When does Satire/Parody stop being 'funny'?

I know the intent of satire is not be humorous as much as it is to point out the foibles in the subject it is attacking but when does satire stop being 'funny'? I know most people would tell me that I need to be more 'thick-skinned' but still there are limits to what people find funny. I know tropes are tools and like any trope it can be used poorly but when satire stop being 'funny' and starts becoming mean spirited? Or I know Satires aren't supposed to be funny but when does it start to get under you skin?

Well, it's different for individual people. But general trends seem to be like this:

• Ignorance, failure to point out flaws on the subject, or obviously wrong pointing out. Example: "lol big bang everything came from nothing lol so stupid"

• Discrimination, such as racial slurs, gender jokes, "nerds have no life", all that.

• Stereotypes and strawmans

• Attacking topics many people feel strongly about for a good reason, with the intent to ridicule those people. Abuse, suicide, tragic events(though their seriousness dies down with time).

• Unfortunate implications about the joke itself or double standards

In general it's a good idea to look through the works that have been offending people like that, see what they did, and not do that. Just don't look on Tumblr, everything offends Tumblr.

Always punch up.

When your satire falls to the same thing you're making fun of. It's not so much as offensive so much as annoying, and kinda ruins the point.

Family Guy is arguably a satire on just about anything although it offends most people not because it points outs the flaws in some topics but because it does so in condescending manner. It is one of thing to poke fun of a topic, it is another manner entirely to strawman becoming no better than the subject you are supposedly mocking. Satire like most tropes can used incorrectly especially when it can have some glaring flaws that most excused because it is supposed to be that way.

Family Guy IS considered funny for the most part though, despite all the offended screams of the ones it parodies. Unless you're parodying something you're fond of, you're going to offend SOMEBODY, because everyone's thickness is different. Then you gotta ask yourself, do you mind your targets being offended, do you relish in their, for lack of a better word, butthurt, or do you try not to offend anyone?

Trying not to offend anyone, btw, will inevitably fail. There is always that one person who thinks Prism Rangers butchered their childhood. So relax and joke about what you want to joke about but keep in mind the extremes of failed parodies.

edited 22nd Oct '13 3:53:28 PM by Luminosity

Your post makes it sound like they are people who enjoy hurting others for their own amusement. I cannot say that I haven't engaged in this but still when does the satire/parody fail to be such?

Family Guy has lot of problems as a comedy that are unrelated to being offensive.

Also the "You're always going to offend somebody, so I'm not going to consider anyone's feelings" argument is a very weak one.

@GAP Can you give me an example of what you're talking about?

edited 22nd Oct '13 8:39:48 PM by DrStarky

Roger Ebert's essay on Creationism, it was supposed to be how no one on the internet can recognize irony but then he blames the readers for not being able to spot the irony.

To me, it stops being funny when it becomes mean-spirited. Parody should be a loving homage. I feel like satire should have some affection for the target, too. It shouldn't be about just insulting someone. The point should be to push for improvements.

I agree with you on parody but not on satire. I don't think A Modest Proposal had any affection in the point it was trying to get across.

I believe Swift actually wanted to help the poor, but his method backfired, leading to some people seriously considering eating babies. Nevertheless, the absurdity brought attention to the issue at hand, which is what was intended to happen.

The thing to remember about satire is that it usually works best when political opinions are polarised (for example, there were a lot more "satire" comedies on British television when Thatcher was in charge). The humour ultimately comes from mocking someone's opinions and goes hand in hand with making people "think", so it stops being funny when the mockery is unjustified.

Basically; offending someone is the whole point, but if you have a good point (or a bad point enough people agree with) you'll get away with it.

EDIT: A bit of clarification; It stops being funny to a given person when they think the mockery is unjustified.

edited 24th Oct '13 7:51:42 AM by Bisected8

So Satire is only funny when it is a t the given target?So there is not bad satire, only bad writers?

Of course bad satire exists; a bad satire can fail utterly at satirizing its subject, among other things, just like any other form of writing.

No, satire is only satire when it has a target (it's ultimately criticism of something being Played for Laughs). Bad satire fails to make a valid criticism (or fails to convince its audience), usually because it misses the "criticism" angle and just tries to make the subject look bad. For example;

• Spitting Image (and so many other sketch shows): Made fun of politicians by subjecting them to Flanderisation and having them take part in skits. This highlighted their flaws (which might explain why the politicians who took their portrayals well were the ones who did well).
• Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal": Made an absolutely absurd argument on how to answer The Irish Question to mock the patronising and downright stupid solutions other people were coming up with.
• The Colbert Report: Colbert uses a strawman persona to mock politicians' gaffs (typically by taking something stupid they said to its logical extreme).

Bad satire is basically the same as good satire, just with incorrect or no arguments (it's possibly for mockery on its own, mind you. It's just the satire that wouldn't work).

edited 24th Oct '13 6:27:10 PM by Bisected8

Yeah. My feeling is that satire shouldn't just be about tearing someone down. It should be exposing a problem, in order to push for improvements.

I'm thinking of South Park. Specifically, the Manbearpig episode. That episode made me stop watching South Park. I just could not like them any more after that episode. Because that episode wasn't about satire. It was about them not liking Al Gore, and just insulting him. It was incredibly mean-spirited. I'd already felt that too many of their depictions of celebrities were mean-spirited; that episode was just more than I could stand. My own feelings on Gore were beside the point; it just felt like they were letting their dislike for Gore go way too far. (The one thing I did like about that episode was the way he kept saying things were "cereal." That bit was actually hilarious.)

I just couldn't respect South Park after that. And that episode is what I'm talking about when I say satire shouldn't be mean-spirited.

Strawmen are best to avoid, because they can easily overused and become annoying instead of funny. But well, there's a possibility of subverting them, probably to satirize stereotypic thinking.

Or making that even strawman has a point. I thinking to make a parody of Watchmen in one of my comics. But with American politicans in place of the superheros (all of them are strawmen) and Obama in place of Ozmandias ( Obama builds an orbital gun magnet and takes away America's guns, and then introduces a proper gun control law. And this fixes most of the mass shootings in the USA.).

When it portrays the thing they make fun of too realistically. For example there was one Fairly Odd Parents episode called "It's a Wishful Life" in which they pretty much make fun of suicidal and depressed people and encourage suicide satirically. I originally liked it in the beginning for its accurate portrayal of suicidal thoughts, and thought it would be An Aesop. But no, it was a huge Kick the Dog to Timmy. It even triggered me (I was already depressed when I saw it) to attempt suicide. It was meant to be funny, but to me it was Dude, Not Funny!, as it seemed to be pro-suicide. to you, FOP!

...the hell? You were going to commit suicide over that?

It wasn't a great episode but jeez, man...

And this is what i've been saying. There's a particular crowd of people offended by literally everying, so not trying to offend anyone is a sucker's game. You either fail and offend someone, or make something so safe and cowardy it won't feel like a satire of anything at all.

Obviously there are boundaries, and you should examine things that universally failed and not do what they did, but it's paranoid to think about it all the tme.

I suppose there are 'boundaries' that some people should not cross yet are those 'boundaries' different for everyone?

It seems you don't understand how being triggered works. Something that seems silly to you can effect someone else in a certain way.

A trigger is often a reminder of a painful thing in someone who is already vulnerable to it. For example a tv show where it shows the parents saying hurtful things to their kid in an over the top "comedic" manner may not bother one person but to another person who say had verbally abusive parents it might cause them to have a reminder of their parents and go through a whole bunch of negative memories and maybe even cause breakdowns.

Yes, boundaries are different, but there are things that offend the vast majority of their audience. You just need to examine those things and not do what they did.

With a complex issue like this, it's much more productive to just point at things that absolutely failed and go "Not that."

edited 1st Nov '13 4:21:40 AM by Luminosity

I was already depressed... I got triggered seeing it... I told my parents that I was outraged over an offensive FOP episode... They said Timmy did the right thing and sometimes someone's existence is a bad thing... I took it as a personal insult and thought they were hinting at me being useless... And I was already contemplating suicide for a while even before the episode... ok? I had also just started eating three meals a day after quitting a proana site and I hated myself after my BMI went up to 20 from 16.1.