GABE DURHAM
Staff Writer
I stumbled across the news Web site “The Onion” last week, and the top story was “Trick or Treaters to Be Subject to Random Bag Searches.”
I said to myself, “It’s about time. The streets should be as safe as an airport. After all, children are the future.”
But it turns out that, when you peel this onion, what you find are satirical messages that imitate a real news Web site. And it stinks.
Entertainers have had a long, annoying history of saying the opposite of what they mean.
I had to read an essay by Jonathan Swift for school one time, and I was there with Johnny all the way through “A Modest Proposal.”
In the essay, Swift makes some striking points about how we should solve the hunger crisis by eating our children. At first I wasn’t sure that I agreed with him, seeing as how children are the future and all, but, by the end of the essay, I was convinced that Swift’s proposal wasn’t just an option — it was a necessity.
Then some loves-math-so-much-why-doesn’t-he-marry-it, glasses-wearing nerd told me that Swift’s essay wasn’t serious.
“Well, thanks for nothing,” I thought. “Now do us a favor and come up with an actual solution to this hunger plight we’re all in.”
And don’t get me started on allegory.
I loved “Animal Farm” — animal uprisings and pigs that learn to walk on two legs. It was funny, like that Mel Gibson movie, “Chicken Run.”
Then I read the afterward, which was all about Josef Stalin. I’m pretty sure J-Stal was not mentioned once in the book, so I’m a little confused as to how it’s about him. Give me a break, George Or-not-so-well.
Yet Swift’s insightful essay and Orwell’s delightful book were so good outside the realm of satire that I devised a theory: Nine times out of 10, people don’t actually intend to write satire. They are just so scathingly honest that their contemporaries don’t know to take them seriously.
Once Swift was applauded not for his sound advice but for his dry wit, he just went with it.
“Oh, it was funny?” Swift said. “Good, good — yes, of course it was satire.”
Because, ultimately, we all just want to be liked.
A few weeks ago, a bull-taunting, glasses-wearing matador said,
“Gabe, I liked the column when you pretended that you were running for Supreme Court justice, seeing as how everybody knows that justices are appointed by the president, not elected.”
First, I was excited that someone besides the Graphic staffers who edit out my profanity had read the column.
Then, when I realized what he had said, I felt like a grade-A, first-rate fool.
I promptly thanked him for appreciating my razor-sharp wit. And to think that some people thought I was serious.
I immediately ripped down my campaign posters all over school and sobbed in my room for a week.
But if you’re reading this, Mr. President, I understand that there may still be an opening for Supreme Court justice, and I’d be very happy to conform my political views to yours if you choose to appoint me. Seriously.
11-10-2005
