So I was reading the Mallard Fillmore pit thread. In which there was a certain evitiable implying that the other political side were humourless fucks.
And the very good point made in there somewhere that some perspective on your own poisition was kind of vital for any kind of humour.
Well…it may be because I’m liberal, or because I’m not conservative (and I hope you take the distinction), but it seems to me lberals have a better record of self mockery…
I mean it’s been mostly forgotten but “politcally correct” was coined by left wingers to make fun of other left wingers.
The brilliant “California Uber Alles”, later attached to Reagan, was origianlly aimed at Brown
"Zen fascists will control you
100% natural
The hippies won’t come back you say
Mellow out or you will pay "
Gary Trudeau has lampooned liberal foibles.
Jon Stewart wants Bush out so bad he can taste it, but he still makes the odd Kerry joke, and when did Rush Limbaugh ever make an anti-Bush joke?
What’s the right wing equalivent? And no, making fun of fellow-right wingers for not being right wing enough doesn’t count.
I am asking this question is all sincerity. I’m just putting it in the pit because it’s two months to the election and that’s how things are getting…
I disagree. My impression is that most people who profess to hold strong ideological or religious convictions are generally unable to see any humor at all in their positions; what joking they do tends to be outward-directed mocking of those they deem opponents. While something like Mallard Fillmore, in all its leaden mean-spiritedness, is a perfect example of that attitude, I don’t think it’s necessarily unique to the conservative viewpoint.
Maybe a bit of a hijack, but I’ve spent a lot of time with people from the UK, and one of the cultural differences I’ve always found most notable was that a large number of Americans not only don’t get the point of the British trait of self-mockery, or the notion of “taking the piss” out of someone who is deemed excessively pompous or sanctimonious, they get highly upset and insulted whenever someone does so.
P.J. O’Rourke has always been able to take a dig at himself, and at those who share his political viewpoint. He’s not exactly a Bush-style Republican, leaning as he does toward a more libertarian set of political positions, but he’s still much more closely identified with the Republican side of the fence.
Despite my leftist tendencies, i used to find O’Rourke very funny. His books Republican Party Reptile and Holidays in Hell had some seriously funny essays in them, and Parliament of Whores made me laugh out loud at times. I’ve found, however, that as he’s gotten older, he’s become more conservative and at the same time less funny, although i still sometimes manage a chuckle. YMMV.
It certainly seems to me that liberals have recently begun to produce more humorists who can poke fun at themselves and at liberals in general. Despite the fact that they are quite serious political commentators, Texans Molly Ivins and Jim Hightower also have good senses of humor, and this is sometimes directed at people of their own political persuasions.
For a long time, liberals and leftists had a reputation—quite well-deserved, IMO—for taking themselves a little too seriously. Sure, the issues are important and should be discussed and debated seriously, but i think it’s also good if you can poke a little fun at yourself in the process.
I should note also that, as someone on the left/liberal side of the political fence, i’m perfectly happy to laugh at a good joke aobut liberals, even if it comes from a conservative.
I remember that P.J. O’Rourke, in one of his books, gives the following definition of a liberal: Someone who’s willing to kill an unborn baby, but not a convicted murderer.
Now, from a serious political viewpoint, that statement has major flaws and is a dramatic oversimplification of some crucially important issues. But i still laughed when i read it.
Self-deprecation has always been the southwest bedpost of humor, and political humor has always been tied to it. Even well-known liberal commentators like Mort Sahl, Tom Lehrer, George Carlin and the brothers Smother spent more time lampooning their political compatriots than the opposition. But perhaps there’s more humor in one philosophy than in the other. After all, either you regard every other human being on the planet as an enemy, or you don’t. Strive under one philosophy and you get rich. Labor under the other, and you end up with some funny stories. After a few decades, the difference becomes more and more clear.
The media fell over themselves in denouncing this joke. I was as anti-reagan as anybody - read the rest of the cite - but in this case I thought, jeez guyz, can you spell J-O-K-E? You know, har har, wink wink, nudge nudge, JOKE?!
Oh well, I must be a sick bastard.
I also remember a Saddam Hussein self-joke. And I laughed my ass off at “jackass: the movie”. Nuff said.
I’ve got a Quicktime video of “Clinton’s Final Days,” a White-House-produced movie for Bill’s last Washington press Corps dinner. In a nutshell, it’s Bill Clinton putzing around the White House, bored silly for something to do before he has to leave office. He ends up doing trivial stuff like washing the car, having an aide teach him how to send e-mail, folding paper ducks out of memo paper, mowing the lawn, playing Battleship with a four-star general, and watching “101 Dalmatians” with the family dog.
I think the reason there is that it hit a little too close to home-people felt there was a very real possibility that Reagan would trigger a nuclear war. (Damn, can you imagine how HE would have dealt with something like September 11? Now THAT’S scary!)
Dennis Miller used to be funny-but it’s not because he’s now conservative. It’s because he’s an ass kisser.