The Onion has found itself in hot water with the PC Police a couple of times recently. First, a writer for the satirical news site’s Twitter feed came under fire for the following tweet during the Oscars: "Everyone else seems afraid to say it, but that Quvenzhané Wallis is kind of a cunt, right? #Oscars2013."
For proper context: Wallis is a delightful 9-year-old girl who was nominated for an Oscar. Prior to the evening’s events, fellow nominee Anne Hathaway was described in horrible terms similar to the one deployed in that tweet. Everyone had something awful to say about her. The joke here is not at the expense of the 9-year-old girl but at the expense of people who feel comfortable judging actresses who they do not know and will never meet in horrible, personal ways. The Onion's intent didn't matter: People FREAKED OUT. The site quickly apologized and moved on.
But what The Onion didn’t realize is that their blood was now in the water. Every scold who ever did scold was now on the lookout for the next horrible, no good, very bad, really mean thing they published to claim offense at. And the scolds didn’t disappoint: The Onion is now under fire for a piece titled "Heartbroken Chris Brown Always Thought Rihanna Was Woman He’d Beat to Death."
The scolding scolds, never known for their reading comprehension, thought that the Onion was using violence against women as a source of humor. "A leading cause of death for young black women is intimate partner murder. @TheOnion shouldn't make it a joke," tweeted Jessica Valenti. Buzzfeed has a handy list of some of those who clambered aboard the Outragemobile.
Not that the Onion needs me to defend it, but: satire does not always need to be humorous to be effective. The "joke" here, as it were, is not that beating women is funny. Obviously. It’s that Chris Brown is a horrific woman-beater who should be mocked as a lesson to other horrific woman-beaters that their behavior is unacceptable. Needless to say, the Onion has nothing to apologize for.
The scolds will not be happy until the Onion confesses its sins and admits to the error of its ways, however: As Hanna Rosin noted in a quick write up of the contretemps, "At the end of its item, BuzzFeed calls on the Onion for comment, which effectively means they are waiting for an apology."
The Onion only has itself to blame for this expectation. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the geniuses behind South Park, understood the trap the Onion finds itself in perfectly. In an episode satirizing the cowardly reaction to threats of violence from Islamic extremists over depictions of Muhammad, despicable bully Eric Cartman explains that once artists known for provocation (such as the minds behind the Fox show Family Guy) start apologizing for offending someone they have to keep apologizing until they have nothing and no one left to make jokes about.
"It’s simple television economics, Kyle," Cartman says. "All it takes to kill a show forever is to get one episode pulled. If we convince the network to pull this episode for the sake of Muslims, then the Catholics can demand the shows they don’t like get pulled. And then people with disabilities can demand another show get pulled. And so on and so on, until Family Guy is no more!"
The Onion has built its brand on making fun of everyone equally. It never should’ve apologized for an innocuous tweet that the scolding scolds scolded them about during the Oscars. And if it wants to keep from having to apologize to every aggrieved fool who doesn’t get satire, it had better batten down the hatches and let this storm blow over. The scolds will find something else to get worked up about shortly.