Political Satire

Political satire is the deliberate use of comedy for the purpose of attack with an agenda on the part of the satirist. Northrop Frye characterized satire as militant irony. He identified three necessary ingredients: fantasy (often grotesque), a standpoint based on moral norms, and an object of attack. The term satire is derived from the Latin satura (a dish with many components).

Political satire has been used against all sorts of institutional and personal political power throughout history and is well known from ancient times. The fables of Aesop as well as the Bible include many examples of political satire. Indian poets like Nazir Akbarabadi made people laugh at the realities of their situation. There are countless examples of political satire from all cultures.

Originally printed texts and pictures were the main media for distribution of political satire. Books, pictures, magazines, cartoons, plays, cabarets, and poems are still popular media for satire, but in addition it is now distributed in movies, television and radio shows, websites, e-mails, short message service (SMS), and other electronic forms.

Political satire is a mode of challenging political actors by making them seem ridiculous. It can be done with subtle irony or directly with biting crudity. In most cases it aims to criticize decisions, policies, and views of power holders. Something undesirable about the target is made more visible. The satire can present extreme exaggerations or it can give an understated version, and always with a humorous touch. Satire leaves it to the audience to interpret and understand the underlying meaning. Therefore most political satire is context sensitive. Without knowing the underlying history and the background of the figures presented, it is neither comical nor interesting. Seldom does the political satire include alternatives or proposals about how to do things differently. But satire can have an educational function. The audience may better understand the undesirability of what is targeted in the political satire.

Social movements and political activists use political satire to criticize their opponents with humor. Critiques in a humorous form are more difficult for authorities to suppress and punish. Views not acceptable in other forms are tolerable when presented with a smile. In his periodical Die Fackel (The Torch), Karl Kraus developed political satire as a tool against World War I. He used satire to avoid the military censorship. Kraus played a cat-and-mouse game with them and did his best to present his strong opposition to the war without being caught. He was shocked by the brutal atrocities and especially despised the intellectuals on both sides who glorified and defended the war. He [Page 1135]promoted his consistently pacifist views, and his texts became very popular. After the war he published his gigantic play, The Last Days of Mankind, which is regarded as one of the greatest anti-war manifestos. It is an edited and expanded collection of his political satires from the war.

This issue of The Onion is from early June 2005. Brothers Dave and Jeff Haupt sold the satirical newspaper's Colorado operations in May 2005 for roughly $400,000 to The Onion Inc. after working for a decade to build one of the paper's most profitable editions.

Source: AP Photo/Denver Post, John Leyba.

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