Just as Shakespeare’s wisest men oft play the fool, so too does the truth often come in unexpected fashions. In these times more than ever, satire is a very much needed piece to our discussion’s puzzle; our political discourse, our mass media, our social media — political satire takes our beliefs and our platforms and our scheming and it pulls them all out to their logical ends. It is oftentimes funny, oftentimes preposterous, but hopes above all else to be tragic and poignant.

Formal satire is not so much a goal of today’s media. No longer are authors running about suggesting the poor forfeit their children to the aristocracy’s dinner table. Satire is used as a light curative, nowadays, and rarely manifests itself in any manner other than short “The Onion”-esque witticisms.  

But why is this the case? Satire can be used to point the finger, to attract attention, to subtly, underhandedly make claims — and is this not the time to be doing just these things?

It was 34 years ago that Monty Python debuted “The Meaning of Life” and musical sketch “Every Sperm is Sacred” — a vignette, downright scandalous to many, that stomps and claps and shouts its way to its point. And, though Saturday Night Live and other productions take temperamental, varying swings at it, this kind of shocking, in-your-face satire is not so much presented anymore.

We think it should be. We’d like to see more of it.

The media’s duty is coverage. But coverage alone can only go so far, and so commentary exists for its interpretation, and for our consumption. This commentary comes in all manners of shapes and sizes, and satire is but one of them. Even so, it is integral by its confronting, conflicting, outrageous nature. Satire snaps reader’s expectations and goes about its business in a wholly different way than a traditionally structured argument, and its rewards is its efficacy.

The incredibly divisional issues that plague today’s politics are in a desperate need of such commentary. Our attentions are divided, our intentions are divided, our views are divided, but our base values and our morals are not — or should not be impaired — and it is satire that can show us these values, and point out their implications so much better and so much more directly than can traditional commentary.

There is a limit, though, to its ends. Satire cannot paint all its landscapes in the same shade, nor can it take on any subject. It is a specific tool for specific circumstances, but, nevertheless, an underutilized tool. It deserves more space in our political arena.