*I have a close friend who writes satire in Hollywood. I watched SNL the other night and then wrote the following letter to him this morning. I am sharing it here. (Note I deleted names of my friends who are mentioned through-out this letter to protect their privacy.)*
I don’t know if satire is possible except as appropriate wishes from hell. Chris Rock’s comment that he feels sympathy for COVID-19 for being infected by Trump is about the closest we get to *appropriate* humor. Imagine Dick Gregory or Lenny Bruce reacting to Nixon or Lyndon Johnson with any hold on their anger. The only thing to do is to make reality slightly strange because *the surface *of our social reality is itself a satire. My partner pointed out to me that Daniel Denvir has said the following, “It is revealing how mainstream media has failed to convey how happy people are that Trump got COVID.” It is the inability of the ruling classes and their elite servants to deal with social reality that is illustrated by this failure. All parts of our political spectrum are failing to see reality. The examples are numerous and here I am mostly thinking about the liberals who oppose Trump-reality. We commit mass murder and systematic rape through Central America for 85 years then fiddle over how many people should get asylum. We build nuclear weapons to destroy all of humanity and argue about the moral use of military power. We create an overheated world and argue over profit and loss. We act like genocidal maniacs and worry about the health of “our democracy.” We create an imperial presidency and then complain that a president acts like an Emperor. Who do we think we are? We are this! Only inappropriate humor is appropriate in such a social condition. We need to be shocked into hysterical unexpected laughter at what shit-heads we all are. There needs to be self-recognition. I don’t exclude myself here. Every morning I wake up and discovered I misjudged reality. It reminds me of the stupid people around Clinton in 2016 who wanted Trump to win the Republican nomination because he would be the easiest to beat. Well, beware of wishes coming true. It occurs to me that there were many times that Dick Gregory and Lenny Bruce were not funny; just angry and shocking and offering a different angle on reality. Like Lenny Bruce telling his audience that he murdered Jesus. The laughter was nervous because all Christians knew they were implicated in the anti-Semitism of dear St. John. I think liberals need shock treatment. They are as delusional about the historical conjuncture as Q-anon; more so since they are part of the ruling worldview and thus they seem normal. I think your professional work is much needed. What I am asking is the following. Is some combination of Robespierre and Monty Python possible? Can we have satire like a guillotine? Laughter from hell; laughter from the guts that feels like we are vomiting our souls; hysterical laughter that makes us feel like we are losing our heads. Perhaps, only this can shock us into sanity. Jerry P.S. I watched SNL and then read the below article his morning and decided that the critic from the Atlantic Monthly was much too kind. The *Res publica *is besieged by its own Senators and those in its High Councils and our Ruling Classes cannot even protect the absurd and contradictory institutions it has created. So what is appropriate? What kind of humor is appropriate here? https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/10/snl-season-46-premiere-jim-carrey-joe-biden/616609/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#2238): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/2238 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/77317009/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
