female host: This brings us to a new segment we call 'Prove We're not in Hell'. And away we go. Frank, with over a hundred thousand COVID deaths and historic civil unrest, prove we're not in Hell.Frank Rich: I don't see too many silver linings, except, I hope, the election?male host 2: Sure, but the election could be a trick of the Devil, Beelzebub, Thine Who Possesses the Thorny <bleep>.Rich: No, it is a Devil's trick, and who knows what form it's even going to take or how it's going to be enforced if the results go against the incumbent.male host 1: Well, you heard it from New York Magazine's Frank Rich, we are in Hell and if Biden is elected it's a trick of the Devil.male host 2: Great job, Frank.Rich: Thanks.
If we're not in Hell now, maybe we're on a sluggish, nervous descent. Also, what is up with the President's lips at the top of the ramp? Is that real video or are those cartoon lips?
In terms of mixing satire and news, and making news consumable, by now several distinct forms have developed, some more satirical, some less, some indeterminate. There should be a field guide; it would be more useful than the meager labelling attempts by Facebook and Twitter. With cartoon news, there is at least a visual signal between the two types of content. Else, it is increasingly impossible to distinguish between satirical and real – even for real journalists. The President blurs this further every time he calls out the fake news; it's about the only time you can be sure the news is real.
- satirists satirically reporting satirical news (like The Onion)
- satirists satirically reporting real news (like SNL's Weekend Update)
- satirists not-so-satirically reporting real news (like The Daily Show)
- journalists not-so-satirically reporting satirical news (like Fox News)
Quite a few stark examples come to mind, and have strangely re-appeared on my YouTube feed (the thirty-year old clip from John Cleese was tweeted by Cleese himself earlier just a few days ago):
Or, maybe we are in Hell and just don't know. That is the conceit of the TV show The Good Place. How do we prove it? Well, spoiler alert, 'The Good Place' is really the 'The Bad Place'. The four main characters on the show are told they are in 'The Good Place', then set against each other to create a cycle of non-stop, interpersonal torture. After all, Dante writes that Treachery is the deepest circle of Hell, lower than Wrath or Violence. The worst offense is betrayal, and the worst offenders are those who betray their values (their Lords), such as Judas or Satan.
If we aren't in 'The Good Place', or if it is a fiction, what we need, and perhaps what most people deserve, is The Medium Place. Monty Python cast member John Cleese, for example, left the UK in 2018 and is in self-exile on the island of Nevis. In many ways, for us, Portugal is The Medium Place.
So what about the media? how do we inform ourselves? Even our go-to, the PBS Newshour, a longer-format daily broadcast, tends to play both sides in search of 'balance'. About the deepest, most honest, and real view of current events seems to come from a satirist – Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. However, unlike other satirists, Oliver doesn't present the news as a series of quick punchlines, rather he dives into one topic each week and truly explores the issues and the players involved in that topic. It's satire that's closer to investigative journalism than most TV news shows.
Well, in addition to a man-baby President, over a hundred thousand US COVID-19 deaths, historic civil unrest due to racial injustice, global economic collapse, the ongoing climate disaster, more police shootings, we now hear: three Indian soldiers killed in clashes on the border with China and North Korea blows up liaison office used for talks with South. Prove we're not in hell.
cases: 8,148,164 global • 2,183,598 USA • 37,336 Portugal
deaths: 439,835 global • 118,339 USA • 1,512 Portugal
UPDATE: This is what's happening over at the Voice of America.
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