Pop culture needs the presence of satire more than ever

From the caustic poetry of the Roman luminary Horace to the faux conservative punditry of Stephen Colbert, the purpose of satire has always been to speak truth to power, to expose the evils of extremism, sectarianism, corruption, hypocrisy and ignorance by holding them up for merciless ridicule. To borrow a phrase from humorist Finley Peter Dunne’s definition of good journalism, the best examples of satire are meant to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

In a perfect world, the right to offend and the right to be offended would be exercised peacefully, balanced forever in a state of reluctant harmony, but the horrific events of the past few weeks have demonstrated just how far we are from achieving a state of reasonable discourse when it comes to satire in popular entertainment, specifically as it relates to politics and religion. The right to express oneself without fear of persecution has always been a universal desire, but it deserves to become a universal right.

The Sony hacking scandal and last Wednesday’s senseless attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo over the publishing of a caricature of the prophet Muhammad have one thing in common: both actions were perpetrated by tantrum-prone fanatics who despise anything that goes beyond their immediate understanding and control.

While attempting to block the release of The Interview — a better-than-average Seth Rogen comedy with purple haze delusions of sociopolitical relevance — using an arsenal of leaked emails and grammatically challenged terror threats pales in comparison to the lives lost during the Paris tragedy, both events serve as sobering reminders of the necessity of protecting free speech, even when said speech mainly revolves around pot and penis jokes.

As the “Je suis Charlie” phenomenon picked up steam around the world, many online commentators were quick to point out the publication’s reputation for producing cartoons that could be considered racist, misogynistic, homophobic and insensitive to nearly every major world religion. Taken as a whole, however, these claims combine to form a picture that looks suspiciously similar to the textbook definition of “equal opportunity offender.”

Much of the invective currently being hurled at Charlie Hebdo could be applied to any given episode of South Park, a series that weathered its own Muhammad-centric controversy back in 2010 when an episode featuring the prophet in a bear suit aired once and was subsequently pulled from reruns after Comedy Central received veiled threats from an online militant group known as Revolution Muslim. South Park also manages the unlikely feat of being arguably the most moral show on television week after week by pairing incisive yet evenhanded social commentary with proudly lowbrow, often scatological humor.

Should the editors of Charlie Hebdo be condemned simply because they don’t possess the razor-sharp vulgarian sensibilities of South Park co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone? After all, the advocacy of unpopular ideas, including graceless and purposely provocative satire, is a central tent of free speech. In the end, I suppose it all comes down to that old quote from Voltaire’s biographer Evelyn Beatrice Hall, which is often misattributed to the old satirist himself: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

The Interview, meanwhile, might have failed as an attempt at Dr. Strangelove-style political lampooning, but it certainly did an effective job of skewering the entertainment news industry personified by Dave Skylark (James Franco), the vacuous talk show host whose deep-seated insecurities and extreme susceptibility to flattery lead him to strike up an ill-fated bromance with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, played by the scene-stealing Randall Park as a petulant yet oddly adorable man-child.

This unflattering portrait of the media was reciprocated by the spotty real-life coverage of the Sony hack, where numerous news outlets made it appear as if the studio itself had been solely responsible for pulling the plug on the movie’s theatrical release, ignoring the fact that all five major theater chains had already declined to screen the $44 million film prior to the decision.

No matter the form or quality, satire needs to be jealously safeguarded, oftentimes by the very establishment it mocks. The benefit of good satire goes far beyond laughing at those in power. At its finest, it can disarm those who would seek to use fear as a weapon. The greatest works of satire aren’t basely cynical; they’re actually trying to urge society forward by calling attention to important issues. Charlie Chaplin wasn’t just getting even with Adolf Hitler for copying his toothbrush mustache when he made his 1940 sound-era masterpiece The Great Dictator. The movie, a send-up of fascism in all its mechanized, goose-stepping pomposity, was Chaplin’s way of exhorting the U.S. to confront the threat of Nazism before it swallowed all of Europe. That’s the true function of satire: to ring out a warning before it’s too late to do anything but die laughing.