The Retort

A Retort for The Retort

April 19th, 2010 by Anonymous For The Retort

I read the article about the “Perfect Couple” joke in the March 26 edition of the Retort, and it has been too long since I saw such an exquisite example of satirical verse! But many of my peers may not be as familiar with satirical literature as I (satire: irony or sarcasm used to attack or expose stupidity) since they believed your article to be serious. As this is an impression that the entire readership is suffering under, I felt I must correct their misjudgments. I constructed the following points to prove that this article could not have been intended as a serious argument since it would then be ridiculous, vengeful, and nonsensical, and not the masterpiece of sarcastic with and humor that I know it to be.

First of all, the joke in question is entirely inoffensive when compared to the “humor” polluting the campus today. Jokes that are truly in poor taste are found in Family Guy or the “dead baby” genre.

Second, one of the hallmarks of satire is its' unflinching ability to convey points that make no sense, ergo “in my experience” and “I can only assume,” both of which were used to great effect. If a serious argument had been intended the writer would not have used vague phrases to convince the audience, they would have backed up assumptions with facts! Ten minutes on Ask.com would have satisfied even the most laissez faire approach to creating comprehensive and viable points, which leads me to my next observation:

The arguments in the article can easily be disproven by anyone with access to that all-knowing power we call Google. THIS is the ESSENCE of satire - to write something so ignorant, so ludicrous, and so absurd that the readers doubt its' validity and are driven to examine the topic and form their own well-educated and thoroughly-researched opinion! It is a tool used to help able minds approach a subject and use independent thought and opinion to grow as a critical thinker! If the writer’s intentions are still in doubt, I share a few examples from the article:

“Women are bad drivers and always cause car accidents, when in my experience men are more reckless...” [Retort, Volume 2, Issue 7] According to the Fields Journal of Scientific Data, which featured “Montana: A Comprehensive Look At Driving Today,” 84 percent of car accidents are attributed to female drivers.

“...women listen more than men do.” [See source material above] Byrd University found in 2007 that when given a series of identical lectures covering randomly-selected topics over the course of two months, men consistently tested better than women on their absorption of the course material by almost 60 percent.

And “...the man who wrote this joke...” [See source material above] This jokes' original source, Annabelle, writes for Your Perfect Wedding Blog and “shares humorous insight into relationship problems and solutions.”

The article went on to say that men who want women for more than sex are rare (statistically 87 percent of men get married), men are incapable of being considerate, respectful, thoughtful or in love (ALL leading scientists agree that 100 percent of humans have identical emotional capacity), and the man who wrote this joke (wrong) thinks that women should be controlled by men (this is not X-Men and Professor Xavier cannot mind-control you). And, as if the reader could have failed to miss the writer’s rampant sexism that completely negates every argument all on its' own, the writer wrote that they “... can't believe that such a sexist thing was allowed to be published.” Ironically, the sexism in the article is much more offensive than the joke itself because the writer’s points are supposed to be facts, whereas any and all sexism in the joke was intended to add to its' humor and the audiences' ability to relate to its' content.

This leads me to my final argument and the piece de resistance. When this edition of the Potty Press was first published and an objection to its content was made, it was removed, re-written and re-hung, and the Residence Hall Association wrote a personal letter of apology to the individual. NO ONE could have POSSIBLY been traumatized enough to take the matter further, much less to the NEWSPAPER, unless they were defending the joke and its publisher through satire.

I hope I have succeeded in my attempt to showcase an example of superior literary acumen. I am, and will remain

Your Greatest Fan,

We Heard You The First Time

in conjunction with

Now Let It Go, Already