A few words on satire (and those who don't get it) from an
interview by The AV Club with one of the very best satirists of our times, the great Tom Lehrer:
Quote:
O: How did you deal with people who can't process satire? For example, you did "National Brotherhood Week," which has the line, "Everybody hates the Jews."
Tom Lehrer: Yeah, there were a few remarks about that, but I think most people understood what the song was about. There are people... I mean, there's a recent case in Amherst, Massachusetts, where they canceled a performance of West Side Story in the high school because they thought it was offensive to Puerto Ricans or something, missing the point of the whole show. Or they ban Huckleberry Finn because it has the word "n i g g e r" in it. That's just silly. But what can you do? Except kill those people. People like that should be put to sleep.
|
To clarify, I'm not suggesting that people who don't like AVN's piece should be put to sleep; but, if they still want a fictional character to be fired after having satire explained to them, we should probably at least fasten a bib around their necks and feed them from a sippy cup. ;-)