Karl Rove must be having a bad week. Not because of the Valerie Plame scandal, the allegations of ethically unsound behavior or even the danger to his job. No, I'm sure the real cause of Karl's sleepless nights is the debate about one of the nicknames our diminutive-bestowing president had given him. Not the flattering "Boy Genius," but the more graphic "Turd Blossom." Everyone else in the administration got cool names, since Condi is "Guru," Cheney is "Big Time" and Andy Card is the dangerous "Tangent Man." Even some dirty liberals have acquired cool monikers, like Barney "Saber Tooth" Frank and Maureen "The Cobra" Dowd. Apparently the only appropriately amusing nickname our president could devise for Ol' Karl involved potty humor.
But there is some relief for Rove -- he's not the only one suffering because of his scatologically-inspired title. The veteran cartoonist Gary Trudeau saw about a dozen newspapers pull his July 26, 2005 and July 27, 2005 "Doonesbury" strips because he referred to Rove by his unfortunate nickname. The editors who made the decision to censor the syndicated column, either by blacking out the words or pulling the column all together, justified their decision by saying that the term was too profane and not recognizable enough to be publishable. With all due respect to these editors, that's one of the dumbest things I've heard since Sponge Bob was accused of being gay. Political cartoons are supposed to be funny in a way that reflects the prevalent humor of the time. As the subtlety has left political mockery and American comedy in general, broad, vulgar attempts at making us laugh have become the norm, both in the country at large and here at Dartmouth. There are no more "Modest Proposals" in the world of political humor, where the idea of modesty has become hopelessly outdated and satire has become unrecognizable.
Gary Trudeau is certainly not the only political satirist to employ vulgarities in his humor. Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" always uses profanities to its advantage, while Sasha Baron Cohen's Ali G character is a walking FCC violation. And let's not forget the South Park boys, conservative as they may be. But the problem with all these programs is that in the need to make the audience laugh, subtlety is lost and the joke is often taken too far. It's a fine line between subtly satiric and obviously unfunny, and American humor quite often crosses the line.
Dartmouth humorists are not innocent of the descent into vulgarity. A certain comic strip, printed in The Dartmouth, noted for its lack of artistic brilliance, inspired a loyal following and an equally vehement opposition because of its use of explicit language and call-outs that would put a fraternity brother to shame.
A recent battle of opinion writers in The Dartmouth stretched the boundaries of publishable innuendo. Sophomore Brent Clayton's op-ed ("Why No One Rages Anymore," July 12) calling for Dartmouth men to abandon their salads for shovels and their polos for flannel had moments of Swiftian satirical brilliance, although there were also blatantly unfunny attempts at getting people to laugh during their post-hangover omelets. Sophomore Michael Amico's response ("In Support of manly Men," July 14), however, took the latent homoeroticism inherent in the idea of male bonding and made it explicit. While his article was also funny, it was amusing in a way that prompted slight discomfort at the frankness of his approach, as well as a slight wonderment that The D actually printed some of it.
One cause, or perhaps side effect, of this decline of satire is the public's inability to recognize it. The Dartmouth Review, our campus's notorious conservative rag and purveyor of Indian apparel, has received a number of complaints over sophomore J. Stethers White's long review of a 1485 witch-hunting manual, "Malleus Maleficarum (The Witchhammer)" by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger. The article has prompted outrage in the Wiccan community, shown by the furor on the Wiccan website "Wren's Nest," and the Review's blog, the Dartlog. The people of the various neo-pagan movements have objected to White's serious tone and the apparent weight he gives to the need to eliminate witches. However, it is clear early in the article that White does not take the book seriously and that his factual tone is a joke. I'm not sure how one could take seriously a statement such as "both Incubi and Succubi refuse to commit vices against nature; this includes not merely sodomy, but 'any other sin whereby the act is wrongfully performed outside the rightful channel, which they think it shameful to commit.' Indeed, it seems they have higher standards than most college students." But perhaps it is White's lack of vulgarity that makes people miss the humorous aspect of his article. If so, it is a sad comment on the state of the American sense of humor.
Instead, we need to revise our definition of parody to place less emphasis on the vulgar and more on the edgy and intelligent. As both Trudeau and "Turd Blossom" himself could tell you, there's no humor in manipulating and controlling the content of a free press.
