-->
Showing posts with label satire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label satire. Show all posts

Monday, April 28, 2008

You are what you pretend to be

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

-Kurt Vonnegut

During yesterday's book club for Mother Night I realized how much I enjoy this line by Kurt Vonnegut. The book is a fictional account of an American playwright in Germany during World War II. He's a member of the Nazi party. But he's a spy. But his radio show successfully promotes the Nazis. That's only one of the myriad of masks in the novel.

Vonnegut died last year. I was shocked by this distasteful obituary on FOX News. I want to punch that voice in the face. It seems like something out of a Vonnegut novel: a news station has become so absurd that it is impossible to undermine with satire. It's terrifying for me to think that the empty-eyed anchors at FOX News aren't aware that their slogan, "fair and balanced", is a punchline.