ManicDDaily

Tea Pot and UFOs

I freely confess that I’m not a Family Guy kind of gal.  I just don’t care for crass.

Even my beloved Robert Pattinson has really turned me off lately with his gross and negative remarks concerning female private parts.   (Better watch out for your constituency, Rob.  You haven’t exactly shown yourself to be Laurence Olivier, after all.)

Because of my dislike of crudity, I haven’t watched the Family Guy clip of the Down’s Syndrome character whose mother is the Governor of Alaska.  I  just wish it hadn’t been aired.   Mainly because I personally think it is wrong and offensive to make jokes at the expense of little children with disabilities.

Secondly (and I’m sorry if I’m being crass here myself), it feeds Palin’s mantle of media martyrdom, consequently diminishing the impact of jokes and criticism justifiably aimed at instances of her hypocrisy and untruth  (that is, meaningful satire.)

How to distinguish between mindless stupid crass jokes and meaningful satire?  I feel a little bit like Stephen Colbert here, who recently tried to use Palin’s calculus for acceptable uses of the word “retard”, distinguishing between what Palin called Rush Limbaugh’s acceptable use of the word as “satire”, and Rahm Emanuel’s unacceptable use (to characterize certain Democrats) .

(Yes, even as I write that, I’m conscious that I’m jumping onto the whole “making fun of Sarah Palin” boat.)

But here’s one of the problems with jumping on to that boat.  There are a lot of frustrated, fearful, angry people in this country who feel that Palin speaks to and for them.

Some of these people, the Tea Partyers, are relatively easy to mock.  They tend not to be “hip”;   they sometimes seem ignorant; some of their views (seccession!) seem pretty outlandish.

I especially cannot understand these people’s take on Obama.  (Some of them view him not only as  a non-U.S. citizen, but terrorist witch doctor).   The people who espouse such views  seem to me like the kind of people who believe in UFOs.  (Particularly UFOs sent into space by the Federal Government.)

But these people are not truly crazy;  they drive cars, hold jobs, pay taxes (reluctantly), raise children, take care of the elderly, work.    But they feel that they/we are in terrible trouble, and they act like people both steaming mad and desperately seeking a cure.  (They make me think of those books that advocate eating nothing but garlic or watermelon.)    The cure they want is to go back to a past that never actually was; to a simplicity that never was.

Making stupid jokes at their expense, sneering at them (and at Palin), is not a good way to quell fears,  ease resentments.

While Obama can be professorial, he is also extremely good at explaining complicated issues in simple, but not reductive, ways.    He needs to use that skill more to remind Americans of how the country arrived at this economic downturn, of why the banking system was saved, of how the Republicans in Congress (and in the White House) both contributed to the current crisis and are now blocking its repair.   He needs to keep it simple, make it direct.

And while hypocrisy may deserve satire, Obama (and his supporters) should avoid the side of the sneer.