Satire as Society’s Red Whistle-blower
By: Sebastian Petrovski
Tags: Discrimination, Diversity, Diversity Day, Satire, The Office

Modern comedy is using satire as an inconspicuous tool to gain traction on systematic societal issues, but is it effective?

Satire, satire, satire.

To an avid comedy buff, it’s the cornerstone of comedic techniques, but for me, I’m only just beginning to catch my grasp of it. Satirical jokes are mainly facile to perceive, but rather the genuine purpose of this societal whistleblower is more of a troublesome enigma to a “turn-the-TV-on-type-viewer”. I’ve seen satire used articulately in The Shaun Micallef Program by cutting through Australia’s systematic discrimination, however, no comedy has done it so indignantly, but contemporary as the zany American “mockumentary” The Office. Along with it’s blasting popularity, NBC’s The Office with every episode targets specific deep societal issues, however, Diversity Day focuses on workplace discrimination, elevating social criticism by using its satire and diverse societal-reflective characters; however, the effectiveness of satire to deal with racism in all works of comedy can be tugged almost all ways.

The Office’s second episode, Diversity Day (2005) was thrown recklessly at a dwindling audience and spiteful critics, with the apparent intention of getting the ball rolling on American society’s trivial acts of workplace discrimination. This purposefully controversial start made use of an absolute plethora of insensitive racial stereotypes and mockeries, which could quite easily be taken at face value rather than analysing the satire behind. Looking back now, I can see that this was my attitude to the episode; with my perception on my first “uninformed” viewing clouded by: Personal judgement and perspectives on the jokes, minimal understanding of the show and the characters’ mannerisms and a lack of exposure to workplace norms and satire. Someone turning on the TV onto The Office, or seeing a snippet of the liberally shared episodes on YouTube may judge the jokes incoherently due to this indefinite list thus challenging the effectiveness of the satire in tackling discrimination. Because of the satire’s complexity, “Prindle Post” has branded The Office’s use of satire as “Irresponsible” (2018), stating that

“Some audiences might laugh at Michael’s racially insensitive jokes and not consider them hurtful and disgusting.” This article makes the argument that the use of sophisticated satire could be unethical as not everyone will get it, and the stereotypes and societal norms from the Office will only be reinforced, instead of making a social commentary. I was definitely in this boat, to begin with…

Today, however, after watching 70 plus hours of The Office, I can look back to Diversity Day, the first true episode of the Office (US) as many die-hard fans call it, and understand what B.J. Novak (the writer of this episode) has intended with the jokes and actions made by Michael Scott the branch manager… B.J. Novak shows that Michael is not “a racist”, the comedy is not in the racial stereotypes and mockeries, rather, B.J. Novak satirises Michael Scott’s completely ignorant approach to the sensitive topic so that people can laugh at his idiocracy but they also think, am I like this and can I change? As we get to see more of Michael Scott throughout the seasons, it becomes uber-evident that his imbecilic nature, unchecked obnoxiousness and self-centred narcissism makes him ignorant towards any issues in The Office. B.J. Novak highlights this ignorance to diversity with Michaels’ response to his colleague being Mexican:

“Is there a term besides Mexican that you prefer? Something less offensive?”. Michael thinks that there is some negative connotation with being Mexican, however, this is just his ignorant ideology to race that is being displayed. Maggie D. with her article “Diversity Day, Dumb White Man” believes in a more pessimistic view of this satire stating:

“This episode negatively portrays white males as ignorant jerks, who are uneducated on racism.” She believes that this satire only targets white males and not the wider view of society. Whilst I do agree with this statement, there are also many other characters in this episode that reflect Michaels views.

This is evident in the fictional characters from the snippet of the racism episode of The Shaun Micallef Program from (1998) who reflect society’s obnoxious arrogance in dealing with racism. What’s good about this skit is that the satire is quick to understand as it reflects directly into physical Australians’ views of immigration in 1998, making the satire effective in ruling out racial ignorance and misconceptions about diversity. It even quite literally has the same racial stereotypes as The Office, such as the “Asians are bad drivers” and what’s even more similar is that Michael Scott and the fictional lady in the skit from the “equal opportunity commission’’ preach why racists jokes aren’t funny by making a mockery of Indian stereotypes. However, by doing this, they ironically only highlight their own misunderstanding of racism. The important things about these impersonations, rather than being used like in The Simpsons as a parody with Kwik-E-Mart and Apu to get a laugh from the stereotypes, is that the jokes make a mockery of the one making it, and ridicule societies synthesising perceptions. The Shaun Micallef Program also is effective in tackling discrimination as it satirises an extra two views such as the hilarious “anti-immigration party” character and sandwiched in the middle Shaun Micallef who is more of an average Australian making it so that these views can forever be satirised in this cult-classic comedy skit.

Phew… So do you see why I’m finding satire in comedy a bit frustrating? There are so many intricate and sophisticated layers which change drastically based on the comedy landscape they are in, as seen in the Aussie skit; The Shaun Micallef Program and the American mockumentary; The Office. Whilst these shows’ can use their satire to become a “whistleblower” on society’s perceptions and obnoxiousness about devious taboo topics like discrimination and diversity, as a recent viewer of satire, I have begun to feel that real purpose of satire is to laugh and move on.

Larry Wilmore, American comedian, actor in The Office said: “I honestly think that the more we can laugh about tough things, I just think the better off we are.” (2020)