We have now reached a Post-Satire state in the United States.
Throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s... quite frankly an absolute fantastic time for comedy in the U.S... the comedians, writers, and shows throughout this period saw the kinds of attitudes and mores that their parents and grandparents still clung to. And they use Satire to make fun of those attitudes. What is Satire? It is taking the thing you are making fun of and blowing it up so far beyond its state in order to make obvious to people just how ridiculous and stupid that attitude, that more, or that thing is. So for instance... you could satirize just how ridiculous is it that the "Washington Redskins" name is still a thing by making a whole bunch of other potential pro football team names that also have obviously racist connotations.
The whole point of it is to make clear the idea that since the overblown and satirical comedic premise is ridiculous and is not good... the thing being satirized is also ridiculous and not good. And hopefully the people who see and hear the satire understand the joke and make the connection and hopefully have their minds changed just a little bit.
But here's the thing about satire... the concept is done by taking something not good and then making an EXCEEDINGLY NOT GOOD version of it to highlight how not good it is. To satirize racism, the comedian makes ABSURD racism. To satirize misogyny, the comedian makes ABSURD misogyny. To satirize homophobia, the comedian makes ABSURD homophobia.
But the problem with this idea is rather obvious. To make fun of racism, you have to be racist in voice. To make fun of homophobia, you have to be homophobic in voice. Now of course, the assumption and the handshake agreement between comedian and audience is that the audience accepts the comedian is NOT what they are making fun of. That's the whole point. But right now in America... our young people have seen the result of the comedy of the 70s, 80s, and 90s (and a lot of the 00s too) and have come to the conclusion that the satire hasn't worked well enough.
While People of Color, Women, the LGBTQIA, the elderly, the Differently-Abled etc. have all seen strides made in the past 40 years to make things better for them... there are still countless people who don't give a rat's ass about any of them. Racism, misogyny, homophobia etc. etc. are all still very much a thing. So what our young people have decided to now say is that because satire hasn't done it's job well enough... STOP USING IT. Stop using racism to make of racism. Stop using misogyny to make of misogyny. Stop using homophobia to make of homophobia. Because what is happening is that not only are there hundreds of thousands of people who haven't had their minds changed... they see it as allowing for open season to use it themselves in a non-satirical way.
Our young people are saying "Hey, you know all that blackface you comedians were using over the past few decades to show everyone how bad blackface and racism was supposed to be? It hasn't worked. We still have massive amounts of racism, as well as quite a number of people using blackface non-satirically! So how about we just stop using it altogether, huh? How about we stop using satirical blackface to make fun of people who are racist or would use blackface? Since the satire didn't do it's job, how about we just STOP BEING RACIST ALTOGETHER, huh? Why don't we give that a try for once and see if people get it?"
Which is an interesting idea. Can you make fun of all these things without actually using the thing you're making fun of? It certainly ain't going to be easy... and we have a whole crapton of older comedians-- from Jerry Seinfeld, to Chris Rock, to Bill Maher, etc., all of whom are still in the 70s, 80s, 90s mode of "if it's funny, it's funny... even if it's politically incorrect" and are less inclined to go along with it. But they are all finding themselves on the outside looking in. The young people of America want their comedy to be different than what their parents enjoyed and are using their financial place in the country to influence it. And we are currently seeing the results of that throughout Hollywood.
