Laughter truly can be the best medicine. The feel-good high of pure diaphragm spasms and the feeling of joy can lighten even the blackest of moods. At the same time, laughter, or the attempt to induce it, can be the most virulent of poisons. Thus is the complexity of satire and its high capacity for failure. When satire fails, it is either greeted with a confused, sheepish look, or a chorus of wronged and outraged voices. The power of satire is akin to the power of the nuclear bomb, powerful and utterly effective when used correctly, but a terrible and irreversible force when it fails. Some would also compare satire to diarrhea, in that some idiots just can’t hold it in.
Take, for instance, Gilbert Gottfried, aka the Aflac Duck Guy. Good old Gil was a modest, if outlandish, comedian who made the career-crippling mistake of a lifetime when, in a recent thread of Twitter posts, Gilbert shared with the rest of us lunatics just how a beautiful mind works:
Mar. 12, 11:24 AM: “I just split up with my girlfriend, but as the Japanese say: There’ll be another one floating by any minute now.”
Mar. 13, 6:29 am: “The Japanese are so advanced, they don’t go to the beach; they bring the beach to them.”
That’s classy stuff, Gil; very classy indeed. The resulting outrage got Gilbert fired from Aflac and ridiculed by the press, but this is by no means his first red-flag rodeo: on the 29th of September, 2010, the Mighty Aflac Duck posted the following comment only hours after the death of fellow comedian and roast mate Greg Giraldo: “If Greg Giraldo is cremated, would that be the ‘Greg Giraldo Roast?’”
Mr. Gottfried is an important exemplar of satirical failure*, as his blatant comments were, in some people’s opinions, just too soon for a good laugh.
Another famous example of a satirical sucker-punch came from an all-star among comedians, Lenny Bruce. Less than a week after John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Lenny exclaimed to a studio audience: “Vaughn Meader is screwed!!”
The audience of the time caught on immediately, familiar with Meader's work as a professional Kennedy impersonator. The outrage from this comment hit Lenny’s popularity like a freight train, but paled in comparison to his later comments that led to an obscenity trial. While these were truly high-class remarks Brucey-boy made, I regret to not be able to include them here for the sake of more tender eyes. The satire in his statements were truly creative, but wound up being of a destructive nature.
Some forms of satire fall flat not because they are offensive, but because they fly straight over the heads of the audience. This kind of reaction is usually the result of material that is too outdated, outlandish, or just plain unknown. When an inside joke is made, people feel left out or confused. The result is an anti-comedy that creates echoes of a blind man and a deaf man attempting to communicate through their own methods: nothing is lost in translation, as that would imply anything is translated at all.
In conclusion, laughter is the best medicine, and satire can serve as a powerful supplement to clear away those political woes. But when the meds have unwanted side effects, or the tonic expires, the only comedy that results is a comedy of errors that just…falls…flat.
*Author's Note: However, his recent offerings in response to 'Fifty Shades of Grey' were simply glorious, and to that I say 'Bravo, Gil, bravo.'
