The legal distinction between satire and parody is getting a lot of play lately in regards to two upcoming cases.
What I actually wanted to discuss, though, are the features of successful satire (in the colloquial sense of the word; I’m not up to speed on the law). Here’s what got me thinking: Where Are You Now, When We Need You Most, Rage Against The Machine?. This piece appears in The Onion, which automatically means that it’s satire (or parody or something), and yet (at least) the first few paragraphs could easily be totally serious. I don’t know precisely the person who could have written this article, but he’s a totally believable composite of traits that I recognize from my everyday experience.
In the latter parts of the piece the writer veers off into the obviously absurd. But what if he hadn’t? Would that be satire? (Would that be successful satire?) I guess that’s not a hard question — it would be successful satire, possibly funnier than the actual Onion article. But I think it would succeed in part because it got a push from being on The Onion — it’s brilliantly executed satire, but it doesn’t need satire’s usual textual clues because it’s in a venue where everything is satire. In another context, it might not be funny at all.
Is this funny?