... and so on (or not; these are the only ones so far I think). I like this joke, for a few reasons. First, it's subtle; having famously ushered him into office, The Onion must feel some comedic pressure to escort him out appropriately, and they've chosen to do that through deadpan news briefs rather than something bigger and more obviously satiric of Bush. Second, it is fantastic satire of domestic violence--a target that tends to resist satiric treatment: It parodies the goofy impossible excuses that both abusers and abused use to explain away the violence, and it serves as a contrapasso (okay we don't know that Bush is guilty of domestic abuse, even though he almost certainly is an asshole date-raping frat-boy fuckwaffle, but it does seem plausible and we know he's done far worse), where abuse-for-the-abuser is both emotionally and dramatically satisfying.
Finally, while the arc of the joke is easy to discern (Bush will suffer more and more mutilations until Jan. 20, presumably at the hands of the Secret Service, aides, and family), its details are open-ended, limited only by the comic inventiveness of the authors; like "The Aristocrats," this is a joke more about the journey than the destination. And the surreality of crocodiles and nail guns already seen enriches the satire: perhaps the abusers are making up stupid excuses because they don't care who knows, perhaps it's abuse at the hands of the author (think "Duck Amuck"), perhaps (ok, certainly) it's a callback to the idiocy of a semi-dry drunk who can injure himself with a pretzel. We don't know exactly what's in store for Onion-Bush, but it is certain to involve much ignominy, humiliation, and pain. Gives me a warm feeling, it does.
2 comments:
I was JUST telling Raina about this! I found it so hard to explain--usually the Onion jokes are so clear and contained, this one is for the regular reader as I think just one seems a little strange and irregular. When oh when will the headline read "Bookish Midwestern Girl Reduces Bush to Unrecognizeable Mass of Papercuts"?
The more I think about it (which is clearly way too much) the more I'm convinced that the best part of the joke is the implied complicity of the Secret Service. I imagine one of them, say, kicking Bush in the throat, and the rest of them sort of turning away and whistling. Like you can't spend eight years in proximity with someone that loathsome without giving into the urge to throw him out a window.
You could write the Onion and ask for a Bush-maiming cameo, but they'd probably have a mile of requests for something like that...
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