The 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK has elicited more than the usual carping about how mean and coarse we've all gotten since Camelot. What happened to, as the Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby calls it, "gentle" political satire? I push back in my blog at America magazine:
Every generation has its complaints about politics being nastier than ever, but human nature hasn’t changed very much. What’s different today is that it’s more acceptable to mock figures of authority and less acceptable to ridicule powerless groups in society. To many of us, comic depictions of the president of the United States as a buffoon or a liar (whether George W. Bush or Barack Obama) are less offensive than an earlier era’s condescending attitudes toward women, gays and lesbian, African-Americans, and other groups trying to participate in public debate.
Also discussed in the post: a new documentary on Moms Mabley.
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