Sometimes, imitation is the highest form of flattery. Other times, it's just lame.
Slog (as well as many other news outlets) reports that Fox News is looking to launch their own news satire show, along the lines of the Daily Show, to lampoon "the sacred cows of the left" that they feel get a pass from existing satirical news outlets. This won't work, and not because there are no funny Republicans; there's something more generic wrong with it.
There's a long history of Republicans attempting to create their own, conservatively-slanted versions of products that express views they disagree with. Michael Moore Hates America, for example, was a direct response to the popularity of Bowling for Columbine. Unlike Bowling for Columbine, hardly anyone saw it; other than video sales and some screenings arranged for right-wing groups, it mostly sank without a trace. Perhaps even more absurdly, the Wood Flooring Manufacturers Association produced a book called Truax, complete with school lesson plans, to counter the anti-logging message of Dr. Seuss's The Lorax. You probably haven't heard of that one either.
The lesson here is that taking something cool and popular and trying to clone it, but with a different political slant, rarely works. It's calculated, for one thing, and calculation is the enemy of cool. (While the political right is most often guilty of this, it's worth noting that the left's attempt to clone right-wing talk radio, Air America, has not exactly been a resounding success either.)
There's something else wrong with a right-wing news satire show, though. The whole concept of right-wing satire borders on the grotesque, as anyone who has listened to Rush Limbaugh ridicule homeless people will attest. To quote Molly Ivins, "...satire can be quite a cruel weapon. It has historically been the weapon of powerless people aimed at the powerful. When you use satire as a weapon against powerless people, it is not only cruel, it is profoundly vulgar." While the Republicans' political influence is currently waning, they still represent powerful people -- corporations and the wealthy. They endorse policies that generally hurt the most vulnerable Americans. To then turn around and mock those people isn't funny, it's simply cruel.
There's a long history of Republicans attempting to create their own, conservatively-slanted versions of products that express views they disagree with. Michael Moore Hates America, for example, was a direct response to the popularity of Bowling for Columbine. Unlike Bowling for Columbine, hardly anyone saw it; other than video sales and some screenings arranged for right-wing groups, it mostly sank without a trace. Perhaps even more absurdly, the Wood Flooring Manufacturers Association produced a book called Truax, complete with school lesson plans, to counter the anti-logging message of Dr. Seuss's The Lorax. You probably haven't heard of that one either.
The lesson here is that taking something cool and popular and trying to clone it, but with a different political slant, rarely works. It's calculated, for one thing, and calculation is the enemy of cool. (While the political right is most often guilty of this, it's worth noting that the left's attempt to clone right-wing talk radio, Air America, has not exactly been a resounding success either.)
There's something else wrong with a right-wing news satire show, though. The whole concept of right-wing satire borders on the grotesque, as anyone who has listened to Rush Limbaugh ridicule homeless people will attest. To quote Molly Ivins, "...satire can be quite a cruel weapon. It has historically been the weapon of powerless people aimed at the powerful. When you use satire as a weapon against powerless people, it is not only cruel, it is profoundly vulgar." While the Republicans' political influence is currently waning, they still represent powerful people -- corporations and the wealthy. They endorse policies that generally hurt the most vulnerable Americans. To then turn around and mock those people isn't funny, it's simply cruel.
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