Mad Friends

There's a lot to potentially write about the latest South Park episode in which Stan, despite all his best efforts, literally gets sucked into Facebook (watch here) but I just want to focus quickly on a small segment of the show where Cartman imitates Jim Cramer, of CNBC's "Mad Money."

Cartman released a video podcast on Facebook that was a take off on Cramer's show, except instead of stocks, Cartman was giving advice about Facebook friends. Cartman urges everyone to drop Kyle as a Facebook friend because he recently added a "loser" who previously had no friends at all. Cartman has a great graph that shows Kyle's friend stock plummeting 500 percent.

As much as the entire episode was an attack on people putting too much "stock" in Facebook "friends" instead of real relationships and America's recent obsession with social networking, I think there was something secondary here about Cramer as well. Basically, Cartman was telling everyone to stop being Kyle's friend because everyone else stopped being his friend. It wasn't that Kyle was a bad friend, or that there was something wrong with him - it was simply that his popularity was going down.

I think we can make a direct comparison here with Cramer's style of investing. The value of the company really isn't that important - it's all about the trend of the market, who's exciting, who's dull, and riding the roller coaster. Real investing should be about evaluating a company and its prospects for long term growth and earnings, which will eventually be reflected in the price of the stock. To Cramer/Cartman, the only thing that's important is the quick buck or the quick popularity boost.

The Search for Pajama On Llama Continues!

The Onion ran a great story this week about the U.S. government's failure to make sure that capturing Osama Bin Laden in a priority. The article, "U.S. Government: We Have Not Forgotten About Osaka Bin Rogen" jibes the military for forgetting about Bin Laden. Indeed, each U.S. leader has a different name for him: Osaka Binn Rogen, Owanda Bun Luvin, Pajama On Llama, Okenny Ben Loggens and Oggie Ring Quabben. They also refer to the Taliban as the "Tallywhacker" and al Qaeda as "La Tostada" among other names.

The satire here is pretty clear: Osama has fallen so far off the radar that no one can even remember his name anymore. Whether the writer is calling for a greater focus to be placed on finding Osama, pointing out the futility in trying to catch him, or simply showing the incompetence of American leaders is irrelevant. The point is that we are certainly not going about this the right way.

The article ends on a potshot at Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who says he hasn't seen Osama in a while, but he'll let him now we're looking for him next time he does. It's definitely significant that Karzai is the only person in the article who gets Osama's name right. You have to be in Bin Laden's inner circle to know where he is, and knowing the name of a place or a person is equivalent to knowing that place or person in this article. For example, Afghanistan is listed as "Afbanardstan" on a map. If Karzai knows Osama's real name, we know who he's really working for.

Jumping the (Bigger) Jaws

Family Guy went after major media production on Sunday when Brian has his television pilot aired, but only after some slight alterations were made to the script.

Stewie discovers an old script Brian had written in the basement, and it turns out that the story, which focuses on the hardships of a young father trying to support his daughter while going to college, is actually pretty good. Lois gets the script in front of CBS through her wealthy father, and they agree to produce it.

It becomes clear very quickly in the production process, however, that this will not be Brian's vision. Instead of a serious drama called "What I Learned on Jefferson Lane" starring the depressing Elijah Wood, the producers turn it into a sit-com called "Classholes." James Woods makes his triumphant return as the father, and they turn the daughter into a hot 18-year old who happens to be attending the same college as her dad. In place of Brian's poignant dialogue, Woods ad libs fart jokes. And yes, Rodney Dangerfield did actually make this movie in real life.

The upshot is that Brian is carried along at the thought of actually having his work produced, but after his family and friends humiliate him for selling out, he stands up to the producers and quits. Probably the funniest scene of the episode comes at the very end, when the family is in its usual T.V.-watching tableau. Brian comments that at least he can say he had his television script produced, something most people couldn't. At that very moment, Peter's television pilot comes on, a story about how Jaws and some sailors have to band together to fight a common enemy - Bigger Jaws.

So what's going on here? I think we're meant to compare Brian's experience with what we can imagine Peter's experience in producing Bigger Jaws to have been like, and pull some meaning out of the incongruity. First, we can see that Brian clearly sold out to get his show on television, while Peter did not (Peter had explained Bigger Jaws exactly as it turned out, in all its obviousness and stupidity, earlier in the show). Our next thought is that Peter must have stood up for himself, which we should admire, and we should criticize Brian for giving in. However, I think the writers want us to continue on this train of thought because it brings us to their criticism of the production industry.

The reason that Brian's show was so drastically degraded and changed was because it was too serious, with too much meaning, and not enough entertainment value. Basically, if writers try to create something really good, it's going to get dumbed down for ratings. Peter, on the other hand, created something idiotic, so there was nothing for the producers to do to make it ratings-proof. Peter didn't have to sell out, but he didn't make something that was worth very much in the first place.

Don't Ask, Paul Rudnick Won't Tell

Openly gay writer Paul Rudnick, whose screen credits include the 1997 film "In and Out," wrote a humorous piece about gays serving openly in the military that was featured in the March 22 edition of The New Yorker. The Shouts and Murmurs section where it was published is an excellent place to find great satire, and Rudnick's "Don't Ask Me" is no exception.

He takes direct aim at General Merrill McPeak, who opposed the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell in a New York Times Op-Ed. Rudnick, taking the point of view of a secretly gay soldier, makes the satirical argument that all the pent-up paranoia and sexual tension from keeping it under wraps turns him into an absolute killing machine. In a homoerotic passage that must be intended to make McPeak as uncomfortable as possible if he reads the piece, Rudnick says before he goes into battle he pictures himself "rubbing sunblock all over the luscious, leathery hide of General McPeak, and the adrenaline rockets through my veins, and by the time I leave the Green Zone I’m ready to kill anything that moves, and then make savage, passionate love to its corpse. I’m at what I like to call my sensual, combat-ready McPeak."

Rudnick later writes that he is afraid if he is allowed to serve openly, he will lose that frantic intensity, because the biggest excitement he'll have is deciding to paint his and his partner's apartment cerulean.

He also goes after the traditional "unit cohesion" argument, again launching into an absurd homoerotic binge: "I live for unit cohesion. Just the sound of the words makes me tingle with manly aggression. Whenever I see my unit, or anyone’s unit, all I want to do is cohere. I embrace my unit, with both hands, and I draw it to me, again and again, in a vigorous manly embrace..."

In the end, Rudnick proposes that the manliest war of all would be in the original Olympic style - all-male, completely naked. Women, like open-gay males "should stay home, while we defend them."

Rudnick is seeking to demonstrate the absurdity of the philosophy behind Don't Ask Don't Tell by exaggerating the fears of its proponents. Some people probably do believe that gay men have no control over their sexual desires and literally would resort to necrophilia simply to satisfy themselves. They think that straight men could not serve with gay men because the gay men would always be trying to "cohere" a little too closely (when in fact, wouldn't a gay man in love with his fellow soldier be more likely to make the kind of sacrifice we always praise?). They think that because gay men are stereotyped as liking musicals, they cannot be capable soldiers.

Yet somehow, women are allowed to serve in the military, with straight men. Shouldn't those women be afraid of being raped by a straight soldier even more than a straight soldier being raped by a gay one? The whole intellectual exercise is ridiculous.

The fact is that soldiers having to keep their sexuality a secret are not better soldiers because of the pent-up intensity. They have to carry that extra burden on top of all the other sacrifices they are asked to make.

And if all the homoeroticism makes General McPeak uncomfortable? Well, he asked for it.

Family Guy and Sexual Harrassment

As South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker are always pointing out, Family Guy will usually tend more towards pure humor than political and social statements. However, there is certainly enough satire in Family Guy to warrant discussion, and this week's episode, "Peter-Assment," which aired on March 21, is a good example (click here to watch on Hulu).

The episode turns sexual harassment on its head, a common technique for satirists, in order to reveal its seriousness. Peter's boss, who is a woman, finds him attractive (all the more funny because Peter is hilariously fat - she says "You really fill out those shorts"), and tries to seduce Peter. When he resists, she fires him.

Peter tells Lois he was sexually assaulted by his boss, but she just laughs at him and says "That doesn't make any sense. Guys like being touched by women, it's not harassment if you like it." To prove the point, Meg talks about how her teacher actually did sexually assault her, which Peter and Lois basically ignore except as an example of legitimate abuse. Notice here also the phrase "It's not harassment if you like it." It's an excuse most abusers stand by, in line with "It's just a little bit of fun" or "Nobody's getting hurt."

The main idea I think creator Seth McFarlane is driving at is most men think sexual abuse is a joke, or at least not a big problem, because they are used to men being on the abusing side, even if they themselves don't participate in it. They're not in danger of having to choose between being humiliated or losing a job. There is a demonstrated disparity between men and women on the subject. According to an April 2009 study by the Southern Poverty Law Center, 77 percent of Latina women in the south said sexual harassment was a major workplace problem, while only 48 percent of men thought so.

This is obviously a narrow study, but it's the sort of thinking many of us fall into. When men see a women being abused, they are much more likely to pass it off as a joke or harmless. Family Guy tries to change that thinking by demonstrating how abuse is not really a matter of men and women, but of power. Later in the episode, Peter is watching an old movie. The actor slaps his girlfriend, who says, "Why did you slap me?" He responds, "Because you have a face." Peter then imagines the actor telling him to stand for himself as a man, who needs to put women in their place. But this purposefully, once again, leads us astray.

Family Guy, I believe, does not want us to see that Peter has lost his manhood when he is assaulted by his boss. Instead, they want us to see that manhood should not be defined by power over women, just as a boss should not define herself by power over her employees. Relationships should be defined by mutual respect - the sort of respect Peter shows his boss when he has sex with her on her own terms, disguised. He does not intend to get his job back by it - he just recognizes her need for companionship. Therefore, he fulfills her need without humiliating himself further. The fact that it all works out in the end because she saw through his ruse is simply a nice round ending.

Graduates Freeze Themselves Out of Job Market

The Onion ran a great piece this week about unemployment, "New College Graduates to Be Cryogenically Frozen Until Job Market Improves." The article reports on a new measure passed by the federal government to freeze recent college graduates until there is a job for them in the struggling economy. The theory is that since two-thirds of college grads won't be able to find jobs, we should freeze them right after graduation, capturing them in their most enthusiastic and hopeful state, before the depression of unemployment or a "position at a mall sunglasses kiosk" sets in.

The main thrust of the article is that the government is not doing enough to help employ people, even highly educated college graduates, and that the government's solution to big problems is always to push it away and leave for a later time. Instead of making tough decisions about the economy, the government simply wants to freeze everyone out of relevant existence.

However, the government is not the only target here. The Onion criticizes college graduates who studied something useless, in effect giving them some of the blame as well for being unemployed:

"Let's say there's some sort of environmental crisis," Schumer said. "Well, we could selectively thaw students who majored in ecology or climatology and provide them with jobs. The same logic would apply if, say, 300 years from now a real-world application for people with philosophy degrees somehow arose."

The Onion also takes a shot at providers of student loans, who will apparently continue to charge interest even while the graduates are frozen. The point here seems to be that perhaps graduates should not have to pay their loans back until they are actually employed, and they certainly should not become even more expensive to pay back.

The key here is still the government, though. It would seem to me that providing tax breaks for hiring companies or even direct government employment would be more practical than spending billions of dollars freezing people.

Middle-Eastern Terrorist Puppies

Stephen Colbert did a clever bit last night, prompted by a study that found most pet dogs are descended from wolves first domesticated by Middle-Easterners. Colbert took an adorable puppy into his arms and started scolding it for being a terrorist. Soon though he started petting it because he was overcome with his cuteness. Eventually he dressed it up in a suicide bomber vest to make it happy.

With his trademark conservative satire, Colbert attacked the heart of prejudice against Middle-Easterners. Many westerners probably believe anyone and everyone from the Middle-East is out to kill Americans. Yet Colbert showed that persecuting all Middle-Easterners would mean we would have to persecute man's best friend.

Furthermore, the right way to treat a Middle-Eastern person is with respect, just as we should treat a Middle-Eastern puppy the same way as we would treat any other puppy. Being born or descended from a particular place does not mean that someone is automatically a terrorist.

Colbert's skill here is that he does not hit you over the head with his point. He simply posits the ridiculous claim that puppies are terrorists, then plays with a real puppy, disarming puppy-racism and people-racism.

Link to full episode: http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/thu-march-18-2010-mary-matalin

Texas Textbooks

Jon Stewart went after the Texas Board of Education in The Daily Show on March 17, criticizing the way the board members decide the state's curriculum. As numerous news agencies have reported, Texas' decisions impact the rest of the country because textbook makers usually cater to them because of the number of books they order.

Stewart did a wonderful job in particular on Patricia Hardy, a board member who proposed an amendment to remove Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador from a list of people who fought injustice, along with Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. Romero was assassinated by an ultra-nationalist death squad because he called on Salvadorian soldiers to stop committing humans rights violations, along with other criticisms of the government and support of the poor.

Presumably, Hardy opposed Romero's inclusion because of his association with Liberation Theology, a quasi-Marxist school of thought which, according to Wikipedia, "understands the teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of a liberation from unjust political, economic, or social conditions." Hardy did not bring up any real arguments in making her case, however, instead vaguely claiming that Romero should not be included because, as she said, "I guarantee you it's just one of those names that you just didn't know ."

Stewart responded: "So your argument is 'we shouldn't teach people this because they don't already know this.'" Of course, the amendment passed.

Stewart also mocked board chairman (and dentist) Ken Mercer, who said that they needed to "stand up to experts." Stewart, who often satirizes so-called anti-elitist populists who attack experts, suggested that he would stand up to Mercer's dental expertise by rubbing his teeth with chocolate instead of toothpaste.

His main technique here is essentially translating the board's argument into a basic example without political biases that somehow legitimize their idiocy. Stewart says, the board basically opposes the position of the expert panel because they are experts. Their logic is about as sound as brushing your teeth with sugar. Yet, since the school board is seen as making "political" decisions, they are considered credible. Whether you agree with Romero's theology or not, you cannot deny that he was killed for standing up for injustice.

Link to watch full episode: http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/wed-march-17-2010-snoop-dogg

Taking on Tiger: 'Sexual Healing' on South Park

South Park kicked off its fourteenth season last night with a show, called "Sexual Healing" about Tiger Woods and the "outbreak" of sex addiction in the United States.

SUMMARY (watch online here, scroll down for analysis)

The episode started out with what looked like the night when Elin Nordegren found out about Woods' affairs. Elin chases him around the house with a golf club until Tiger tries to escape in his Escalade. It's then that the camera zooms out and we see Cartman and Kenny playing the whole scene out in a video game, which turns out to be EA Sports' Tiger Woods '11, which all the boys agree is way cooler than any other golf game. After each commercial break, South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker turn the same trick, with Woods attempting to hit a golf shot before Elin shows up and they fight Mortal Kombat-style, and later Woods is giving his televised apology when once again Elin battles him. Besides being able to do sweet combos with the golf club, you can "press x to lie" and use the "pre-nuptial power up." At the end, the game eventually turns to golf without the fighting, which the boys find incredibly lame.

In between these vignettes, Stone and Parker levy a direct attack on the concept of sex addiction, which they clearly believe to be either a ridiculous excuse for the natural desire of men to sleep with as many women as possible, or something that all men "suffer" from, but is only manifest in rich and famous men because they have the ability to easily consummate those desires. The main plot starts with a meeting of the U.S. Center for Disease Control, which is worried about the series of recent rich and famous men who, for some inexplicable reason, like to have sex with many women who are not their wife. Refusing to acknowledge that they also have the same urges, the men decide that the mysterious sex addiction disease must be the cause. Their first action is to make sure it has not infected the children.

The CDC tests school children for sex addiction by showing them a picture of a naked woman and then asking "What color was the handkerchief the nice lady was holding?" Any student that answers "What handkerchief?" is deemed to be a sex addict. Kenny, Kyle and Butters, along with 90 percent of high school boys, are diagnosed with sex addiction, which the CDC rep warns will surely end in a David Carradine-style auto-erotic asphyxiation death. Later, Kenny of course tries it out and dies, confirming Kyle and Butters' fears that they will meet the same fate.

Kyle and Butters are sent to sex addiction therapy, where Woods, David Letterman, Bill Clinton, David Duchovny and others are already being "treated." After a few predictable sex jokes, the therapist finally identifies the ultimate problem all the men had: getting caught. To avoid being labeled sex addicts, the men had to simply not get caught. Kyle speaks up and says that they should instead be responsible for their actions, which causes the therapist to radio "we've got a turd in the pool."

Meanwhile, the CDC conducts another study with monkeys. They give an otherwise normal monkey a bag full of cash, and unbelievably the monkey has sex with every other monkey in the cage until he is finally caught by his wife who beats him, and then the rest of the monkeys throw dirt and feces at him, "isolating" him from the group.

The CDC brings the results of their study to President Obama, who proposes that the Roswell aliens had spread the disease across America, all while casting nervous glances at Michelle Obama, who is also present. Since the CDC believes money has something to do with sex addiction, they look at $100 bills. Independence Hall is pictured on the back, so they all decide that the Roswell alien is hiding there.

Obama, along with machine-gun toting soldiers, invade Independence Hall. One scientist says that the alien may have cast a spell on American men to make them sex addicts, prompting Obama to say they must be dealing with a crazy alien wizard. Finally, one soldier laughs and says the obvious, that there was no alien wizard or sex addiction, and that everyone should finally admit that all men have the desire to sleep with many women, and that most women with fame and money would probably take advantage of it. The soldier is subdued by everyone else, who continue to search for the alien wizard.

Because Stan seems to have the ability to resist his sex addiction, the soldiers decide the spell has no power over him, so they give him and Butters guns to kill the alien. Again unbelievably an uncoordinated "alien" wearing a Disney wizards hat suddenly comes staggering out. Stan and Butters eventually kill it.

The episode concludes with President Obama announcing that the sex addiction alien wizard had been defeated, and assuring the American people that the next time a rich and famous man had an affair, the reason would be that we was under the spell of another alien wizard. At least now they knew why. As for Tiger, he announces his relief at the press conference that he has recovered from the sex addiction, and happily announces how grateful he is that Elin will not get revenge by sleeping with a bunch of men. She looks sideways at him with shifty eyes.

ANALYSIS

Before getting to the rest of the show, I'd like to talk about the video game scenes. First, a video game is a fantasy world under the complete control of the player. This is exactly how a chronic adulterer like Woods feels - as he said himself, he felt entitled. The key is that Woods was not actually in control and more importantly there are real consequences for his actions. Also, by giving Elin real power to injure Woods in the video game, her real powerlessness to defend herself against Woods' transgressions is highlighted. The other side of the video game metaphor is the way Woods' scandal provides entertainment for the public. Stan and Cartman only care about "golf" now that there is exciting drama surrounding its most famous player. Once Woods goes back to playing, no one will care anymore. Finally, the video game relates back to the rest of the plot, because when you play a video game, you live out a life that you otherwise can't. This is one of Stone and Parker's main points - that most men would act just as irresponsibly as Tiger if they had as much money as him, but ridiculing him gives them a chance to divert attention from their own shameful thoughts and desires.

The rest of the episode exaggerates the way men lie about their own deviant sexual desires. Instead of admitting that most men want to sleep with as many women as possible, doctors invent a mysterious "addiction." Stone and Parker's response is that of course men suffer from "sex addiction." It's evolutionary and elementary. Men want to spread their seed, if you will, and the rich and famous simply have more opportunities. Like the doctors, President Obama would rather revert to the pathetic recycled Roswell alien case than admit his own sinful thoughts. Even worse, any man who does admit that the whole thing is a charade is attacked.

I think Stone and Parker want men who claim sex addiction to instead take responsibility for their actions and admit that, yes, they wanted to have sex with all these women, it wasn't a mistake, though now that they have been caught, they do have some regrets (namely, getting caught). Stone and Parker probably are saying that sex addiction is a joke of an excuse, but an excuse that all men want to support so that they will be protected from their own transgressive thoughts or actions. People will go so far to accuse 4th graders of sex addiction or make up a doddering alien wizard. Every man is "shocked" that another man would want to have sex with someone who wasn't his wife, yet their sideways glances tell the whole story. Women are pretty much powerless to fight back against their unfaithful men, unlike in the video game, though they do have one option - having transgressive thoughts or actions themselves, as highlighted by Elin's glance at Tiger during the press conference.

Manifesto

I am pleased to introduce "The Satire Spy," a new blog where I plan to write about satire in popular media. As often as possible, I will seek to analyze the themes and methods of satirists like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, The Onion, South Park and others. I will attempt to trace the roots of their criticisms and the way they communicate them. Hopefully, my posts will be timely, relevant and interesting, as well as serving as a jumping off point for discussions about the various opinions and methods.

What are my qualifications? Well, I took one class on satire with Jonathan Gray, associate professor of communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Watching With The Simpsons: Television, Parody, And Intertextuality. I took another class, this one on the poet-satirists of the 17th and 18th centuries, with Michael Suarez, S.J., now director of the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia. Of course, this means absolutely nothing, because I haven't written any books or earned a Ph.D; but I do watch a lot of television and read a lot of funny political writing.

The thing is, you don't really need a Ph.D to know what satire is all about (at least that's what I'm going to try to convince you of). What you really need is a keen eye and a desire to dig a little deeper to find out what's really going on, what the creators are really getting at. Besides, if you need a Ph.D to understand someone's satire, then it isn't very good, because one of the essences of popular satire is that it speaks truth to power for the masses. Now I certainly qualify as a member of the masses.

Basically, I want this blog to be a chance for us to discuss what these political guys dressed up as funny men are talking about. Because often times, they know a lot more about what's really going on than all the MBAs, PhDs and JDs combined. Let's try to figure out what they know, and what should change about it.