(This column originally ran on July 19, 2011)
Some kids read comic books. Some read tween adventures like “Nancy Drew” and “The Hardy Boys,” a genre which has exploded in recent years with the supernatural sub-genre populated by “Harry Potter” and the “Twilight Saga.” Then there are kids like me, 10 years ago, who read most of the above but also delved into (and suffered at the hands of junior high administration for) “Mad” and “Cracked,” at the time the two leading illustrated satire magazines in America.
I’ve been a pop culture geek for as long as I can remember, so combining that with a caricatured comix format was the perfect formula for periodical reading as a kid. It may also explain my warped sense of humor and morality, but I digress.
While “Mad” will always reign king in that particular genre of magazines, “Cracked” was usually much funnier and off-beat in its interpretation of pop culture (a cover spoofing “Jason Goes to Hell” with “Cracked” mascot Sylvester P. Smythe as a bellboy in Hell hustling around with the hockey-masked killers implements of destruction comes to mind). Unfortunately, declining readership and failed reformatting to compete with the likes of “Maxim” put the magazine under by 2007.
This is all about the history of a website most of you have probably visited at least once, Cracked.com. Lauding itself as “America’s only comedy website since 1958,” the print format is oddly enough banished to a dark corner and a mothballed entity which bears no mention. As I grew up with it, showing it a little love seemed important.
Like many news sites and blogs, Cracked is updated with the rapidity of a hyperactive child’s change of attention. Its format is simple: a list-based countdown of issues such as “The 16 Most Hilariously Dishonest Old School Advertisements” and “6 Mind Blowing Ways ‘Starship Troopers’ Predicted the Future,” the latter of which confirms that even in its current incarnation, the site has not lost its roots in lampooning pop culture.
That same article is what prompted me to write this column. An unfortunate carry-over from childhood has been my inability to “choose my battles” and “let things roll off of my back.” In other words, I can’t let an argument go unfinished. Thus, I read poorly constructed, grammatically-bankrupt comments on YouTube and Cracked and feel the need to let loose my Interwebz rage on someone’s free speech half a world away. One response warned me of fluoride and indoctrination by the news media and Jewish overlords, which I laughed off and summarily attacked back as misled and racist.
All of this has a point, which I’m coming to.
Though I would defend free speech to my last drop of blood (B+, in case of the apocalypse), it doesn’t change the fact that I think the majority of trolls on the net are either mentally deficient thanks to lack of parental restraint or seriously bound for federal incarceration.
With the “Starship Troopers” article, this was all too apparent. I love Robert Heinlein as an author, despite his nationalist verve that borders on fascism in that particular book, but his rabid fans have not, in the 14 years and two sequels which followed the adaptation of his 1958 classic, been able to grasp that this cinematic interpretation was campy satire.
In the comments, libertarian standard bearers and military conservative types attacked the website for liberal bias and lack of respect for militaristic power. The gist of the article was how four years prior to 9/11 and the inception of the War on Terror, director Paul Verhoeven time-traveled into the modern world and took ideas that became the film’s subtly fascist Federation News (compared with Fox News on Cracked, with eerie similarity), the film’s message of “We’re winning the fight!” against alien invaders with President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” stunt, and other oddly prescient moments which exist on film.
While I do not seriously think Paul Verhoeven is a time-traveler, the concept is hilarious, and that’s the point of the article. But people, with their own warped sense of America and patriotism, cannot see through the fog of war to make the distinction between comedy and hard-hitting news.
As a journalist, this is a serious problem. I have strong opinions and I express them in this paper — either on page four or in an understood editorial, non-object format. People should have their views, regardless of how far-flung and logically devoid they may be. But in times such as now, where every story seems to spell more gloom and doom, and the world stands at the brink of war if you believe certain news outlets, levity is not what we should be fighting against. It’s what we should be fighting for, on the battlefield or in social forums or bedrooms. The ability to smile in the face of collapse is an American trait which might be counterintuitive, but it’s one which I can get behind whole-heartedly.
— Jake Lane is a senior in creative writing. He can be reached at [email protected].
