Still talking about Caty Borum Chattoo, co-director of the Center for Media and Social Impact at American University and a comedy fan’s, May (2017) release “The Laughter Effect: The [Serious] Role of Comedy in Social Change“, in which she summarizes the research and gives advice on how to use humor to further social issues. As previously described, Chattoo creates list of comedy formats that work for social change:
- Satire/Satirical News
- Scripted entertainment storytelling
- Marketing and advertising
- Stand-up and sketch comedy
I’m currently addressing her views on satire. In this installment (the eighth), we’ll discuss the cautionary notes about satirical news: that we’ve set the bar too high, that satirical messages are ambiguous, and that we should pick our battles.
The bar is too high
Young and his colleagues have cautioned that setting the bar for satire’s impact on audiences at learning and persuasion might be too high. I would point out that most bona fide messages don’t meet this criteria, especially when audiences don’t see them, don’t seek them out, and don’t engage with them.
Instead Chattoo summarizes Young and company, saying that “the important effects of cultural connection, raising awareness and adding an element of play into serious social issues might be the more realistic objectives.”
This leads to her first piece of advice, borrowed from Young and his colleagues:
-
Reconceptualize meaningful outcome measures: Possible impacts of satire for social issues should include the positive impact of sharing, play, laughter, creating shared popular culture experiences—instead of overt knowledge gain or behavior change.
Pretty straightforward here; we need to reframe what we expect humor to do, and my whole project sets out to recognize that this is not much different than what any message can do.
Ambiguity
Expectations
“Additionally,” Chattoo notes, “when dealing with issues that have well-established ideological or partisan perspectives, satire may not be effective.” She notes with Lamarre and company that
When information delivered via satire is ambiguous—often the very characteristic that makes satire amusing—individuals respond in ways that correspond with their original attitudes about the issue. This was demonstrated [by Lamarre and colleagues] in the case of Stephen Colbert’s ironic and deadpan style of satire on The Colbert Report: “Because satire is often ambiguous, biased information processing models provide an excellent framework for understanding how audiences see what they want to see in Colbert’s political satire.” In the face of ambiguous messages (i.e., political satire), individuals process or understand the information through a motivation for “political affiliation or self-enhancement.” In other words, people see what they want to see, and believe what they already believe, when they are confused (or, more precisely, when there are no external cues available to help them to interpret a message). Hoping satire can change someone’s mind about a hot-button civic, political or social issue—rather than hoping to engage the individual or place a new issue on a mental agenda—is likely futile.
This develops a point I’ve made in my published work (which BTW predates Lamarre and company *ahem*): Gring-Pemble and Watson wrote about satire’s ambiguity way back in 2003 – particularly when it relies on irony – we don’t need an “information processing model” to see that audiences see what they want to see – just look at the fact that Colbert was invited to speak at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner in 2007 for your evidence of people (Republicans) wrongly thinking they knew what he was about – they saw what they wanted and believed what they already believed, and then were shocked by what transpired.
However, the further point is well-taken: that if the message is at all ambiguous, it will likely not persuade, or even teach. It is more likely to further entrench. However, I would point out that this would seem to require further, “central processing.”
Ironic Satire
Even those who interpreted it as satire directed at the President could have read him as being ironical – in the horatian sense that he didn’t mean a word of it. This ambiguity of message provides for a flexibility of uptake that severely affects the satirist’s ability to have an impact.
Trivialization
This can lead to satire being taken other ways as well: “For example,” she notes with Moyer Guse and his colleagues that “satire—as well as other forms of comedy—can risk inadvertently trivializing the severity of a complex issue.” This again harkens back to the idea of peripheral processing – that they didn’t take the speaker’s satire seriously – but with the added idea that they might conclude that the critique itself is trivial. Gring-Pemble and Watson point out this can easily happen with faint criticism or pseudo-satire; the audience concludes that there is no deeper critique to be made.
This is the problem with the third recommendation, “let comics be comics”: If they’re going for the “funny,” they risk not making the point effectively, or of people missing it, or misconstruing their message based on their expectations.
Pick your battles
Again channeling Young and his colleagues, Chattoo points out that “not all issues or people may be seen by the audience as fair game for satire:”
[Young et al.] To be effective, there needs to be an agreement between the satirist and satire that the satirized is worthy of and appropriate for attack…the audience has the ultimate agency in determining what can and cannot be treated in a humorous or satirical manner.
[Chattoo] And what is ripe for satire is usually—at least as illustrated in case studies—the individuals and institutions with power.
This leads to her final recommendation, borrowed from Young and colleagues:
-
Recognize the Boundaries of Political Satire and Parody: Some topics aren’t seen as fair game for satire, recognized when the person or issue doesn’t seem worthy of satire or is unfairly targeted. Be careful about the tone of the satire—who and what does it poke fun at?
This is the old adage that “Comedy punches up.” Colin Quinn mocks this notion in his 2016 stand-up special, The New York Story,
And when I say Polish, obviously, it’s a bit reductive to the rest of Eastern Europe… and I don’t want to marginalize the rest of Eastern Europe, because that’s punching down, and comedy never punches down, it only punches up. I read that from fifty people that never did comedy, they all said… what? What?
I laughed, and I also understood his mockery and agreed that his point is well taken, though it runs counter to common wisdom. Yes, audiences will put boundaries on what can be satirized, but here’s the kicker: different audiences will place different boundaries. Because satire frequently involves ridicule to maintain the status quo, it most certainly punches down, and frequently. Some audiences will be perfectly fine with that.
However, if the work the humorist is trying to do is progressive, then they will choose to punch up and make systemic problems and their causes the butt of their jokes, not down at victims by making them the butts of the jokes.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?
References:
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.
LaMarre, H. L., Landreville, K. D., & Beam, M. A., (2009). The irony of satire: Political ideology and the motivation to see what you want to see in The Colbert Report. International Journal of Press/Politics, 14(2), 212-231.
Moyer-Guse, E., Mahood, C., & Brookes, S., (2011). Entertainment education in the context of humor: Effects on safer sex intentions and risk perceptions. Health Communication, 26, 765-744.
Young, D. G., Holbert, R. L., & Jamieson, K. H., (2014). Successful practices for the strategic use of political parody and satire: Lessons from the P6 Symposium and the 2012 election campaign. American Behavioral Scientist, 58(9), 1111-1130.
