKay wrote and directed TheBig Short, a satirical dramedy based on MichaelLewis’s book of the same name about the 2008 housing crisis and financialmeltdown. And 2018 saw the release of a second, very similar McKay film, Vice, a satirical dramedy based on the life andpolitical career (to date) of Dick Cheney (starring Christian Bale as Cheney,Amy Adams as his wife Liz, Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush, Steve Carrell asDonald Rumsfeld, and many more actors).

Thesesatirical yet serious takes on hot-button contemporary issues parallel in manyways one of the 21st century’s most popular cultural genres: thesatirical news commentary and comedy program. Originated by Comedy Central’s The Daily Show (especially once JonStewart took over the hosting gig), this genre hasbecome one of the most prolific in recent years, from Stephen Colbertand John Oliver to Samantha Bee and Hasan Minhaj (among others!). Even late-nighttalk show hosts have gotten in on the act in diverse but equally compelling ways.What unites all these satirical news programs is their desire to walk a fineline between making audiences laugh (not constantly, but at least consistently)and providing thought-provoking commentary on current events, and I would sayMcKay’s recent films are aiming for that same sweet spot. I haven’t had achance to see Vice yet, but I did seeThe Big Short and it was mostdefinitely seeking to provide both laughs and knowledge, often in the exactsame sequences (as with the famous and controversial use of random beautiful actresses to talkabout the fine points of housing policy and economics). As that hyperlinkedsequence featuring Margot Robbie notes, knowing these seemingly boring detailsis pretty vital to understanding the last decade in American life, and the goalof using comedy and satire to convey such details links McKay’s recent films tothese news programs.

Yet I havesignificantly more ambivalence about McKay’s films than I do about thoseprograms, and I think it boils down to one factor: the use of talented, likableactors to create sympathy for figures who have contributed negatively anddestructively to these recent histories. That was somewhat the case with The Big Short’s protagonists, mortgagebrokers (played by highly likable actors such as Ryan Gosling and ChristianBale) who seemingly fought the system yet at the same time profited greatly bypredicting and betting on the upcoming crash and crisis. And it’s verydefinitely the case with Vice—again,I haven’t had a chance to see it as of this writing, but part of the reason whyis that I love watching Christian Bale in anything, and really don’t relish thethought of him playing Dick Cheney, to my mind one of the truly evil figures inthe last century of American political and social life. Every historical figureis a flesh-and-blood human being, with various layers and sides, and so Isuppose every one is also worth extended attention and even sympathy. But Idon’t know that we need an entire film creating such a multi-layered portraitof Dick Motherfucking Cheney (that’s his full name, y’know), and I likewise amnot at all sure that the lighter touch of comedy and satire are appropriatewhen it comes to depicting such a figure. I suppose there’s a place for suchfilms, but they’re likely to remain non-favorites for this AmericanStudier (andfor reviewers such as Slate’s Bilge Ebiri, itseems).

Crowd-sourcedpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. So onemore time: What do you think? Other satirical works you’d share?