The Chaser - satirical magazine from Australia.

September 17, 2001 9:54 AM

The Chaser - satirical magazine from Australia. Warning: may be offensive to some, specifically with regard to the WTC tragedy. This is posted in response to the link below talking about how the Onion has ceased satire for the time being. I think the anti-Bush and Adam Sandler gags have merit, some others are quite tasteless. What do you think?
posted by skylar (23 comments total)

The sandler gag was precious. "...it's clear now that America means war". Indeed!
posted by revbrian at 10:09 AM on September 17, 2001

These recent efforts by The Chaser prove that no matter how much instability is introduced into the political and economic centers of the world, amateurish crap will continue to be written, published — and linked to.
posted by barkingmoose at 10:14 AM on September 17, 2001

Lame.
posted by rcade at 10:19 AM on September 17, 2001

Friday night I went to a comedy club in SF, with Sabrina Matthews, an Australian guy, and Will Durst, who's a political humorist. Sabrina kept her commentary to "You just KNOOOOW Bush wants a snort right now. 'Please? Just a little toot? Can I at least look at it?'" :) while Will's entire set was political, a lot of it about current events, some general stuff. I thought his set was the best, because humor is a quick and dirty way of getting people to think about things differently (didn't I read a statistic somewhere during the election that a surprising percentage of gen-Xers got their news from The Daily Show?), but others thought he'd gone too far. I think we DO need humor and satire right now.
posted by fotzepolitic at 10:19 AM on September 17, 2001

Isn't it great that stand-up comedians have dot.com addresses now?
posted by skylar at 10:26 AM on September 17, 2001

The Chaser is "Cracked" to The Onion's "Mad Magazine." The Australians' attempt to produce their own version of our little Madison newsweekly only shows how terribly brilliant and original The Onion really is. And hard to imitate.
posted by Faze at 10:41 AM on September 17, 2001

"Humor is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's superiority to all that befalls him." --- Romain Gary (via Quote Project)

Thanks for the much-needed laugh, skylar. The bit about the CNN journalist 'padding' for 18 hours straight was right on the mark.
posted by mb01 at 10:59 AM on September 17, 2001

I liked this one:

Bin Laden agrees to come to New York if 'fair trial' can be guaranteed
posted by dydecker at 11:10 AM on September 17, 2001

It was offensive and not at all funny.
posted by glenwood at 11:22 AM on September 17, 2001

> This is posted in response to the link below

Then it should have been in that thread.
posted by sylloge at 11:41 AM on September 17, 2001

Pretty bad taste. They should give it some time, also, need to improve in the clever department. I can't imagine the Onion following up a week later with articles about the sydney opera house being blown up with 5k+ dead.
posted by prodigal at 11:51 AM on September 17, 2001

Oh come on... Some people use humor as a way of dealing with stress. If you don't believe me, hang out with military or police or if you're really in the mood for some sick gallows humor, paramedics.

The Onion has printed much more offensive stuff than this. If you don't believe me go to their archives.

I found the bit about the defence department assuring America that at no point was President Bush actually in charge hilarious.
posted by nickonomicon at 12:03 PM on September 17, 2001

from where i'm sitting, the bush one is classic. but my reaction to humour is probably way different to that of an american, about now.
posted by titboy at 12:16 PM on September 17, 2001

I hope Australia has something better than this, very weak. Generally, though, I think I'd be pissed if I went to see a stand-up this week and he or she didn't talk about what had happened. Humor is commentary and should encompass everything that's going on. It isn't disrespectful to find humor in it, it's the opposite: the funniest stuff is about what's most meaningful. If we can't find humor in something then it's defeated us. We've done the crying, now it's time for the knowing, bittersweet laughs and wicked grins.
posted by touchel at 12:22 PM on September 17, 2001

I can let inappropriate humor slide if it's actually funny.

But that just wasn't funny. The Bush "classic" would have ended up on the Onion's cutting room floor even if they were only referring to the White House cat getting stuck in a tree.
posted by jragon at 12:28 PM on September 17, 2001

I agree, inappropriate can be forgiven if there's some humour to back it up. When the Chaser finds someone to write for them who has a sense of humour, then they may be worth a looksee.
posted by Dreama at 12:34 PM on September 17, 2001

At this difficult time, it's going to be a matter of taste and will depend very much on one's position in respect to the disaster. While I apologise if any of it has really upset readers here, I did warn you that some of it was tasteless, so I don't have too many regrets about linking. Does everything on this site have to be in good taste? Personally, though - and I stress that unfortunately I do know one person who died in the tragedy - I nevertheless did find _some_ of it to be appropriate.

I'm concerned that in its rightly-held grief and ensuing patriotism, America might lose sight of the problems posed by George W. Bush- which is why the Bush article appealed to me. The Adam Sandler skit, in my opinion, sounded a surreal note without being offensive, and I feel the CNN article captured at least some of the essence of today's media. But further, I am of the opinion that humour is one way to beat the fearmongering of these terrorists: I do not believe we should elevate terrorists by granting them a sense of seriousness and superiority we do not allow our most famous politicians.

Sylloge: thanks for informing me of the correct etiquette. I'm relatively new here, so please accept my apologies.
posted by skylar at 12:45 PM on September 17, 2001

No titboy, some of us Americans (even a few co-workers of mine that lost friends in the attacks) found the Bush article hilarious.
posted by nickonomicon at 1:10 PM on September 17, 2001

I didn't find it that hilarious, but nothing offended me. I think it's appropriate given the warning in the post. skylar: During a war (or military action or whatever the hell we're doing) America loves the prez - but they also have a short memory. After all, Daddy Bush was not reelected after the Gulf War. Sylloge is quite adept at enforcement of MetaFilter, etiquette - good catch Dude.
posted by sixdifferentways at 1:14 PM on September 17, 2001

Best Onion wannabe, IMO: Modern Humorist.

I also love Brunching Shuttlecocks.
posted by Zettai at 3:52 PM on September 17, 2001

> thanks for informing me of the correct etiquette

No problem :)   and thanks for responding with thanks. I've been trying to be forceful the last while, hoping that we can get things back to normal, but probably coming off as a jerk more often ...
posted by sylloge at 4:46 PM on September 17, 2001

My vote: Mildly funny...not in the least offensive.
posted by rushmc at 5:09 PM on September 17, 2001

we thought the onion was a legit news source...

guardian article (see bottom of page)

onion article

links courtesy of ntk
posted by asok at 7:43 AM on September 18, 2001