I write a lot of social and political satire, primarily on my Web site, but it does find its way into some of my short stories and novels. You can’t talk about embodied identity, as I do in Both Sides. NOW! for instance, with acknowledging that it has a political dimension (beyond the fact that the President of the United States is a character). Just so we know what we’re talking about: satire is a specific form of humour which holds bad public behaviour up to ridicule; once the reader has stopped laughing, she is invited to think about the object of the ridicule.
Obviously, people who are held up to ridicule and their supporters could be offended by one’s satire. Does this bother me? There are a couple of glib ways of dealing with this question. The first is that as long as people whose public actions offend me are the ones who are offended by what I write, I’m good. Another is that just about any work of art has the potential to offend somebody (as witness conservative efforts to ban certain children’s books from schools); that’s just a risk anybody who does something as public as writing has to take.
My more considered answer comes out of experience I had years ago.
In the 1990s, I was part of two radio sketch comedy groups: Earth Two and Dead Air. With Earth Two, we actually got into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s offices and recorded half an hour of material; it still tickles me to think that somewhere in the bowels of CBC headquarters is a DAT tape with my voice on it. Dead Air ran for six half hour episodes on community radio; we released a 100 minute collection of our best sketches, most of which hold up to this day, if I do say so myself.
Being around funny people was great because, of course, we talked comedy all the time. And, one of the things that I remember from those conversations is that a comedian should always be “on the side of the angels.” What does that mean? For me, it means you should always be able to articulate why you make the artistic choices you do; with satire specifically, it means that you must know what the object of your attack is and be able to justify it. I have sometimes been know to do outrageous things in my writing, but it’s usually not out of a desire merely to be outrageous; I usually have a deeper purpose that I can explain if called upon to do so.
I’m sorry if innocent people are offended by what I do, but I hope that they’ll come to trust that I know what I’m doing.
SATURDAY SHORTS
Here’s a bit of frippery from the latest Les Pages aux Folles (http://www.lespagesauxfolles.ca) update:
Hamlet's soliloquy from the nunnery scene, as rewritten for Benedict Cumberbatch:
To beep or not to beep, that is the question;
Whether 'tis Nobler in the wings to suffer
The Pings and Sharings of outrageous Fanboys,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of handhelds,
And by opposing end them.
'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be - oh, would you please shut it!