Actually, yes - and dangerously so. 

Tyrants tell us they are gods, or as Dietrich von Hildebrand described them, "egospasms." (1) By parodying these tyrants, comedians tell us they are humans.  In this light, the Comedian must be regarded as a hero, a fundamental mark of civilized society.  

The issue of parodying such tyrants, however, begs the question: How can we justify laughing at a parody of a real genocidal regime that ruthlessly kills innocent men, women and children on a daily basis?  


Consider what Mark Twain, master satirist of the nineteenth century, once said:

Over this past Valentine's Day weekend, two headlines dominated social media: a gruesome ISIS video showing the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians near a Tripoli waterfront, and the 40th anniversary of Saturday Night Live (SNL). 

As a child of New Yorkers and an affectionate fan of SNL, its 40th anniversary was a sentimental moment of cultural identity for me.  However, seeing its timing coincide with the release of ISIS's latest video gave me pause.  SNL had recently parodied ISIS, but the sketch received poor reviews and was met coldly by American audiences.  In the sketch, Chris Rock and the cast portray ISIS members pitching the Islamic State to the judges from ABC's entrepreneurial business show Shark Tank.  While intended to generate a comedic comfort akin to Chaplin's The Great Dictator, the Shark Tank sketch only disturbed American audiences.  

Why is this?  

Why did Americans take comfort in a parody of Hitler, but not of ISIS? Is SNL simply suffering from some kind of artistic deficiency? Are Americans more easily offended in 2015? Is the problem something else entirely?  

What makes a parody therapeutic rather than offensive? 

I think the answer to that question lies in the idea of implied reverence. 

In his final speech of The Great Dictator, Chaplin deeply understood the need for implied reverence. By having a moment of vulnerability in which Chaplin acknowledged the grave seriousness of the Nazi regime, his audience felt comfortable enough to laugh along with him, retain their sanity, and communally conquer their fear.  

However, recent hosts have failed to follow this form, treating the horrors of ISIS as merely another pop culture reference and stream of viral videos. This ignorant detachment from reality leads SNL's audiences to feel uneasy about laughing at sketches like "Shark Tank." These same audiences once laughed hysterically at post-9/11 parodies of Al Qaeda simply because they were assured beyond doubt that SNL's cast members shared their authentic grief for the sufferings of reality. The current absence of this assurance may be purely accidental, as SNL writers may imagine that their audiences assume this sympathy.  However, after the failure of the "Shark Tank" sketch, it's clear that SNL needs to reassess how explicitly its sympathy is expressed.   

Good comedians must start by demonstrating an awareness of reality's evils, then guide the audience to see through those evils. SNL must always strive to keep to this form. It must never lose the beautiful humanity, relatability, and vulnerability that has thus far led it to shape the American psyche.

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(1) Dietrich von Hildebrand: Fundamental Moral Attitudes: Reverence. Chapter 1, Page 9.
(2) Mark Twain.
(3) Charlie Chaplin: The Great Dictator, 1940. Film.
(4) Grenville Kleiser.



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