Monday, June 26, 2006

Heads, I win. Tails ... I still win.


Ah, now I see the pattern. See, if you're a blogging liberal full of anger and outrage, well, that makes you part of the Angry Left and just another thuggish blogofascist.

On the other hand, being a howling, hateful member of the neo-con blogosphere makes you a "brilliant satirist."

Man, where do I sign up to get that kind of deal?

A THOROUGHLY CONFUSING ARTICLE: As some commenters have observed, it's hard to tell whether Meghan Daum's article is itself satire, but I went with this line near the end:

Coulter, with her lucky genes and shrewd marketing instincts, isn't self-loathing enough to be a comedienne, but she's a brilliant satirist in spite of herself.

If Daum's piece is truly satire, well, I missed it completely.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

That was a bad essay that "satirist" one. You're left confused until the end whether he's being satirical about coulter's satirist status, ... but at the end, you realize he's not being satirical, just stupid.

Anonymous said...

Wow. I wish I had the balls to completely misunderstand satire (and Swift, for that matter), proclaim my ignorance to the world, and then spend an entire column sneering at the ignorance of the common man.

Asterius said...

"If you think Swift was cutting-edge, imagine having a wit so dry that even you haven't yet realized you're a satirist."

I think this quote from the beginning of the article shows what he really thinks of Coulter.

Anonymous said...

Sophisticated humour like satire is not possible with the stupid.

Ann Coulter (and Meaghan Daum) should stick to "pull my finger." Hey, I even laugh at that.

Has the singularity of humourless banality in the neo-connosphere/Pajamaline/Blogging Bories been created yet? It's taking an awfully long time...

Havril said...

"...is clearly too oppressed by the male patriarchy to recognize the scope of her own talents."

"...or have physical deformities like acne or small breasts..."


Uh, Meaghan Daum's piece sure reads like satire to me. (Not great satire, but satire nonetheless.) Hmmm. So maybe that makes your post, CC, which appears to take her at face value... also satire?

But, then, what does that make this comment?

Anybody else starting to feel like they're trapped in a Christopher Nolan film?

Anonymous said...

havril,

I get what you're saying, that's why I was confused until the end, when the write appears to be genuinely saying that coulter's a satirist on par with Swift.

I could be wrong, but then i think it's the case that Ms. Daum has done a poor job of communication.

Havril said...

Where's the Great Decider when you need him?

Havril said...

Hey, CC.

I'm too lazy to do the research, but it would be interesting to see what, if anything, the Horrid One herself has said on the question of whether her book is satire.

Or maybe it's just irony in the Alanis Morisette sense.

Anonymous said...

Where's the Great Decider when you need him?

Right here...*ahem ahem*...If something intended as satire is almost undetectable as such, then, it's existentially speaking, not satire. Besides, it was dull.

Thus spake me.

Anonymous said...

I missed the satire too, but I guess there were repeated references to the idea that Coulter is a satirist who doesn't realize it.

It certainly could be argued that Coulter is a perfect parody of a complete nutjob of the extreme right; the problem is that she seems to live the role. Method acting gone too far?

And Jason, oops, I mean Shrink (Shrinx?), I'm sure you're at home chortling over how clever you are, but you're not fooling anyone. Don't you have anything better to do?

Alison said...

It's definitely satire, but we're thrown off because we usually expect wit to accompany satire.
Daum is slagging Coulter by pretending to praise her work. This is tough to do well but anyone can do it badly.
Like this :

All you guys slagging Shrink for being a troll are completely missing the boat here.
Notice how all of Shrink's accusations against CC are vague and weak and unsupported. This is no accident - no one could possibly be that ineffective a troll on purpose. The only possible explanation is that Shrink is a huge fan of CC and is just trying to get his attention.
Why don't you guys get it?