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Review
| Revel With a Cause: Liberal Satire in Postwar America, by Stephen E. Kercher. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. xi + 572 pages. $35.00, cloth.
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| What could be funny about nuclear arms, Bull Connor, loyalty oaths, organization men, suburban housewives, and communist containment? Quite a bit, it turns out. All served as unlikely scenarios for satire. Stephen E. Kercher's Revel With a Cause reminds us that the cartoonists, the improvisational theater troupes, the stand-up comics, and the Hollywood filmmakers who turned to political satire between 1945 and 1965 did more than provide entertainment for like-minded liberals; they inspired laughter in a beleaguered political corner of American society while undercutting the logic of Cold War conformity. It also makes a significant contribution to postwar cultural history. It shows that in labeling political, social, and cultural dissent as "un-American," conservatives had a chilling effect on a wide range of speech and action. The reality of this repression led some scholars to conclude that Cold War culture succeeded in "containing" all those who did not identify with a repressive form of right-wing nationalism. The expulsion of leftist unions from the CIO, blacklisting in Hollywood, and the firing or coerced resignations of homosexuals from government service provided chilling evidence that McCarthyism went beyond communist sympathizers. That said, Revel With a Cause joins recent scholarship that calls into question the metaphor of "containment" as a functional description of postwar American society. Liberal satire now joins improvisational jazz, the Beats, Playboy, and Betty Friedan's articulation of "the problem with no name" in The Feminine Mystique, in the evidence offered by scholars that the 1950s sowed the seeds of social transformation. |
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Many of the leading satirists made explicit connections with cultural outlets that contested the conservative postwar period. Among them, Mort Sahl opened the way for jazz legends Dave Brubeck and Billie Holiday. Dick Gregory's big break came at the Playboy Club, Lenny Bruce faced more obscenity trials than Allen Ginsburg, and Mike Nichols and Elaine May showed that that the suburbs did not represent the height of the American Dream. Liberal satirists critiqued a range of topics: their bits satirized the Cold War, consumerism, sexuality, psychoanalysis, and racism. They probed not only the hypocrisy of their political opponents, but also the self-satisfaction of liberals. For example, Dick Gregory, Godfrey Cambridge, and the short-lived improvisational group The Living Premise satirized both stereotypical southern "rednecks" and liberal whites who embraced charity and tokenism over systemic change. White northern liberals could laugh with self-satisfaction while comparing Nazis and the KKK, but their discomfort was palpable when liberal charity was portrayed in a scene showing a pregnant white Jewish maid refusing to show gratitude when her black middle-class employer offers an old dress to wear to a charitable organization. This prompts the cliché: "you just can't be nice to those people" (p. 266). |
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Kercher defines "liberal satire" as "forms of humorous expression that deploy irony to criticize vice and raise awareness" (p. 1). This loose definition misses the specific ways that satire employs ridicule and scorn to make an accepted truth or political position appear preposterous. Using a broad definition, however, has the advantage of allowing Kercher to connect stock scenarios and themes across an impressive range of the popular humor of the era. For example, Kercher shows that the most famous satirical film of the age—Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove—tapped into a wellspring of conventions popularized by cartoonist and playwright Jules Feiffer, Mad magazine, radio and television personality Stan Freberg, and the Second City improvisational troupe. |
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It is in the area of political impact that Kercher's study will raise the most debate. Some postwar critics saw satire as a weak response to the right wing. After all, a good ribbing posed little threat to conservative forces. Those with the sharpest political critique were accused of "crossing the line" into mean-spirited performances. For example, despite having provided jokes to the Kennedy campaign, Mort Sahl did not spare the president's weak Cold War and civil rights record. After refusing to mute his criticism despite indirect appeals from the Kennedy family, Sahl saw a downward spiral in his career. The most important postwar satirist who crossed the line was Lenny Bruce. Bruce's use of Yiddish vernacular, sharp critique of organized religion, and frank discussion of the full range of bodily functions placed him beyond the comprehension of not only the Playboy Club, but also much of his audience. Bruce's obscenity charges in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York looked like the last gasp of liberal satire. Then, in 1968, a pig ran for president amid the teargas of Chicago's Lincoln Park. |
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| State University of New York at New Paltz |
Lee Bernstein |
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