The license to be funny in America
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Nobody can freehand a pinstripe. I'm Jesse Thorne. On Bullseye, the legendary artist Judy Chicago gives me the business for asking her about painting freehand.
Haven't you ever heard of masking tape? 16th-inch masking tape? Oh, my God.
That's Bullseye. Find us in the NPR app at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. This is America in Pursuit, a limited-run series from NPR and ThruLine. I'm Randa Abdel-Fattah. Each week, we bring you stories about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the U.S. that began 250 years ago. This week, the spirit of American humor. No matter how crude, rude, or distasteful, the Supreme Court has upheld that all people residing in the U.S. have the constitutional right to mock or criticize public figures and government officials.
The First Amendment is first for a reason. The Second Amendment is just in case the first one doesn't work out.
That's Dave Chappelle accepting the Mark Twain Prize in 2019. And for his part, Mark Twain, the prolific American satirist from a century ago, didn't mince words about comedy. He wrote in 1897, the secret source of humor is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven. And so in that spirit, on this episode, we take a romp into American comedy and all its harshness and rawness. Thanks to our colleagues in the NPR newsroom. Our first story is from Elizabeth Blair about the dance between comedians and politicians. That's coming up after a quick break.
How does the episode introduce the constitutional right to mock power in America?
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Satirists are known to punch up, meaning people in power bear the brunt of their jokes. Here's Stephen Colbert on CBS.
Apparently, Trump learned that violent mass goons are not crowd pleasers. And he learned that from his most trusted advisor, the TV.
Reportedly, they offend. Here's Bill Maher on HBO Max.
And I can't fix that what the Democrats are scared of more than anything else. I mean, obviously, besides gluten.
Satire is a way of looking at reality and heightening reality to take down a worthy target. Satirist Andy Borowitz points to Will Rogers, who died in 1935. Rogers, one of the most influential American humorists, often said that Congress made writing jokes easy. He said that about 100 years ago, and it's still true. We have this target-rich environment of the government, but not just the government, the oligarchs, the institutions. So we just wake up every morning and say, okay, who's it going to be today? Early American satirists like Benjamin Franklin and Washington Irving were influenced by Anglo-Irish writers like Jonathan Swift and Oliver Goldsmith. But the goat of American satire is Mark Twain.
Man is a reasoning animal.
Such is the claim. Though I do think that's open to dispute.
Actor Hal Holbrook in the CBS broadcast of Mark Twain Tonight in 1967. Well, I've been studying this reasoning animal for years now and I find the results humiliating. Holbrook performed as Twain hundreds of times before he died in 2021. Actor Richard Thomas is touring the show now.
When Twain speaks, he frequently just sounds like one of us rather than somebody who's giving wisdom.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:53
2
How does the episode introduce the constitutional right to mock power in America?
1:53–5:07
3
What historical role did satire and figures like Mark Twain play in American political critique?
5:07–13:31
4
How did satire evolve into modern political late-night comedy and punch-up humor?
13:31–22:14