The Freedom to laugh

19/01/2011

Though almost universally recognized as a paragon of courage for having suffered through years of torment in a Siberian gulag, and equally respected for the role he played in bringing to an end the Soviet Union, Natan Sharansky is a much more polarizing figure when it comes to the influence his philosophy had on a receptive George W. Bush. Some even go as far as to argue that if it weren't for "The Case for Democracy", the Bush administration would never have got the United States entangled in foreign wars the likes of which make even the casual isolationist cringe.

I only got around to actually reading it a few months ago, so I was late getting to the party. Even so, the points he makes--whether you agree with him or not, will never lose their relevance. I thought about Sharansky again a few days ago when an announcement was made that the Colombian soap opera Chepe Fortuna would no longer be broadcast in Venezuela. According to President Chávez, the show's writers were guilty of disrespecting Venezuelans. I immediately thought of Sharansky's method of measuring freedom: "The Town Square Test".

"The Town Square Test" is simple: Anyone, anywhere, who can't go to a public place and express their views openly, isn't living in a free society. Graceful as it is in its clarity, his dialectic leaves no room to maneuver; and he's the first to admit it's Manichean, or black and white. But how do you apply that to humor--and especially to that which might be disrespectful if not excessively offensive?

Political satire, in the North American context, is a developed medium; in the U.S., millions tune in to watch Saturday Night Live during the election season (though that's often the only time they'll watch it), just as many Canadians watch Ron Mercer every Tuesday night. These audiences have been and generally are the politically-aware--those well-informed and up-to-date with the national and international blunders of their politicians. As such, they've come to expect nuanced, clever, and subtler material.

Chepe Fortuna has the subtlety of a slap in the face.

In one episode, a main character by the name of Venezuela loses her little dog named Hugo, which causes her great distress.

The obese, unattractive Venezuela laments:

"What will I do without him?"

The man with whom she's talking replies:

"You'll be free, Venezuela, because lately little Hugo has been doing his business in everyone's houses and making you look bad."

Oh, and then there's the contrast with her virtuous sister, Colombia.

The authors were, as you might expect, dismayed by the National Telecommunications Commission's decision to ban their show. One of the censored authors responded:

"The only intention we ever had in writing this soap opera was to amuse people, to show that not only Colombians, but Venezuelans can reduce our conflicts through humor. At no moment did we want to offend them or harm them."

Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. Here we're raised to believe in the unalienable right to be as puerile and simplistic as you want to be. But what about a hypothetical American TV show with two characters named, I don't know--America and Canada. They're brothers, although the relationship is more paternal than fraternal. And Canada is the repulsively obsequious one who does everything he's told to do.

Would my patriotic sensibilities be insulted?

I doubt it.

But even if they were, that'd probably still be a good thing.

Because regardless of whether or not it's funny, there's no freedom of speech without the freedom to laugh.