Learning from Satire
In troubled times we look towards greener pastures and funny stories to distract us from the bleakness that we are facing. However, rarely do these stories get analysed with the same depth as other art, mostly in part due to their light-hearted nature. Mister America is a 2019 faux-documentary which openly comments on the idiocracy seen within politics, and remains one of the most understated and underappreciated satires of the 21st century. An on-the-nose warning of political figureheads which captures a microcosm so perfectly, that we must start to wonder why, time after time, we do not learn.
In 2011, comedians Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington created their cinematic universe centred around the format of a film review show titled On Cinema, wherein each actor plays fictionalised versions of themselves: Tim plays a big-headed brute whose every waking thought is self-centred and capitalistic - a far cry from the real Heidecker’s identity. The series focuses on satire, mocking A.I., virtual reality and American stereotypes through a barrage of in-universe shows and films which the characters create. It is meta filmmaking to the highest degree and one that is completely unparalleled to this day, utilising social media, websites and eventually an in-universe documentary to capture the essence of its satirical personality. This documentary follows a disgraced Heidecker, as he campaigns to run as the District Attorney of San Bernardino County, following his acquittal from 19 murder charges - graciously laid out in a near five-hour-long mock trial. The title of said documentary, Mister America.
Directed by Eric Notarnicola, Mister America is a satire in the same vein as 2006’s Borat, following the antics of Heidecker in an unscripted environment. He holds a debate, in which nobody shows up, he orders 500 promotional hats, only to open the box to three. It is a deeply cynical look at the outsider view of certain individuals in politics. His campaign’s only goal is to ‘eliminate 100% of crime in San Bernardino’, hurling abuse at the ‘rats’ who oppose him. Mister America ‘ambles through two overlapped realities (...) and reveals a pathos that makes its dry political comedy accessible beyond an ingrained fanbase’. It is a hilarious approach which constantly begs the question to the viewer: How ridiculous is this? Surely nothing that Tim Heidecker does throughout this blatant satire is remotely feasible for the average man?
2019 was a turbulent year in American politics, with many of the nation’s inhabitants - much like Tim - being exposed endlessly to political ramblings and nonsensical ideas. It was the year that the president was impeached and political tensions rose high as the future was thrust into uncertainty, being directly centralised in the presidential term. As Andy Crump claims ‘America 2019 is a time and a place where facts don't matter, experience is optional, and experts are treated as either elitist or irrelevant’, which is a part of what makes Mister America so irreverent as it openly criticises individuals at the height of their egotistical immunity, without fear of backlash or negativity - directly dealing with the ever-prescient wave of scarily laughable individuals that dictate the world. An apt comparison would be Charlie Chaplin’s defiance in his 1940 film The Great Dictator, wherein Chaplin openly mocked Adolf Hitler, resulting in the picture receiving a ban within Germany and its occupied territories. Objectively, a prime example of a satire which dug deep underneath the skin of its target and made a clear political message received on a worldwide scale.
It is understated how important it is that satire like this exists, it should be used as a way to deter the people of the future from repeating our mistakes. The way that satire, such as Mister America, can build caricatures is an art form in itself. As a genre, it allows audiences to soften the blow of reality and make light appear when it seems almost impossible. It is a truly crucial aspect of comedy as it offers the availability to learn and grow from in a subtle manner. Satire is a medium which has always and will always be relevant, more so than ever in times of political unrest due to its load-bearing essence. The very idea of satire is as old as human history, dating back to the times of the Ancient Egyptians with The Instruction of Kheti or the Ancient Greek work of Aristophanes’ Old Comedy being examples of scholars using comedy to make important commentaries on their way of life, emphasising how much of an instinct it is for humans to make use of humour to alleviate misfortune and inequity. In everyday life, it provides breathing space from the horrors of the real world, however, even with these clear warning signs posed for the world to see, why does the human race no longer learn from satire?
Creatives have long been warning us through satire. Orwell’s ‘Big Brother’ system, consisting of omnipresent state-run surveillance and punishment for thinking individually - an idea so rancid on paper that any logical party would be opposed to, yet despite this, it is a bleak future of constant surveillance that we are not far away from. 1984 painfully details the desecration of free speech in favour of a hive mind controlled by those in power, a consistent semantic in Orwell’s work. Similarly, the 1962 Czech film The Cremator directed by Juraj Herz presents a chimera of horror and dark comedy as it tells the story of a crematorium worker called Kopfrkingl during 1930s Europe who becomes infatuated with the rise of the right-wing and Nazi ideals. It simultaneously captures the atrocities throughout the world during this period and the patheticness of the individuals involved, as well as the absurdity of indoctrination from an outside perspective. One scene in the film takes place at the funeral of Kopfrinkgl’s wife, wherein a eulogy for friends and family quickly descends into the madness of a tirade regarding the perception of death and the ideals of Hitler, featuring some all too familiar salutes. Stressing how ‘the Nazi project’s seeming compatibility with his (Kopfkingl’s) own preoccupations and perceptions’ only proves to visualise how the masses find representation in these sick ideas. This film, from over 60 years ago, warned people about the potential rise in far-right ideology within the layman but has been sadly forgotten as we find ourselves living through an exact replica, having seen tyrants once again celebrated whilst they find themselves proudly shooting their arm upwards into waves of thunderous applause, defiant in the face of history and logic (Editing Note: This happened AGAIN whilst editing, this time from Steve Bannon). These cases are just two of many, each of which forebode the loss of humanity through means of inequity and the dismissal of the human spirit.
By Freddie Smith