(05-14-2020, 07:35 AM)robkelk Wrote: Exactly my point. You know he didn't run in 2016, and I know he didn't run in 2016, but does the Nicknamer-in-Chief know who ran against him? His behaviour in public makes that a serious question.
Post-2016 political satire has to be completely over-the-top or is otherwise unrecognizable as satire. It's why I've mostly stopped doing it, despite the many man-months I spent on satire in college -- it just isn't funny any more. Back then I thought it was funny to pair together quotes from George W. Bush like "I want to be a peace president," with "I'm a war president." But even that isn't funny any more, because Trump will go out and contradict himself in the same speech, possibly within the same thirty seconds, or whatever passes for a sentence these days.
You can see Ms. Petri knows how to do it. It's not subtle jabs, taking the argument to its absurd end. No, the arguments of the powerful are absurd from the start; that form of subtle satire is dead. Instead, we get the screwball comic, Abbott and Costello collapsed into one persuasive argument, because it sates all desires and fulfills none of them at once. Comedy that lets us feel rage and fear and horror, like a sad clown. Or even more, like a sexy anime Pennywise-chan, giving us a good laugh as the townfolk succumb to their fears, one last joke before it consumes us.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto