When Satire Contains Deeply Troubling Truths

[_Droopy]

http://iberiannotes.blogspot.co.uk/2004 ... -john.html

Inside Europe: Iberian Notes

Here's another "Modern Parents" by John Fardell out of the latest issue of the British comic Viz.

The Ethically Aware Parents Group are having a cookout; we can see boxes marked "Vegan Garlic Burgers", "Whole-Grain Garlic Rolls", and "Eco-Friendly Charcoal". They all have scraggly beards (if male), nose rings (if female), and are dressed ethnically. Meanwhile, Tarquin and the other children are off behind the shed cooking up some sausages and hamburgers.

Malcolm: I hope the young people have got plenty of sunblock on...the global warming's really bad today.
Nigel: Yes, this sunny weather just isn't natural. We never used to get hot weather in July.
Malcolm: I know. Just think of what this is doing to the polar ice caps.
Trevor: The icebergs will go extinct.
Sylvia: All the planet's rainforest regions will turn into barren deserts.
Cressida: All the Earth's water vapor must be escaping out through the hole in the ozone layer.

Nigel: I blame Western science.
Daphne: Absolutely. And now all these polluting scientists are pretending to be environmentally concerned. It makes me sick!
Trevor: All scientists are white middle-class males. That's the problem.
Sylvia: If we all lived like the pre-industrial non-science-based peoples of the Third World, everything would be lovely. It's been scientifically proven.
Nigel: It's all to do with the Environmental Chaos Theory. If an extinct butterfly can't flap its wings in Borneo, you get a hurricane in Wales. It's been proven.
Daphne: I blame overpopulation.
Malcolm: Well, absolutely. All those millions of unwanted Thrid World people are breathing out far too much carbon dioxide. The planet can't sustain them.
Sarah: Western pharmaceutical companies have kept Third World populations artificially high so that they've got more people to sell their contraceptive pills to.
Cressida: That's right. These people are deprived of a scientific education so they don't understand the risks.
Sylvia: When we went to see the Taj Mahal, there was hardly room to stand.

Nigel: Now it's starting to rain! It isn't natural. We never used to get rain in July.
Malcolm: I know. Just think of what all this rain is doing to the endangered butterflies in Borneo.
Trevor: Their wings will get too soggy to flap.
Daphne: The rain will cause sea levels to rise. Half of London will be underwater.
Cressida: All the planet's desert regions will turn into floodplains.
Sarah: All this rain must be pouring through the hole in the ozone layer.

Nigel: The earth has never seen such extreme weather as we see now. Mankind used to live in peaceful harmony with the elements.
Malcolm: Gaia, the Great Earth Spirit, is angry. Her forces of Nature are turning against mankind.
Sarah: It's all the fault of our Western consumerist society.
Trevor: Total environmental meltdown is just around the corner.
Cressida: Gaia will restore her eco-balance by wiping us all out with skin cancer, food shortages, and rising sea levels.

(Seven hundred years ago. Our ethically aware parents are m, s+tanding around outside a hut wearing fourteenth-century clothes.)

Proto-Nigel: The world hath never seen such extremities of weather as we do suffer now.
Proto-Malcolm: God is angry. Mankind hath incurred His great wrath.
Proto-Sarah: It be all the fault of our sinful ways of living.
Proto-Trevor: The end of the world is nigh.
Proto-Cressida: God will restore His order by destroying us all with plague, famine, and flood...

[_krose]

Isn't "satire" supposed to be humorous, or at the very least, a little bit amusing?

[_Kevin Graham]

Droopy is satire personified. He was trying to be ironical.

[_SteelHead]

Droopy been watching the south park Mormons episode?

[_Kevin Graham]

Droopy can't get TV where he lives.