In his 2007 HBO stand-up showcase, Bill Maher: The Decider, after greeting the Boston crowd, Maher begins with a critique of President George W. Bush. Only 50 seconds later, he comes to this nugget:
The country has fuck-up fatigue. [Laughter] Which is what happens when the guy [George W. Bush] fucks up so much that when he fucks up again, people go [Resignedly] “Well, what do you expect. [Laughter] He’s a fuck-up.” And that’s fucked up! [Laughter]
He has now convinced himself that history will be kind to him. [Sarcastically] It’s just US, in the PRESENT who don’t get it. [Laughing to himself]. He’s the Van Gogh of Presidents, you know, not appreciated in THIS lifetime but…
I swear to god a couple of weeks ago he was defending his legacy and he said [in imitation of George W. Bush], “They’re still debating our first President.” No they’re not. Who’s debating whether George Washington was a good President? He’s on the one. [Laughter] He’s on Mount Rushmore. [Laughing himself] They named the capitol after him – I think the jury is in on this guy. I do. [Laughter and applause]
[I’ll use this example for the next couple of days, as it is good for making a couple of key points.] This is clearly an attempt at satire, defined as a directed effort to correct, censure or ridicule, to bring about contempt or derision and therefore to enforce the status quo (Cuddon; Gring-Pemble and Watson; Morner and Rausch).
Moreover, as Brian Raftery of Wired.com (11/11/2016) states,
The most effective political satire doesn’t merely affirm our viewpoints; instead, it digs into *why* we feel the way we do, and lets it loose our frustrations at a volume we’re either too cowed or confused to muster on our own.
Satire is thus marked by a teleological (or end) goal that its cousins, irony and parody, may lack–it’s supposed to enforce the status quo. Because satire has a goal other than humor, it is considered the most politically active of the humorous forms. Because of its connection to ridicule, contempt and derision, it is intimately linked to theories of superiority, especially in its classic, system maintenance function.
Maher is pretty clear in his conviction that the President doesn’t just make mistakes, but is characterized by making mistakes; that he is less competent than we, the audience, should expect him to be. Maher is also clear in indicating that this assessment is not blinded by proximity; it’s not that we are just too close to the historical moment to appreciate W. Further, it’s not that all presidents are controversial figures, debated for all time. The jury is in on George Washington, and it may also be in on George W.
Taken together, these humorous arguments seem to ridicule Bush in order to bring about our derision, ultimately aimed at returning us to a state of common sense when choosing our next leader. Maybe it worked and we got Obama.
Litige
However, the urge to determine the exact meaning, as I’ve done above, stem from what Jean-François Lyotard calls rhetoric’s republican roots–as coming from the citizens in the Republic, as opposed to the pagans outside of it. This republican system presupposes that dispute resolution will take place via litigation or litige (“Lessons”). Maurice Charland describes litige as “a dispute where both parties articulate their claims in a language they mutually share with a court or judge whose legitimacy they both recognize,” in which “the decorum of the court is known and respected by both parties, and the judgment imposes closure” (221-22). We have to share a perspective with Maher, and recognize his language as critique.
Other possibilities
However, as Gring-Pemble and Watson point out, humorous satirical texts often include other forms of humor; therefore “getting” (let alone agreeing with) the satire is not necessary to finding humor. Perhaps most notably, we can also read the text ironically.
Satire is sometimes thought to be a subset of verbal irony and sometimes the superior term. The distinction is problematic because one can employ irony for satiric ends, yet this is not the full scope of irony; however, one can also employ satire ironically, that is to say, speak satirically while meaning something different [I’ll have more to say on each of these in the coming days]. Such distinctions between satiric irony and ironic satire at some point become moot to the extent that they are always potentially present and yet never guaranteed uptake by any particular audience.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?
References:
Charland, Maurice. “Property and Propriety: Rhetoric, Justice, and Lyotard’s Différend.” Judgment Calls: Rhetoric, Politics, and Indeterminancy. Ed. John M. Sloop and James P. McDaniel. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1998. 220-36.
Cuddon, J.A. A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. 4th ed. Rev. C.E. Preston. Williston, VT: Blackwell, 1998.
Gring-Pemble, Lisa and Martha Solomon Watson. “The Rhetorical Limits of Satire: An Analysis of James Finn Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 89.2 (2003): 132-53.
Lyotard, Jean François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 1984/2002.
—. The Différend. Trans. George Van Den Abeele. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 1988.
—. “Lessons in Paganism.” The Lyotard Reader. Ed. Andrew Benjamin. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1989/1993. 122-154.
Morner, Kathleen and Ralph Rausch. “Satire.” Dictionary of Literary Terms. Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Company, 1991. 194.
Wilson, Nathan. Was That Supposed to be Funny? A Rhetorical Analysis of Politics, Problems and Contradictions in Contemporary Stand-Up Comedy. Dissertation in partial completion of the Ph.D. August, 2008.
