Arthur Goldhammer on Charlie Hebdo: dont sacralize the blasphemous. There is an old Parisian tradition of cheeky humor that respects nothing and no one. The French even have a word for it: “gouaille.” Think of obscene images of Marie-Antoinette and other royals, of priests in flagrante delicto with nuns, of devils farting in the popes face and Daumier’s caricatures of King Louis-Philippe, whom he portrayed in the shape of a pear. Its an anarchic populist form of obscenity that aims to cut down anything that would erect itself as venerable, sacred or powerful. Such satirical humor has little in common with the kind of witty political satire with which Americans are familiar today through watching Jon Stewart or John Oliver. While not apolitical (attacks on Marie-Antoinette surely had a political valence), gouaille does not seek to stake out a political position or mock one political party to the benefit of another. It is directed, rather, against authority in general, against hierarchy and against the presumption that any individual or group has exclusive possession of the truth. america.aljazeera/opinions/2015/1/charlie-hebdo-gouaillesatireislamjournalism.html
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 22:59:36 +0000
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