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Friday, October 19, 2018

Today's Satire vs Satirist’s Satire

Mainstream Satire vs Satirist’s Satire

by
Erica Crooks

To me a satirist is a left wing idealist , moralist , social reformer , romantic , and 
perhaps even close or are an anarchist.

Modern ones to me seem to me to be nationalistic , centralist , and just doing things for laughs and getting paid . So are they truly satirists ? 

Today I even feel Bill Maher’s satire and political ideology to be contradictory at times .
One moment he can be respectful to a Trans woman guest on his show ( Janet Mock ).
The next he’s insulting trans women who protected against the Vagina Monologue because it didn't include transgender women. Which I thought was weak of him to do.
Not only because I am a Trans Woman myself but a friend of mine who passed away awhile back was a Bill Maher fan too.

Anyway , back to satire. What do I mean when I say modern satire ?
When I refer to Modern Satire , I talking about anything new that’s some what in the mainstream. Sure the idea of working within the system and being anti-establishment was a good idea when it worked , however we are in an age when executives have already caught on to what artists were doing this whole entire time and became control freaks.
There’s probably many theories , but I think one being “ demographic targeting “ .
I could say that President Trump is definitely a gift to young satirists to practice their craft .
But perhaps why I struggle to lampoon Donald J Trump is probably because he’s just too easy , and the world is already controlled by sociopaths , psychopaths , narcissists , dark triad in power and socially in the working class . So is he the mad man who yearns to be a dictator and wanting to turn everything into a totalitarian New World Order or is just nothing more but a puppet celebrity and a publicist creating his own publicity stunts not only for attention of himself but to distract the public while real immoral unethical things are happening in the background. Yes , a political distraction is what I’m referring too. 
To me Trump is one of those people in which nothing has changed , only the names. He’s a cliche archetype of political satirical literature. He’s the several deadly sins , he’s Napoleon of George Orwell’s Animal Farm , He’s a demented Humpty Dumpty with a bad hair cut and a bad case of dipper rash.

Trump is easily to take on , he’s not much different from the political satire of George W Bush.
What I don’t know is with all the media saying what common people think , 
is it truly the minority who hate Trump ?
If it is the so called “ Liberal “ Media , why not take things to what people would consider the extreme left wing and go all the way anarchist.

That’s the thing. Satirists today seem to barely have an ideology. That is outside the centralization of the hierarchical political system.
You have your democrats , you have your republicans , an on occasion you have your libertarians.
If I had to choose which satire is the best which I’ve seen in American mainstream television ,
I would pick liberal / libertarian / socialist / left wing progressive
that is if it’s available.
But what’s interesting is rarely would we ever see in the history of media that ever was shown in mainstream that went beyond centralization , did not care about who they were going to offend and cared more about their satirical political point which they weren’t only making people laugh but making people think , who their targets were and who are their audience , and does not care if it’s not going to make the networks rich and it's going to piss off advertisers.

Mad Magazine can have great stuff in it but they had a mixed history of ideologies depending who was working on it , same goes with the history of Private Eye ( UK ) .
Bill Maher can be funny when he gets his satire right and same goes with South Park and Classic Simpsons.
Though most American satire was usually ( right wing Libertarian ) .

It really does seem to me that British satirical comedy and even France would go further than what would be accepted in American television and media. 

Spitting Image in it’s 1980s and early 1990s were the best in my opinion . 
( Newzoids ended I think. Dead Ringers is very similar to Spitting Image and Week Ending. And of course Ian Hislop on “ Have I Got News For You “ . Him and Nick Newman were the head writers of Spitting Image's heyday as well as Rob Grant and Doug Naylor . Also Pete Sinclair , Steve Punt and John john o'Farrell later on .)

Hale and Pace were hilarious even if they did things that were a product of it's time.
Les Guignols De L’info was going to be canceled in 2015 but was revived months later which was extremely controversial to fans. I did love how there was many english dubbed videos on their Dailymotion “theguignols” cancel. And it still had an anti-establishment bite to it.
But perhaps I need to compare the history to determine which was the best , because the writers and show runner got fired as well. Unfortunately Les Guignols got cancelled in 2018 which was quite sad. 
Mad Magazine’s New York team got fired as the headquarters is now in LA with a new team.
The Simpsons hasn’t been the same since late Season 9 onward ( aka Zombie Simpsons / Jerkass Homer / Mike Scully and Al Jean era. )
I even feel that South Park didn’t have the same biting satire it did in it’s hayday , I would say their last season that was the best was Season 10 but still there’s occasionally good episodes in later seasons like The Ring episode . 

Some of the best satire I’ve seen would come from all areas within the left wing spectrum . 
Even going after the centralist left.

And of course there’s Anarchist artists out there and to me this totally relates to the same sort of traditional satire. 

I noticed there was a difference between art in the 1960s vs what we have today probably because of political ideology . Same with satire.
Mad Magazine , That was The Week It was , Week Ending , etc.
And a similar tradition to James Gillray and satirists and artists alike .

It’s interesting on what makes a satirist a satirist . I like to say that a satirist is kind of like how John Lennon was ( post-Beatles ) with his music. Here’s an artist who is intuitively aware that something doesn’t seem to be right about the world around them. Which is totally different from conservatives which are taught to hate minorities as an excuse and justifications of the dissatisfaction of their miserable life and other lies covering up the truth. 
And like John Lennon’s music , he was not only expressing unconditional love to the world , he was also pointing out the injustice going on in the world.

It’s interesting how there’s so much hate for the Social Justice Warrior , the Special Snowflake , Butthurt Crybaby , the INFP personality type such as myself.
It’s interesting just how UNFUNNY conservative political cartoons and their satire is. Conservative humor to me seems like the show “ Hee Haw “ and unfunny remarks from Joe Pyne . STJ types
And you’ve got your ESTP types like the Seth McFarlane stuff , Comedy Central’s target demographic no doubt , Howard Stern , and yes Donald J Trump . 
Don’t mean to be typist , just point out an observation here.

I’ve said something similar in my criticisms of the promos and such of “ The Happytime Murders “ , it doesn't work even though the talent behind it could have made an awesome movie IF THEY WANTED TO ! The film lacks creativity and or satirical content. 

Dinosaurs I still find to be one of the best satirical shows I’ve ever seen. And I think they did take things more political and further than classic Simpsons did in some ways because all the Dinosaurs DIED at the end due to Toxic material on the planet.
It’s sad that it was marketed through toys and such as a kids show . Those who think it's a kids show need to watch the show again.
Why , because they are Dinosaurs and not humans ? Because they are puppets ?

Puppets and Cartoons , literature and theater before the rise of capitalism and even during the early days of it had a Europe tradition of satirical literature.
I remember reading the early Punch and Judy scripts when I was a senior in High School totally amazed how politically satirical the puppet show used to be and how it can toned down over the years to the point of then just dancing in the 1980s music video “ Safety Dance “ for example. People my generation and younger probably don't even know who the hell “ Punch and Judy “ even are anymore.

The greatest quality of a satirist I think is their mindset. 
They can have the heart of an anarchist if they want to 
but at the same time have the spiritual spirit of the Heyoka Empath ( aka The Sacred Clown in spiritual Native American culture and New Age calls them the “ Mirror Soul “ the most powerful empath EVER ) .

If there's something I’ve learned before I quit being a small online self entrepreneur worker was 
it just doesn’t sell. I kept it up making DVDs from 2011 - 2016 .
But anarchism seems to speak to my heart more.

The thing about business I’ve learned was
if you want to learn to earn money doing what you love doing ,
you would have to sacrifice your own soul and deceive and exploit people if you want to win.
It just wasn’t in my heart , body and soul.
Any complaints I ever got was quality issues that the books were too short and the font was too big. 

Yes , we artists DO want to earn money doing what we love doing.
But when I woke up to what CAPITALISM really was , I didn’t see what the right see the left as wanting to be poor . I see a possible utopia where everyone can be rich without working because it’ll be available to everyone.

When I went to my local comic con from 2015 - 2017 , I would see favorites of mine.
And even though they were nice. I did sense a sadness in them.
I even heard one of them tell one of their volunteer that “ They need this money badly “.
These people are known for working as talented artists and acting talents in their own right , not sales people.
Some seemed depressed too because no one was buying anything.
Perhaps they are at the Comic Con biz simply because they can not find work.


Satirist or not , Artist or not , I strongly believe in the social revolution of a peaceful Anarchist and 5D Earth Revolution .
Art has always been my life , so is giving love to my like minded people with the friendly reminder that “ You are not alone “ .

As I learned as a teenager , the world is a lot more rude then it seemed in childhood.
And just shrugging it off as “ That’s the real world so suck it up “ 
just did not sit well with my body , mind and soul.

As a kid , I thought satire was bullying. Until I was a teenager and I seen stuff like the Robert Crumb documentary from 1994 “ Crumb ( 1994 ) “ which really and truly showed a portrait of a true satirist . A satirist has a moral heart , they just mirror back all the crap they see is not right with the world.

A satirist exposes the lies , follies , vices , humbug , etc. Not only to make people laugh , not only to entertain , not only to tell a story through literature and caricature , but to make people think. Not reinforcing negativity but exaggerating it to the point where people can wake up to.
And an idealistic hope that someday we’ll all unite
and realize when it comes to hierarchical power over us 
“ Enough is enough “ .


So when parodies of Trump and satire and comedy and music and everything art related
become commercialized , nationalized , centralized , globalized 
with the obeying to the interests of the ruling class ,
it takes away what makes art human and what makes human art.


We understand and relate to stuff because it resinates with us.
Art is communication in that degree.
It can relate to like minded people.
To me that’s the beauty of it.
Unfortunately there’s people who only care about people’s money and their own goals to freedom by walking over people then the beauty of connecting with people just like them.

So as an anarchist , I feel within cultural anarchism , satire is a good way to go about it.
I’m a pacifist so I don’t think I’ll be joining a black bloc anytime soon.
Being angry for that long drains me.
I rather laugh at the face of negativity just like the angels do.
Because when we all live in peace , it would no longer effect us.

As Rik Mayall best put it , he said in an interview one time that
there’s people who need a laugh just like a drink or a giggle in a funeral because they need happiness when they are feeling down.
But when we laugh in joy , we can enjoy it that much more.

_ Erica

For hilarious puppet and cartoon animation parodies , Dark Comedy humor , satires and funny stupid videos for adults
( and other cool stuff )
visit The Official Erica Crooks Websites :








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