Battleaxe Betty
at Second City, Skybox Studio
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
In the last two decades, however, in America at least, parody has been debased and satire declawed. Ailing comic institutions like Mad magazine, National Lampoon, and Saturday Night Live do nothing but churn out laughless send-ups and flaccid barbs. And Second City, once known for its cunning political jabs, has relegated parody to a back burner and all but eliminated straight-ahead satire from its repertoire. The current main-stage show does feature a fully improvised parody of a day of programming on National Public Radio, but that sketch is meant more to highlight the cast’s improvising talents than to poke fun at NPR’s overbearing seriousness. (And thank God it’s the exception! How many fully improvised blues parodies can we take in one lifetime?)
What accounts for the recent decline in genuinely pointed satire? Shortage and overabundance. Too few original comic minds out there, and too many energetic hacks following the same tired old formulas, cranking out cookie-cutter parodies. Too few Tom Lehrers, and too many Capitol Steps.
