The following podcast contains swearing satire and viewpoints. Some viewers may find surprising. So basically all of the good stuff. I like just ate previously on Smith and we'll talk about satire. It's just like if you're going to take money from the mail, you're not you're not a satirist for today snowflakes. It really really is all about About them and so this nonsense about safe spaces or university campuses. No platforming refusing to listen to anyone. They don't agree with refusal to work in jobs. They think beneath them and all the rest is marking so many as the most self-obsessed generation in centuries. And of course, that's a sweeping statement. I have nephews godchildren. I know the children of friends who are delightful charming and nothing like this, but a very vocal number are they are the ones creating alternative realities demanding a place where no one's 11 ever allowed to be upset by anyone and then getting upset Beyond measure at the slightest sign of dissent My Generation it pretty good too. I can't single out a snowflake and say my life was much more difficult than theirs. It was not but my mother was a charger in the second world war. She had to take shelter when witnessing a dogfight over the river Medway and she had to sit at her levels in a bomb shelter. What would she make it all today surely to goodness? It's time. We told Millennial snowflakes to get a grip that the most fortunate generation in history. If we don't a harsh fate awaits them. They really want their lives literally to melt away. I would hate my life literally to me. Alta way I think that'd be awful wouldn't it? I think I done for your own sake if not everyone else is it's better if it turns out those are not your words but the words of someone else so whose words are they my words look even even apart from everything else? I don't think your mother is old enough to have been a child during the second world war and I don't think she ever had to take shelter witnessing a dogfight over the river Medway and I'm very confident. She didn't sit around levels in a bomb shelter. So I'm going to ask you again and for the love of satire that you need to answer honestly whose words are they? Oh those words are the words of Virginia Blackburn columnist for the express writing on February 22nd 2018. Well, I'm gladder than I can say that we've cleared that up by and large I disagree with Virginia Blackburn of the express and I would go further and say the express is a publication. I would generally probably avoid so we have what's going on? Yeah, just to be real. I don't entirely agree with Virginia Blackburn and I imagine a lot of our listeners wouldn't agree with that stuff either. So should we just read? Called the intro. No. No, I'll tell you what right? I didn't agree but it didn't hurt. I think we should let that introduction stand and I think we should use it as a springboard into the podcast and take all the opportunities that it offers us for discussion and particularly given the kinds of things. We're going to be discussing with our guests in this episode. So welcome listeners to the second episode of the second season of Smith and War talk about satire where we're inviting you along on our riotous informative and sometimes controversial Journey Through the history form function and Of satire. I'm dr. Adam Jane Smith election 18th century studies at York st. John University and I'm Joe Walker lecture in 19th century literature also at York st. John University and together. We are satire we are we're all of this at our to somebody to say just eat it just eat. Yeah. No, they did not and I think it's important to note that we do not actually have any sponsors at this time. However, we are open to offers only. Yeah, wasn't it? Oh you're open to offers because I do like this thing of podcasts being sponsored very specifically by companies that deliver You food as in dear, Joan and Jerrica and my dad wrote a porno and you know, I'm quite enjoying playing around with that. But do you think do you think we would take sponsorship if we got it? Well, what would be an appropriate brand to start kind of us something? Well either something satirical or something extremely straight which we could infer that we were satirizing by having them a sponsorship because if we make sponsorship itself into a satirical or responses when I know but if they did yeah, we could say we were In the name of satire. Yeah. Yeah, we could they probably like that when they I don't know. What was your good friend then to sponsor us just to just for your information out there. I'll do of Commerce grammarly grammarly. That was a good one. Yeah, Squarespace Squarespace. Yeah. Zip recruiter Sodexo Foods Sodexo. Yes. Yeah. There's there are lots of people out there who might want to sponsor is I mean, I think shops your Farm Foods. Yeah. Yeah. We should all hit us up in our socials if they would like to sponsor us because we'd be happy to do a good job on that. So we doing today today. We're going to be talking about Saturn with and you dial The Man Behind Jonathan pie and also behind Teutonia McGrath entertaining McGrath is a highly controversial Twitter account. Also, very popular Twitter account. Also an Edinburgh Festival show and Titania in inverted commas is also an occasional columnist for the mail on Sunday the true identity of titanium a graph and you dial was outed earlier in 2019 McGrath is a Persona who began life on Twitter as I can. Extremely woke young woman of pretty much the type that Virginia Blackburn is talking about when to taenia tweets about what's offensive. What's problematic who's racist whose homophobic half of Twitter seems to find it hilarious and the other half genuinely think that she's a real person and tend to tell her off quite vociferous lie for being a massive Snowflake and we'll be talking later to Andrew about who he considers to be his targets what he thinks of as the goal of this account before we speak to Andrew though. Can we just have a little bit of a debrief? About our last episode because I've been thinking about it a lot some of the biggest issues arising from our discussion with DM reporter actually remind me something else. Well, what does anything ever remind you of I wonder what that might be it reminds me of a time not so very dissimilar from our own I see how and yet a time that in many ways is fighting Lee similar to our own. Wow, the jingling Adams 18th century observation corner Do you remember Joe that we spoke at quite a lot of length last time about the relationship between the Daily Mail and the mail on Sunday. Do you remember that? Yes. Well, first of all that reminded me of my doctoral research, which is all about periodicals and newspapers published during the Hanoverian period that was sponsored by the wig Ministry, but they didn't necessarily and actually often avoided saying that there was once a by the wig Ministry. Well, let's just pause there so that you can explain what a wig is and what a Hanoverian period is for anyone who might be unfamiliar with those terms. Okay. Well the Hanoverian Period is the bit of English History where the last Stuart Monarch Queen and passed away without an heir. So Parliament invited her fairly distant relative George the first to be king even though he was pretty much fully German. He was George of Hanover as well as son grandson and their great-grandson. They were George the first through fourth though. The for George is Born To Rule. That's definitely cleared that up. Thanks Horrible Histories. What the devil though? What what is it weak Ministry? Well, there were two very broadly defined political parties at a time the Whigs and the Tories. Yeah, and although it's important to note that they aren't the same as political parties today. They were clusters of Fairly like-minded politicians who shared a certain set of principles and a sort of political and the tree sensibility. All right, and we know that there's no more wigs, but there are still Torre says that the same as the Tories now, No, exactly. So the Tory party then was primarily interested in preserving the status quo and ensuring that culture is protected from the masses keeping it pure from the taint of middle-class aspiration and fighting quite viciously at times to ensure the culture was enjoyed not by the many but by the few oh, so that's very different to now then isn't it? Yes. I see what you did there that was clever. Yeah. So what what were the wigs and what became of them what became of the folks what became of the wigs? Well the wigs spelled with an H were Pro Commerce pro-trade? Parliament anti-catholic and where the Tories were anxious about a rapidly emerging 24-hour consumer Society in the rise of a new middle class the Whigs bloody loved it. And so these periodicals that you wrote your PhD on they were funded by either the wigs or the tahari's that's absolutely right. Yeah. So an organization with the specific political Outlook is paying for the publication of a whole range of newspapers and magazines, but not actively saying so if you are not saying so either if you can imagine such a thing against but the reason I thought about this last time we spoke on the podcast. Because although these papers were paid for by the same Source they were often quite different. So they shared a broadly defined political Outlook. In fact, it was more of an aesthetic than an Outlook, but they didn't even always agree with each other. In fact two of the biggest wig writers of the period Joseph Addison and Richard Steele who had formerly been very close collaborators actually fell out big time towards the end of their respective careers because they both disagreed vehemently with the others approach to writing wig. Sponsor periodicals Addison. Thought two steals to Savage steel for Allison was too soft. So You think that that is somehow directly analogous to the Daily Mail and the mail on Sunday? Well, it's a bit isn't it? And as someone who at certain conferences presents as a newspaper story and I think it would be remiss for me not to mention it would be all right with that. You'd be fine with me. Not much. Yeah. Well, there's this little thing called impact the impact of gender. All right, dude compels me to say so more about the The Daily Mail example, I think is actually much more fascinating when you dig down into it because not only is the Daily Mail the mail on Sunday. They're run by different editorial teams. They have different takes on hot topics. And actually they have no Then common despite showing a logo and a typeface and the similar position on the shelf and your local newsagent. In addition to those differences. The mail online is actually different again. What's the 18th century equivalent of the mail online? Probably a periodical called The Scourge by Thomas Lewis. How is it? Yeah. Okay good. So yeah, so as we saw recently as well the Daily Mail in England isn't even the same as the Daily Mail in Scotland because they took radically different views on the suggestion doing might have a general election a few months ago. So the difference is more like the difference between something like the one show and Country file except that those two BBC shows both have Matt Baker on them exactly. Is that a good analogy? That's a really good analogy. It's good, but I thought of that but this is not despite appearances to the contrary a podcast about partisan sponsorship of 18th century periodicals or the fascinating history of the Daily Mail is actually about satire and this episode's 18th century corner. I feel like we've been stuck in a while. So I'm going to try my best to bring this back around to satire in the things that were talking about today. So I guess the issue is about how we bracket things. What we bracket them with as when we were talking about the express and not listening to something because it's in the express or indeed not even engaging with something like Virginia Blackburn because we don't agree with what she's saying or where she said it but once we've bracketed things in a certain place, then there's a risk in refusing to listen to anything that is part of them or that we mistakenly think is part of them and then we dismiss a whole raft of opinions and ideas and leads you claims like, you know, you can't be a satirist if you right here. Or you can't be worth listening to if you right there. It's like you're reading my mind. I'm reading your script but there is as I say a whole world out there and we are still stuck in a corner. So let's move on from the 18th century. So we can't quite leave 18th century Corner yet because there's one other piece of research that's relevant that I'd like to talk about. Well, I think we should make it quick because people no one's tuning in for this. Okay? Well, I'm so I'm working article right now about when people were and weren't given the label satirist during the early 18th century and I'm arguing that the deployment of the label usually have more to do with political. Isolation or parts an intent, then it did the question of whether or not the writing. They produce actually was or wasn't satirical. So hopefully it's obvious how this relates to what you just named. So the Tories quickly laid claim to satire as a practice and that's why their best remembered as satirist. So you've got Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, but the same time wig figures like Addison and Steele who I mentioned earlier. We're also producing work that meets the criteria of satire, but they're not remembered by history as being satirists. The difference is that they were reluctant to let label their work in such a way less. They be associated with the Tory Aesthetics which are Ready later claimed to satire and their Tory opponents were quick to clarify that you couldn't be a wig and a satirist. Well, so only the Tories were satirists and not the not the wigs at all. That's what they were saying. There's a there's an if you're awake, you can't write Saturday, even if you were technically writing satire. That's the that's the key parallel. Yes. It's because it's a bit like in the present day and it was Boris Johnson. The prime minister of of the countries at the time of recording is a good example because choosing as and when we want to be associated with stutter or actively dismissing legitimate, Being beyond that. I kind of picking picking and choosing. What is it is it's a time when you're going to be associated with it and when you're not isn't it? That's right ends. Absolutely. And that's that's exactly what happens when DM reporter says that you can't be a satirist. If you've been paid to write for the Daily Mail now, I know it's a light-hearted throwaway comment, but this is exactly what's happened in the 18th century. You can't be a satirist as an app open the didn't see that if you campaign for the Hanoverian succession because that means you have a whiggish disposition and wigs don't do satire because Tory's do and it's in Pope's interest to characterize. He's everything that is Tori as not wig and vice versa. So the deployment of the label satirist isn't related at all in either example to the actual content of the material disgusts is all defined by what it isn't really and for convenient means rather than out of any stable definition of what satire is. Yeah. I just thought of that. Yeah funnily enough as well dear reporter said that he doesn't think of himself as a satirist, didn't he? I mean Rupert was doing himself a bit of a disarray. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry reap it. I'm just going to call him Rupert and to Of his anonymity because for some reason it seems like a funny and appropriate name for him. It's but his name is not Rupert. Okay, Carry On said specifically that he didn't consider himself clever enough to be a satirist. So again, whether or not you are a seller to restore the world perceives you as one it is not determined by the extent to which you meet a set of neutral criteria, but it's bound up in a more nebulous sense of what a satirist should be and what sort of things they should be saying how they should be saying them and where they should be saying them. So for Rupert it seems like disaster is It should be a sort of ingenious champion of a certain set of left-leaning values, which he doesn't necessarily see himself as being absolutely and with that right it all home. Thank you Joe. We I think we can now leave 18th century Corner. The headline is the headline is the back in the 18th century. It was important to be mindful that papers that shared a political Outlook and even at times the same Bank of political sponsorship could actually still be quite different from each other and to say that they're all the same is like saying that someone is there isn't a satirist because of some facts are external to the actual content. Whatever material they're producing. Yes, and it's also important to note that it's wig spelled with an H. That's my 18th century contribution Adams 18th century observation corner. I'll tell you I'm glad to be out of that 18th century Corner. I've got all cobwebs everything that that disgusting dirty old boring corner. So without its own charm those it but as basic does have it have its own charm, but let's let's get back to you at to thinking about the now times. Let's go back quite seriously and to talk about what Virginia was actually discussing in that article that we opened because I would imagine there when you were reading out those lines that must have felt quite difficult because there's an anxiety that people might listen and think. Oh my God, that's what that's what Adam Smith thing. Thinks everyone's a snowflake nicely to him anymore. Yeah, it was it was bizarre because I also hadn't really read it before we came in to record it. So I wasn't exactly in that one. Yeah, it's a tricky one, isn't it? Because it's and it's the same with all of this kind of this is Jean Marie of writing and but there is like The Germ of something in it. Yeah. So things like safe spaces are no platforming totally see rationale and the need for them, but I get anxious about the misuse of them or possibly the way in which you know with potentially even with genuinely altruistic intention you Could accidentally do something that shit down discussion or debate or prevented people from it's interesting. So I'm having trouble saying this right now. Yeah, I get anxious about the fact that you know, we in the in the best interests of everyone we could create an environment where nobody has challenged where nobody has to do anything that that stretches our ability and that we accidentally eliminate huge suede's of questions for fear that we might accent encounter something that we're not comfortable with. Yeah. It was really difficult because I know for sure that there are certain viewpoints Certain messages that I have no interest in hearing that I fundamentally disagree with I also know there are certain viewpoints that I do think are actively dangerous and that would concern me to hear for pounded on campus. But those things aren't always the same are they know? There are things I don't want to listen to you and things are much smaller subset of things that I don't think anyone should be saying yeah, but that it is a small group of things. Most things can be encountered can be engaged with can be debated. I think. Yeah, and I mean, I don't want to sound like this person. And when I say this, but I yeah, I went I was an undergraduate not that very long ago these debates weren't as you know prolific but we did have when I was a student was a code of conduct will have a code of conduct now and what that code of conduct did was it protects them from hate speech is protected from discrimination and bullying and obviously those things are the fundamental Bedrock. Everyone is entitled that I think it's even a human right, but when other things are lumped in with those it can lead to a closing down of discussion and lots of things being labeled as fascism. I think I should be clear on what I'm suggesting is that I think this are that this extract incidentally touches upon Two issues that are potentially interesting. I think it engages with a phenomenon that not everybody would wish to acknowledge even is a phenomenon. But then at the same time, I think it's propagating an image which is which is not true, which is that the problem is the so-called Millennials snowflakes. Yeah, that's that's not the issue that's lumping lots of people together as one thing under majority of stereotype and it's detracting potentially from what are the real issues are lying to scapegoat a huge demographic of people. That is bad. Yes, I agree is wrong. Yeah it was Yeah, this interview with Andrew told that we can listen to you now. Yeah, we're actually we're actually lucky to catch underdrawers when he was doing the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. So it's a slightly older interview. So bear that in mind as you listen that timers so we go listeners. We're taking you back in time now to the merry month of August in 2019. Okay, welcome Andrew Doyle. So our first question is what does satire mean to you for me? The did the difference between satire and Just being a comedian I think is explicitly the idea that you want something to get better. I think you want societally or politically or whatever to improve and and you have this view that it can improve through through ridicule mockery, irony exaggeration. All those kinds of techniques but satirists use the example, I often quote because I really like it. Is that a wh wardens distinction between satire and comedy because he said that satire is angry and optimistic because it thinks it's a bad things that it has a go at can be changed and whereas it is good tempered and pessimistic because it thinks that basically we might want to be able to shade everything we can so we just have to make the best of it. I think that's a really good way to distinguish between the two. So for me, I mean, I'm a comedian and a satyr is so those two things to me are overlapping but different so I can write comedy that isn't satirical as I have the many times but I think with Titania and particular I'm very much approaching it from a satirical way when you're when you're being Titania, that's a satirical Persona making satirical points funnily enough in our first episode. The podcast we talked about one of your other creations Jonathan pie and Jonathan pies a bit different isn't because he just gets angry about things that are actually happening. That's not quite satire in the same way as it. No. No, that's that's exactly right. It's not it's not satirical just to shout insults of Tori's, you know, that's not typical. I think the thing is no we were together for three years on that and when it was satirically at its best was examples. For instance like the video on the gender pay Gap when you had Jonathan pie. Into being a feminist and expecting a certain reaction and having his narrative completely thrown. So this was then a satire on on narrative, right? Yeah, or you have the there's a satirical element always in the idea of the the distance between the way that Newsreaders behave on screen and what they're really thinking off-screen so but that's always got a satirical. I think when it's at its weakest is when it is just reiterating and opinion in an angry way because that's not satirical. So let's talk now a little bit about Titania McGrath who just really interested. Ask you about how that character involved where you chose the character you did and whether or not being outed change the reception of that character in any way or if any of that was surprising. Yeah, I mean the whole thing has been surprising really, I mean, I'm not very good at anticipating people's responses. So I don't know I I sort of well for one thing I didn't want to be outed. I was I was kind of I was enjoying the anonymity but also it meant that people were reading it obviously everyone knew it was most people knew it was a conceit character but not knowing And who is behind it? Does I think change the interpretation a bit and so there was a person for us some freedom for that. I had absolutely no intention of being outed. But what happened in the end was a journalist for Rosamund Urban at the Sunday Times wrote a pretty impressive investigative piece where she'd read a lot of my political articles myself chemical articles and made some kind of connection between that and elements of the book even down to sort of quotations. I Chosen and said that it's probably me and I thought that was really impressive actually. Yeah, and then there was a website called shorter that found sort of the smoking. Done. And so then from that point on I felt well I may as well just you know, go on the TV radio and talk about it openly and I didn't want to but I did and that coincided with the week that the book was being released. So actually did help in there because it became the kind of story but the ludicrous element of those is the response to that from so many so many of her critics has been the idea that a male writing for a female voice is kind of I mean, it's been compared to black face and it's as though these people have never heard of the concept of an author writing a script before they've never heard of do. Only inventing a character that isn't exactly identical to them and I suppose that comes out. In fact that they don't like the politics of it and they're looking for ways to attack it. That's that can be my only conclusion because otherwise how can and this smart people but they're coming out with these this these genuinely stupid things. Anyway, the people say stupid things when they're not stupid is if they're so blinded by an ideology be that religion or politics. That's the way I see it. Yeah seems too. That responses to two taenia fall into two quite polarized camps. And the first is a people who respond to her as if she's real and critique are in actually often quite sexist ways and correct her and the other is the response which which objects to that Persona being female and to the problem of a male creating a female Persona. Can you say a little bit more about why why she is female. Why is it Titania McGrath and not Tim because I think part of of the major problem that I see with the kind of modern identity Politics as it as it manifests on the left as opposed to the right means of the the identity Politics on the right is that sort of racist xenophobic thing which we goes without saying is ghastly and the thing about the I was more interested in satirizing. The left is important in politics because it believes itself to be virtuous, but it's actually incredibly damaging and that to me is a more interesting satirical Target and I think part of that is 4th wave feminism which to me is a very Movement and that again it's the hypocrisy of that. I wanted to be able to talk about, you know, you have a victim-centered brand of feminism encourages young girls to to understand that they will always be victims that they would always be attack. They'll be paid less for the same work which hasn't happened for 50 years, but we still telling girls that it will we're all of this sort of stuff that is actually underpinning by a kind of misogyny a kind of view of being weaker of needing these extra protections of not being as robust as men and that To me the opposite of what feminism means feminism to me is about empowerment and about equality and fourth wave feminism is about dis empowerment and is and inequality and so for me, I wanted to be able to include that in my satirical Target and I don't see how I could have done it as effectively she was male, right? So there's a very particular strand of feminism that you were interested in critiquing via titanium as well as all the other aspects of so-called woke politics that you were Keen to critique. Ultimately. I'm interested in deflating pretension and and that's the same for my comedy as well. And I think anyone who's being who has ideas about themselves that are just absurd. It's always good to go after those people and I think the can be nothing more pretentious than a extremely privileged individuals suggesting that they are oppressed. There's nothing more pretentious than that is literally the meaning of potential they are there pretending to be something they are not and it's and it's funny that's always really funny and what you'll find is a lot of the very prominent fourth wave feminists who write for the guardian and complications like that and the new Statesman are from these extremely privileged privately educated. Good background who bang on and on about how oppressed they are and that to me is hilarious and also slightly damaging, you know, because I mean in all of I think what I have in terms of my comedic and satirical targets what they have in common is I go after the powerful I go after people in power and that's a choice. I am not suggesting that Canadians have to do that because Justin that's a choice that I'm just saying that's a choice that I've always made it more interesting to me the thing about the woke movement. It is extremely powerful even though there are a huge minority the degree of power that they have now in society is hugely disproportionate. And it's difficult to address because they believe themselves to be The Underdogs. How do you fight that every day? We see this we see the level of power that people can deny again and again, but it's true. We've just had the advertising standards agency Banning an advert for cheese because it endorsed a certain gender stereotype or that is an implicit of no explicit endorsement of of this woke idea about power structures and the influence of the mass media. All of which is actually been debunked over many decades of research, but it's now it's now just taken as a given this is better. In this faith-based position that the whop whop people have and they've applied it as policies. So this stuff is extremely dangerous because it has so much power and clout and therefore that's why I'm punching it up at these people. Of course, the the misinterpretation is that is you're just having a go at minority group. So it sounds to me like on the one hand you're critiquing a kind of feminism that reads women as still structurally oppressed by a patriarchal society that some might describe as radical feminism, but then actually detain him a graph is not necessarily that kind of Of feminist she is somebody it seems to me who's interested in women as an identity much more. Yeah, it's a mass of contradictions. That's what's so fun about playing you can you can poke fun at all sorts of things and she can even hugely contradict yourself within the same paragraph and I really like that. I think you're I think you're absolutely right about the yeah. The argument that I have individually against for feminine is it is to do with the illusion of structural oppression, but I do consider it a largely an illusion and that is not to say that I think sexism doesn't exist or that Women in certain circumstances are discriminated against because of their gender. That isn't what I'm saying. What I'm what I'm talking about is this exaggeration and this sense in which there is what is a misuse of the word oppression. I suppose is what I mean. No one is being asked for their papers. No one is being asked to nobody's being said you're going to go and work for two pounds while the men do the same job and they get 10 and that's what I mean. Does that is that sort of clear? I'm not talking about sexism to really interesting point that about punching up and kicking down. So I guess when your target is as you Describe their this group of relatively privileged people who are able to mobilize the oppression of others to kind of say what they like and critique what they like because they're in victimhood as you've described is so tacitly built into their their identity in the pose that they're making on social media. It can look very easy like you're kicking down particularly. Now that you've been outed as Andrew Doyle, I mean, it's that as a factor. Is that something you've had to contend with worse than that? It's not even a cynical as you suggest. I mean, I think a lot of this is as I said before, I think it's well intentioned. I think most of the fourth wave feminism Market Eyes are not misogynist. They just bought into a misogynist ideology. Similarly. I don't think that the people who push the idea of cultural appropriation are doing so from anything other than good intentions, but what they are doing is dividing up society and rehabilitating a new kind of races, which this is this is what I find really disturbing about the whole thing. They unpicking all of the work of the Civil Rights activists of the 60s and 70s their undoing all of the work of Martin Luther King talks about the importance of content of character not color of skin and they're doing all this for me. A position of virtue and I don't think it's cynical and I don't think it's malevolent. I think it's misguided and I think it's dangerous and I think it also feeds the far right it gives them everything. They need to give them all the oxygen they need to thrive and I'm not saying that they're responsible for the rise of the far. Right but they are enabling the conditions within which they can Thrive interesting questions here about satire and freedom of speech and the use of personas yours. Obviously be entertaining McGrath. How does that Persona connect with with your position and perhaps Relative privilege in the world. Well, I mean I have got you know, I won't say too much but I have got you know a couple of other personas out there. I'm not out as I think it's interesting to me to inhabit other characters and I think it's the best way sometime to help people to see the way that they are seen by others, even if you hate time there and even if you hate what she stands for part of that hatred might be big that you detect a similarity with yourself and and you don't like seeing it mom in that sense. I think it's quite a useful thing is interesting to think about that. Is it that possibility of people looking at it? Janie McGrath recognizing themselves and doing something differently as a result, which I guess is kind of the ultimate goal for any satirist isn't it? And it probably isn't going to happen. I think the won't move in a to Colts like to sort of immersed in this sort of if I tried to explain to a religious zealot that their God isn't real, you know, I think I think things are harder than that, but what I think it can do is because the woke movement tend to be such bullies and tend to be so vicious and go after people's careers and try to bring people down and and that makes people nervous about expressing. Giving is about their views. So I think what it can do is if you mock them if you show that it's okay to mark them. It does give people kind of permission to do so and I've never had that feedback quite a lot which has been quite nice to hear that people said to me, you know, from what you've done is actually made me. Okay, I'll retweet this stuff now or I'll I'll I won't be afraid to say what I think and that is a real compliment. I really I'm really pleased with that but I'm not delusional enough to think that you know, some woke person's going to read this and think. Oh, no, that's what I'm like, I better change my way. That's not good. Okay, so all satirist want to hold up a mirror and change people's behavior and change their my hearts and Minds if in theory you were able to do that to affect that change to inspire that reflection on the part of the young woke ident Aryans or the readers of the Daily Mail. Which would you who do you whose Minds? Do you want to change? Oh, I think you know, I mean most of my and up and certainly most of the work I did with Jonathan Pie has been mocking the right and most of the work. I've done it two times. Mocking the length, but then you picked up as well on the people who take it seriously and there are still an awful lot. There's rarely a street without some people take it. Seriously the people who take it seriously other right-wing as other usually the Trump supporters, so to end up being able to mock them through to China as well, which is lovely. So so it's about extremes really I do think however, when you talk about the mail email friends it is it's really simplistic and a little stupid to refer to data my readers fascist or to think that the Daily Mail is a flashy scratch or whatever nothing else. It's historically illiterate. You know when people call me right wing or conservative or whatever. I mean, it's not accurate, but I don't take it to heart because I don't get to do those things to be essentially bad thing. I think if I were those things that would be fine. I just I just own the label. I don't have a problem with it. But yes, certainly. I want it, you know, I'll mock anything anything that I think think is pretentious or I think is is misleading or always worthy of mockery and that goes for the right-wing press as much as the left one first, and I've certainly done enough of both, you know, has anyone ever majorly endorsed an opinion that's telling you a shared not realizing that it's Tyra's it's titanium. Got our own fans. Yeah, but they soon realized because everyone passes on and says this is real and I wish you wouldn't do that so much more fun to draw it out. I mean, I've been you know, it's been retweeted by people who are angry about what she said about some quite prominent people which is great and then you know, it's that thing of people keep saying to me, I mean criticism I often get is that there's no one who's really likes tiny that what I'm doing really is a kind of straw man. I'm trying to knock over attack a Target that isn't really there but of course if that were the case and it wouldn't be the case that so many people continually. It's just a couple real life. You'll notice in the book. I've made a very conscious decision to quote genuine activists, but throughout so that you can see that what's Tiny was saying, although it is an absurdist exaggeration with certain antibiotic not a million miles away from what people are saying when Lori Penny says that you know, you shouldn't necessarily be free to say what you want in the privacy of your own house. That's not that different from anything too. Tiny would say and so you can see why people think think it's real and that's disturbing to me that People don't immediately recognize it as a character. So we actually confirms to me the necessity do it. Yeah what you're saying, they're about jokes and people getting them and not getting them ties in really nicely actually to a question that I wanted to ask in relation to you yours or / to Tony his book woke where to tell you is talking about jokes and comedy and one of the jokes that she engages with and critiques is particularly interesting to us because we talked about this in our first season, so I'll just read that joke and to tell you his commentary on it. If that's okay, and then just ask you to talk us through how the satire is working there and what exactly is being critiqued. So she's talking about jokes and making the argument that comedy needs to be purged of jokes that reinforce bigotry and after giving a couple of other examples there is the inverse of Commerce joke made by Frankie Boyle. I have a theory Boyle said in his joke that Jordan married a cage fighter because she needed someone strong enough to stop Harvey from fucking her Harvey. Has some pants attain you glasses this by saying Frankie boil making the misogynistic assumption that a woman would be incapable of fending off her son without the help of her husband is the joke there on people who objected to Frankie boils joke or is the joke on her for objecting to it for the wrong reasons. I mean, what's your take on what Frankie Boyle said? They're my bun personally either. I'm always supportive of comedians when they want to make jokes even if those don't necessarily land or even if they cause a been tight think Frankie boils a very funny comedian. So I and there's something about jokey toll I understand why people would be upset by that Cho and I understand why in particular the people who it's talking about would be upset but I still think he has a right to to say it. I can't even remember what my initial reactions the joke was when I heard I but I do, you know, I do laughs inappropriate things. There's something about that kind of I can't believe you just said that it does generate this kind of involuntary because it sort of reminds us why we don't say these things, you know, I think That's kind of interesting and also it is my view on this if you're if anyone is going to determine what jokes are and are not acceptable. It has to be a matter for the individual conscience of the individual comedian. There are jokes that I wouldn't say and there are jokes that I wouldn't I don't think I could get away with doing and so therefore I don't do it not because I fear of offending people. I don't think I could make them funny and I don't think it could be successful. He's obviously made a judgment he can joke about that and it will work. So that's down to him. You know, that's not a good answer every individual coming. In terms of the Titania satire there. There were a few jokes that all that one which I which is so things like where she where she misread the go. Yeah. So what was the one about for instance Tim Vine? Yeah, it's not Tim Vine. It's there to jokes that received this one though. Yeah. The first is Frank Skinner saying when my wife and I argue were like abandon a concert we start out with some new stuff and then we roll out our greatest hits. She said that is legitimizing domestic violence. That's right. Yes, that's right. Yeah. I'm into that context is because Is some jokes which are clearly joke, she chooses to interpret them literally and then then you have a joke, which is actually potentially offensive over. The other jokes are not a fence and then you take a joke that he's actually potentially offensive and she misunderstands a joke and still gets it wrong. Yeah. It's more about that kind of woke mindsets inability to meet at all engage with what comedy is and to just see comedy as a literal statement of the truth. And and that's something which is which we see pretty much all the time every every day. I mean we even threw it today, so Aaron Banks did a tweet about Greta firm book strip. Jaap Chef America, and he said, oh there might be a pro. Hope there isn't a freak accident or some and it was crass and and it wasn't funny and all the rest of it and a lot of the people are rightly annoyed because it's tweeted directly at a 16 year old girl that does seem to me is something that I was certainly not something I would do but most of the criticisms seem to be Arron Banks wants his girl to die. Arron Banks is just called for the death of this girl. Well, I think we can all agree. He hasn't done that, you know, whatever we think about him and whatever why can't we just be honest and say we felt that joke was Funny and inappropriate is it because that weakens us is it because it makes us feel like Puritans were so we have to lie and say he's calling for the death of a girl even though we know he's not so I think what I'm saying about the boat people is that what willful or otherwise is an inability to understand what comedy is and to understand what folks are that's what I'm that's what I'm talking about in that in that section. It's hardly gets it so hopelessly wrong that you when she actually comes across something that she could legitimately say crosses a line. She only thinks it crosses a line because it because of another it cause you think it's anti-feminist and she misses the whole a bliss element of it. This is about Nuance, isn't it as well as perhaps about mourning the death of Comedy that there is an over use of the word literally, whereby we see a lot of insistence that people are literally saying this when they actually definitely literally not or that things are literally violence, for example, that's what's happening a lot. Isn't it reminded lack of new one and that's why two tiny is so blunt because she doesn't have room for new ones because it's the problem is with that with a lot of work people if the reason why they Debate a lot of the time it's because I think they know that if they were to debate their arguments would fall apart. They have to start acknowledging that there are Shades of Gray and that doesn't work with the cold you could you know, and you can't say you're dating sort of exists it either does or it doesn't it is built on faith. Largely this the faith in these power structures and the faith in this actors potential utopian cute here that we can all achieve only we control the way that people speak and the language they're allowed to me and it will fall apart when it comes into any kind of scrutiny. I think the last thing we want to talk about just before we let you go is that in our last episode? We actually interviewed the person who manages the account at DM reporter which tweets content from The Daily Mail and tries to foreground how funny and strange some of that stuff is but during the interview we were talking about managing different types of persona and how he's managed his Persona and we ended up talking briefly about two tiny McGrath and during that conversation down reporter said that he didn't believe the you could still call yourself a satirist. Now that's attorney McGrath has appeared in the pages of the Daily Mail. Yeah. Well, it wasn't a daily matters mail on Sunday. But that's not secured that you just described is exactly the kind of thing. I'm satirizing, you know, if someone thinks that you cease being a satirist on the base of the publication you write for that is quite funny. That's quite funny thing to say because it's quite stupid and I think the content of the satire is still very obviously satirical. I don't play these tribalistic games a lot of the satire. A lot of the point of Catania is is that is to transcend this stupid political tribalism that we've got kind of division that comes about when people like Owen Jones say anyone who writes for the Sun or the mail is helping fascism or supporting. You're right. I'm just not going to play those games. I'm not gonna do it that the mail is a national newspaper, which is read by a lot of decent people. There are probably some awful people that read it, but for the most part the people who read it or not awful people and the idea that they should be that they shouldn't be reading satirical pieces is it's a totally absurd. Is it a concern for you though that as much as we might want to avoid reductive generalizations and stereotypes about readers of any Ezekiel paper that you might be confirming certain beliefs that male readers have about the young the woke the left that you might be entrenching those beliefs and thus making those readers less likely to be open to hearing those kinds of arguments. I'm a techie a very specific type of person. I mean, that would be a misreading of what I'm doing. I'm so I'm not really concerned if people misread what I do you can't be I think as a satirist or a writer you can't be people have always misinterpreted South Side. That's all part of its effect. Isn't it? I can't be in the business of getting worried about that and then trying to anticipate that misinterpretation and changing my material accordingly. That's that's not how any of us can work. I don't think there are a lot of assumptions made about about these Publications and about what they stand for and they are reductive and they are simplistic. I'm not going to do this guilt by association rubbish. I think the heart of the problems with say the currency of the moment societally other people just aren't talking to each other anymore. And what happens is they just end up Saying that political opponent and they end up arguing it someone who doesn't really exist just this sort of figment of the imagination, you know, this kind of this just Chimera they've created from their minds and yeah, so I will by all means and I do it again. I don't have an issue with them with writing a satirical piece for the mail on Sunday a lot of decent people right for it. We're gonna have to wrap up there, but thanks ever so much for talking to us Andrew. Thank you you thanks for talking about Pete. I appreciate being able to talk talk about things at length, you know, and I like to be challenged as well. Well, here we are back in. November 20 19 and I was interesting wasn't and and definitely I think we were all challenged in that interview. We were yeah, I mean I thought it was really interesting talking to Andrew and I am utterly convinced that Andrew door is a satirist. Yes, and that he is doing satire. He's got a clear Target. He's got a clear rationale and I thought he did a good job of sketching. The intervention is trying to make and can't convince me that satire is actually probably one of the only viable means to make the intervention. Yes. I also thought was interesting talking about nuance and talking about The will to take things literally and I think that not only is that potentially a problem sometimes in general discourse. It's specifically a problem for satire, isn't it? If we can't appreciate nuance and yeah, well one of the things that I found quite surprising and enlightening I was really intrigued to hear more about was the specificity of the Target because I followed the Titania McGrath account for a couple years. Now what hadn't realized is who exactly the target was I thought there was a broader Target which is you know, this kind of call out culture this this sense of piling on to critique people's use of language and and the kind of reduction of big issues down to easily marketable slogans, which then big business can come in and exploit and you end up with things like that Pepsi Max advert, you know, everyone's marching off listening to the latest mainstream hit to go and do a protest whilst drinking that cans of Pepsi Coke and harpsichord. Not only yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I thought you know, that's a problem. I think that is a way in which real serious long-standing systemic issues can be turned into marketable capitalist and Inches and it often runs the risk of undoing the work that the original calls was trying to do and leads to a really divisive simplistic Society. I think oftentimes it can be as bad to unthinkingly wade into a pile on because 1300 people have said that something that someone else has said is problematic in some way without actually looking at the thing that the person has said and why they said it in the context in which it said it. I think that often the impulse to pile on and the things that come out there pylons are often times worse than the thing that's being said which sometimes can be a Absolutely, fine just taken out of context. Yeah, and you should never weighed into a pylon because it's a big metal structure in a field and you'll hurt your head. One of the things I found really useful and interests in terms of satire and how starter works was looking into some detail at the mechanism and the work behind that joke in Andrews book woke where Titania takes exception to Frankie boils in inverted commas joke about Jordan and her son and actually kind of looking at the rationale behind that and the way that works in the way that works within the Text of the page and the book even if I don't agree with all of the decisions about who to Target for satire thinking about how that bit of satire was intended to work and what point it was making I found that really useful to be able to talk to a practitioner about the tools was that I was really useful absolutely but then finding out that the target is as specific as hundred interpretation of fourth wave feminism. Yeah. I mean, that's what I mean when I say we don't have to agree with everything. I don't agree with all of the the targets that Titania is is satirizing On the subject of feminism. I would say I don't believe we've achieved a quality yet. And I think there is some way to go and I don't think it's always as simple as being able to to go through structures and mechanisms that I can't report a car salesman to the police if he doesn't take me seriously because I'm a woman when I'm trying to buy a car for example, and that's the small thing but it still suggests. We're not all the way there yet. You know, I'll still always be asked if I'm actually mrs. Or Miss rather than doctor. You don't get that no, no. And I totally accept those are relatively small things because of where I live and who I am, but I think it's a bit soon to be saying that the battle is over and therefore feminists risk kind of coming from a place of privilege. But then the point that even with their makes about the way that oppression is represented in can be sort of caricatured and he makes the point doesn't it when he talks about the use of the word oppression the misuse the word oppression again, I don't necessarily agree with the examples that he's saying, but I can see how that could get converted into To a pink t-shirt that says girls rule and you put the new kid and think everything's sorted. Yeah. She's actually the opposite of the thing that yeah, I'm not even supposed to be doing. I'm so there's maybe hypocracy there. That's where satirizing. Well, we're all Hypocrites something. Yeah. Do you what do you think listeners? Yeah. Do you agree? Did you hear anything that you disagreed with? Oh that you want to talk about more. If you do hit us up in our social. Yes ever. Please do let us know if you've enjoyed the episode or even if you've just heard the episode. And also, please be aware that coming up later in this series. We'll be having our first mailbag episode. So if you'd like to respond to any of the things that we discuss in terms of satire or anything that comes up in the podcast and you'd like to have a say please do get in touch and that goes for all of our guests as well. Where should they do that? So here's up in socials at at satire. No more on Twitter. You can find our website by Googling the words satire deaths births legacies, or you can tweet it individually until the next time until the next what's happening. Next time on next time on it during snow is falling all around and it'll be time for for this myth and will Christmas episode which is going to be called. It's a satirical life. So you probably haven't seen the film It's a Wonderful Life put that on your to-do list between now and then so that you'll get the joke. So sit up shut up and eat my satire. See you next time.
In episode 1 of season 2, anonymous Twitter account DM Reporter commented that you can't be a satirist if you write for the Daily Mail. In this episode Adam and Jo talk to Andrew Doyle about that argument, and about Andrew's own satirical Twitter account, "Titania McGrath." Who are his targets, and how does he hope to change their minds? Is there any hope for the future? And exactly what was wrong with Frankie Boyle's "joke" about Katie Price and her son? Listen to the trailer! Listen to the episode! In this episode Adam, Jo, and Andrew talk about:   Aaron Banks  Alexander Pope   Boris Johnson   Codes of Conduct   Countryfile   Cultural Appropriation   Daily Express   Daily Mail/ Scottish Daily Mail   DM Reporter   Dear Joan and Jericha   The Eighteenth Century   Feminism   Frank Skinner   Frankie Boyle   Georges I, II, III, and IV   Gender Pay Gap   Grammarly   Greta Thunberg   The Hanoverian Period   Horrible Histories   Identity Politics   Impact Agenda   It's A Wonderful Life   Jonathan Pie   Jordan (Katie Price)   Joseph Addison   Just Eat   Laurie Penny   Mail on Sunday   Mail Online   Martin Luther King   My Dad Wrote A Porno   No-Platforming   The One Show   Owen Jones   Pepsi   Podcast Sponsorship   Political Tribalism   Richard Steele   Rosamund Irwin   Safe Spaces   The Scourge   Shropshire Farm Foods   Snowflakes   Sodexxo   Square Space   Titania McGrath   Tories   Twitter   Virginia Blackburn   W.H. Auden   Whigs and Whig Ministries   Woke (Andrew Doyle writing as Titania McGrath)   Wokeness and Woke People   World War II (bomb shelters and dogfights)   Zip Recruiter 