A defence of political comedy has to be honest about its limits, or it is just advertising.
So here is the case against, made properly, before the case for.
It Does Not Change Minds
This is the big one and it is largely true. Satire is consumed almost entirely by people who already agree with it.
Nobody has ever encountered a joke about a politician they support and reconsidered their position. The joke reads as unfair rather than illuminating, which is exactly how we all react to mockery of things we like.
Anyone claiming satire as a tool of persuasion is overselling considerably.
It Can Substitute For Doing Something
The more uncomfortable objection. Laughing at a problem produces a genuine feeling of having responded to it.
That feeling is not accompanied by any actual response. There is a real risk that a well-served appetite for political comedy reduces the pressure that might otherwise have gone somewhere useful.
Satire is not activism and should stop being described as though it were.
It Can Make Things Familiar
The subtlest problem. Repeated mockery of something makes it ordinary, and ordinary things are harder to be alarmed by.
That is usually the intention, and it cuts both ways. Something genuinely alarming, joked about weekly for years, becomes background noise. The deflation that helps against pomposity works equally well against appropriate concern.
So What Is It Actually For
Two things, and both are real.
The first is that it makes the powerful ordinary. Not persuasive, not mobilising ~ simply a reminder that these are people rather than institutions, and people can be wrong, replaced and laughed at.
The second is company. A person who thinks something is ridiculous and hears nobody else say so begins to doubt themselves. Satire's real function is telling people they are not the only one who noticed.
Modest Claims Only
That is a genuine service and a limited one. Satire is not going to fix anything, and it never has.
What it does is refuse to help pretend, which turns out to be worth doing, and is a considerably smaller claim than the genre usually makes for itself.
Written by Orange Liar. Thanks for reading.
