I’ve realized lately that the best way to express a controversial opinion is not an outright attack. It seems every time someone in the media lets a little too much of their own views leek out into a report, the wolves come a running. Take MSNBC’s David Shuster for instance. He recently made a bit of a flippant remark on air about former first daughter Chelsea Clinton and has now been forced to apologize to everyone. Not smart Davey.

The Solution

So how does one really get a point across without making people throw tomatoes at the TV or worse *gasp* turn it off. The answer is simple: Satire, my good man. It doesn’t always have to be the tongue in cheek obvious stuff we find in “The Simpsons”. It can be dark, angry, and out to get someone.

For example-did anyone see “V-For Vendetta”? Not many people, according to luke warm reviews and low box office receipts. But that little flic got it right on one account-it had a message to convey and it did it in such an overt way you’d have to have been asleep or drunk or both not to get its anti-fascism and glaringly anti-Bush message. C’mon-a chubby balding bad guy named Creedy? Please tell me other people immediately thought Cheney when they saw that guy.

This type of political jib-jabbing isn’t a new thing. Charlie Chaplin came out with a movie in 1936 called “Modern Times” which showed him as unknowing revolutionary in a capitalistic factory society. The opening sequence shows the laborers shuffling into work and then cunningly cuts to a scene of sheep being herded into a pen. Coincidence? Not a chance. Chaplin was thought to be a communist sympathizer and its hard to argue with speculation when he’s trying to bring down the giants of capitalism through clever movie moments.

So Who Cares?

So what’s the point of all this? There’s not much of one really. Just that maybe some of the big-wigs in media should take a lesson from movie history and try pulling more wool over our eyes through satire and leave the direct hits to the Dixie Chicks and Don Imus. Then we could at least categorize their pontification in a group with some of the best writers, instead of with the worst of our times….television writers. ( I smell a strike coming on.)

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 8:50 am and is filed under Jibberish. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.