The role of satire in politics

PERHAPS we missed a trick. Perhaps the outraged caller to Liveline last week was on to something when he inferred that Willie O’Dea might have been better tackling the financial crisis than supporting the RubberBandits in their attempt to be Christmas number one in Ireland.

If Ireland had presented the EU and IMF with the picture of Willie O’Dea wielding “that handgun” when they came offering their loan-shark-bailout then maybe things might be different this Christmas for a good many people. In reality, they would not and the chastising of that TD on Liveline, especially by the baiter-in-chief Joe Duffy would have been rendered even more absurd.
I am not alone in searching the internet for nuggets of pure comic gold. From time to time, they come in the form of programmes made for television in various countries and from time to time, they are inadvertent convergences of reality and fiction. The latter was the case when Joe Duffy subjected his morally outraged caller, and himself, to the full satirical whip of Blind Boy of the RubberBandits. It’s at times like this that I fully understand why the phrase sense of humour is described. In an ironic twist, Blind Boy’s eyes were wide open while Joe and his bevy of the outraged blundered around in the dark.
What made the exchange all the more hilarious was the fact that Joe and his cheerleaders thought they occupied some form oF moral high ground only to find the intellectual foundations of their obelisk were about as dependable as a randy young man’s assurance that he was on the pill.
Despite the odd technical breakdown, it is possible to keep abreast of radio and televisual happenings in Ireland through the RTÉ player. So when the audience of the Late Late Show guffawed and enjoyed Pat Shortt’s assertion that some of the things he and John Kenny got up to in their early years in the road were, to use a prerogative euphemism, “mad” a few weeks ago; it was easy to believe that the audience were representative of Irish people as a nation willing to accept comedians as a group of people who lived and worked outside the normal parameters of life. They are D’Unbelievables though, they are like us, they are funny, they would never do anything that you wouldn’t see in any town in Ireland on a Saturday night. So goes the logic. What if even a fraction of the members of An Garda Síochána behaved as their characters in that sketch did? No wait, that’s not a good example; what if local town hall ushers beha…; no not that one either. I shall leave this point because I shall never win and turn again to the “Bandits” loose on the streets of Limerick and Ireland in general.
Every society gives birth to its self. Every culture produces its own humour. While Willie O’Dea, at his lowest point, might have protested that Brendan O’Carroll used bad language and “toilet humour” in his routine, the fact remains that Irish people are renowned worldwide for using profanity as punctuation. It is nothing to be ashamed of, it is merely a linguistic tic. Walk the streets of Ireland and ask them their opinion of the current government and find how much of a quote you have left when you remove the expletives. Anyone with an interest in Irish comedy will have been well aware of the Rubber Bandits for many years now as their work has been available online for quite some time. The fact that this “outrage” has met their introduction to the mainstream has benefitted only them and that is a very good thing.
Not wishing to harp on a point but the fact that the word “sense” is used when speaking about an ability to consume or accept humour is indicative of a societal understanding of how the world works. Many lonely hearts column ads ask that “a good sense of humour” be among the attributes a potential mate might exhibit. But so individual is this trait that what makes one laugh may make another flinch.
That said, the cross-cultural nature of what the Rubberbandits are doing is palpable. In showing the video of Horse Outside to Scottish friends, I have received a universally positive response because the humour is cross-cultural. 
Watching the Rubberbandits on The Late Late Show tonight I felt I was watching D’Unbelievables for a different generation. Good comedy holds up a mirror to reality and that is why we laugh at it.
One of the most complained about programmes ever to be broadcast on television was the Brasseye Paedophilia special on Channel 4. Sorry bandits but you are not even close to this but the point remains; when people miss the point of satire, they complain, usually in a manner fuelled by righteous anger.
There remain a number of obstacles to the Rubberbandits being Christmas number one in Ireland when you read this, not least among them the fact that if more than a prescribed amount of CDs are bought on any one day in a certain store, it will not be counted towards the chart because so many managers in the past have tried to dupe the system. On another note for Deputy O’Dea, the hypocrisy of the Irish voter in demanding politicians who are not people was exposed by the Liveline call-in. Willie was basically denied the right to be a human with an opinion by callers. They called the show to say that a politician should not speak this way. Politicians are the ones we look to, in theory, for diversity of ideas so should we not expect them to speak in a diverse way?
Thank you satirists, you have done your work to perfection.