Satire: it's wasted on the stupid

Decca Aitkenhead12 April 2012

When Ali G first appeared on TV, making fun of suburbanites who pretended to be black, it was so funny that you might have thought it would quickly stop any white boys from ever talking about "dis" and "dat" again. But the trouble with satire is that it is almost impossible to control.

In theory, when it is successful it should have the effect of shaming its real-life target out of existence. In practice, unfortunately, it tends to work the other way - and, in the case of Ali G, the satire has worked so well that the victim of its success has ended up being Ali G himself. Designed to lampoon ghetto imposters, the joke has backfired, because a lot of white boys now think inane misogyny is the height of fashion, and homophobia a tremendous giggle.

Sacha Baron Cohen isn't the first comedian to dream up a Frankenstein's monster. Harry Enfield's gloriously vulgar creation, Loadsamoney, was a work of genius - but the comedian had to kill him off in the end, when he realised that Essex man, far from getting the joke, was actively imitating it. The spoof hadn't shamed lager louts in Chingford one bit; on the contrary, it was egging them on. They were acting more like Loadsamoney than they ever would have, had Enfield kept his joke to himself.

Bridget Jones is another fictional caricature who was designed to be laughed at, but ended up being emulated. She was supposed to be a send-up of neurotic, diet-obsessed, husbandhunting, half-witted singletons in west London. She wasn' t supposed to be a role model. But the more popular Bridget Jones's Diary became, the more women in west London began claiming, "I'm the real Bridget Jones!", and doing their best to be just like her. Perfectly sensible, intelligent women began pretending they'd never heard of Kosovo, just in order to look as lovably ditzy as Bridget.

It isn't the fault of comedians if their jokes are taken the wrong way - but it is their responsibility to do something about it, and Ali G's time is up. When Prince William posed for photographs, doing Ali G hand signals, the public was so delighted by this evidence that he was a "normal" teenager who watched TV and made jokes, that nobody stopped to ask what if it was a worrying clue. Normal teenagers have mistaken Ali G for a fashion statement, instead of an object of ridicule, and so imitate him - and that is the opposite of funny. However hilarious Ali G may have been, nothing is comic enough to compensate for that.

Guilty - of being a gay man

Failing that, sex in the toilet of a train comes second as an enterprising thing to try. Lots of people, I understand, have done it.

So how strange that allegations of a man having sex on the Gatwick Express should have sent the Press into such an almighty spin. It is just one of the many claims made against Commander Brian Paddick which have so inflamed his critics. According to his ex-boyfriend, the policeman has also had sex with men he doesn't know very well. He has been to gay saunas. He has had unprotected sex. He has had sex with people (and under the circumstances, this is hardly surprising) who were not his wife.

If promiscuity were a crime, and the ex-boyfriend could prove his "allegations", Commander Paddick would be bang to rights. But it isn't - and I doubt he could, anyway - so how do we account for Paddick being vilified for having a sex life? If these were heterosexual exploits, the policeman would sound at best like something of a stud, and, at worst, the luckless victim of a bitter kiss-and-tell. Instead, they are offered in support of the case that he is somehow unfit to do his job. His opponents insist they have nothing against him being gay. Maybe they believe that. But plainly, the idea of two men having sex is literally more than they can cope with.

Don't treat other women as sex objects

Except, perhaps, Sara Cox's strippers. Lap dancers hate dancing for women. They may not have let it show on Sunday - but then, they wouldn't get very far if they made a habit of letting on what they think of their customers. But when their guard is down and they tell the truth, the one thing lap dancers will always say is that they hate stripping for women. They find it insulting.

You might wonder why it would be worse to have a woman giggle while you strip, than to have a man dribble, but perhaps the dancers expect more respect from a woman than a man. You might wonder why a woman so fabulously daring as Sara Cox doesn't bother to find that out.

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