Winston Churchill once said, “A joke is a very serious thing”. If you have ever read anything from, Hayibo.com, seen one of Zapiro’s cartoons, or perhaps stumbled onto ZA News.com then you can agree that Churchill was onto something.
Winston Churchill once said, “A joke is a very serious thing”. If you have ever read anything from, Hayibo.com, seen one of Zapiro’s cartoons, or perhaps stumbled onto ZA News.com then you can agree that Churchill was onto something.
After listening to popular satirists Tom Eaton and Khaya Dlanga on the panel of a talk at the Franschhoek Literary Festival entitled 'Holy Cows to Beef Burgers', it occurred to me that in today’s society plainly reporting the news is just not enough.
Journalism has become not only informative but amusing and entertaining as well. And in some cases quite simply ridiculous.
Although fake news may have no factual credibility, the use of humour to show up politicians and mock the leaders of our world makes me wonder 'Why couldn’t I come up with that?'
There is a reason why we like to flip to the cartoon even though the front page is screaming everything that is wrong with the world.
Because when we read the newspaper or watch the news we begin to wonder, is there anything ever genuinely right in the world?
It is much easier to laugh at the politician with the shower head emerging from his head than to listen to a very serious anchorperson telling you how that very same politician is going to ruin your country.
In the United States The daily show is more popular amongst the youth than the real news. I don't know if this is scary or actually liberating.
Unfortunately being a funny person does not guarantee the production of good satire. Just because you think you are funny doesn’t mean the rest of the world will laugh in agreement.
As a satirist you can’t expect your audience to always understand and appreciate your humour; which in effect makes you a target of ridicule and possibly defamation suits.
Everyone has a sense of humour but you could go mad trying to make everyone laugh.
When satire goes wrong, it goes very wrong. It’s sad to say but when you’ve missed the boat on that one there’s no ferry that can catch you up.
David Bullard and Kuli Roberts are probably still throwing themselves a pity party. It’s hard to say the line should be drawn here and not there but as Bullard and Roberts will tell you, a line still has to be drawn somewhere.
A black woman stereotyping coloured people is not funny, it’s racist. So the next time you want to make a joke and write it down, take another look at the colour of your skin before you do so. You might just get sacked for it.
Your success as a satirist depends solely on the audience response. This means that if they don’t like what you write, then they don’t like you.
The talk then left me asking, is something justifiable merely because it has been disguised as humour? When does it stop being funny and start being offensive?
