The Onion was wrong but it shouldn’t have apologized
Still, while I think the joke was both comedically and normatively irredeemable, and the anger at it justified, I don’t like the precedent set by Onion, Inc., when CEO Steve Hannah wrote the kind of platitudinous and panicky corporate apology letter that The Onion would normally satirize, and managed to come off as spineless and condescending at the same time…
I don’t like it, because apologizing for jokes, even — or especially — the ones that are the most “crude and offensive,” is un-Onion-like behavior. In fact, it’s positively anti-Onion behavior. It does violence to the very spirit that makes The Onion The Onion — the thing that renders it able to stand apart from and thus contextualize our culture — and it is going to make hardcore fans wonder from now on whether every punch is being pulled. Just as you don’t ask Batman to fill out police reports, if The Onion is yoked with the same PC strictures as the rest of us, then who will tell us, with poignancy and bile, when the PC strictures have gone too far?
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The Onion was funny back in 1999.
John the Libertarian on February 26, 2013 at 7:05 PM
Yep.
When their extreme liberal bias started bleeding through every single video, joke and article I just couldn’t stomach it any longer.
I don’t miss them one bit.
ButterflyDragon on February 26, 2013 at 7:08 PM
Missing the point. It’s not about how crude the joke was (very, but there’s nothing new about that). It’s about involving a real life little kid. That is unacceptable.
Fenris on February 26, 2013 at 7:08 PM
This defense of assailing kids and his GOProud schtick the other day has me wondering: does this guy have any redeeming value?
Stoic Patriot on February 26, 2013 at 7:11 PM
The way I see it, the Onion tweet was making fun of people like us. It was mocking those who go online and sometimes viciously attack celebrities for what are sometimes very small things. It was mocking online commenting b*tchiness and nastiness. The point of referring to the young actress in the joke was to show the absurdity and shamefulness of the b*tchy Twitter culture.
They shouldn’t have apologized.
The Onion’s real mistake was thinking its audience would be able to get the satire.
bluegill on February 26, 2013 at 7:11 PM
The Onion has kinda gone the way of MAD…suffered from a loss of internal quality-control and run out of ways to make fun of our society because it’s just gone so insane.
There is just about nothing they can say that libtards won’t do or at least endorse as a Brilliant Idea. I literally could not make up the things that modern Democrats are trying.
MelonCollie on February 26, 2013 at 7:12 PM
The Onion is great.
bluegill on February 26, 2013 at 7:12 PM
I like Onions with Garlic.
portlandon on February 26, 2013 at 7:19 PM
NR has been reduced to hiring writers from The Onion. I see the problem here.
sauldalinsky on February 26, 2013 at 7:24 PM
The problem with The Onion is that you can’t tell the difference between it and actual new outlets.
That is how sad the state of Journalism is right now.
portlandon on February 26, 2013 at 7:42 PM
Why would a 9-year-old understand satire? She’s the one who has every right to be offended, after all. The folks who are outraged on her behalf don’t interest me, but the Onion should definitely apologize to her.
Ronnie on February 26, 2013 at 7:44 PM
This is like Comedy Central refusing to run the Mohammad South Park.
Reputation is permanently tarnished.
WisCon on February 26, 2013 at 8:03 PM
Why? Did she threaten to blow up a Chuck E Cheese?
Ronnie on February 26, 2013 at 8:13 PM
I’m just not buying these limited defenses we see on Hot Gas, AoSHQ, and now from Daniel Foster (who is an excellent writer, btw). My beef with Foster’s piece is mostly I don’t think the Onion plays as grand as role as he suggests and that the indefensible comment/joke necessitated an apology. Chalk it up to the continued downward slide that the Onion put itself in a position that it had to make an apology – but not that not making an apology would have been a fortifying move.
Foster does sum it up well in saying: “Worst of all, it was pointless. It didn’t tell us, and barely even attempted to gesture at, anything interesting or insightful about the media or celebrity.”
Bingo. Pointless. Not only disgusting. Pointless and disgusting. We can say that the intent was to make some biting social commentary…but it just didn’t. There was no context, no hook, nothing to make it relevant to anything. Thus it comes across as depraved.
Crispian on February 26, 2013 at 8:21 PM
A 9 year old and the “c” word should not be used in a sentence together, ever.
Fallon on February 26, 2013 at 8:24 PM
Do you want a list of people the Onion has offended over the past 10 years? There have been several just as bad as this. This is the only time they have ever apologized though.
WisCon on February 26, 2013 at 8:25 PM
Nope. The real mistake was thinking using a 9 year old CHILD was an appropriate subject for their “satire” attempt.
She’s a CHILD. What part of that is so hard to understand?
MikeknaJ on February 26, 2013 at 8:39 PM
The real real mistake was thinking calling the child that name constituted satire.
Crispian on February 26, 2013 at 8:42 PM
Weird. That doesn’t sound like an (R) name at all.
rogerb on February 26, 2013 at 8:48 PM
Eh, they were right to apologize, but they way they apologized was wrong. They said no one should be the butt of that joke when they should have just said a child shouldn’t be the butt of that joke, i doubt anyone would care if an adult was on the receiving end of it.
clearbluesky on February 26, 2013 at 8:48 PM
Sorry, but the joke wouldn’t have worked as well had they not referred to the young actress. Yes, the effect was jolting, and it may have been using absurdity to highlight the indefensible, out-of-control nature of much of the bashing of female actresses by online critics. This was the furthest thing from a mean-spirited joke. It seems, instead, to be criticizing the mean-spiritedness. 75% of the comments on this site are incredibly mean-spirited, though.
The Onion has always been great and continues to be great.
bluegill on February 26, 2013 at 9:14 PM
You can make that point without the C-word.
Do you wan to explain to your daughter why someone called her a C***? “It’s okay honey! A “c***” means this. But don’t let it bother you. After all, The Onion is a brilliant satirical publication and their point was quite exquisite!”
I’m tired of this idea that “satire” excuses everything. It’s what Bill Maher hides behind when he doesn’t want to take responsibility for the things he says. It’s just comedy, people! Republicans have no sense of humor! My jokes about Trig Palin are so insightful!
A truly brilliant satirist can make their point without stooping to this kind of dreck.
MikeknaJ on February 26, 2013 at 9:23 PM
Good point MikeknaJ, I don’t remember so many conservatives finding the Palin children jokes so worthy of defense.
Crispian on February 26, 2013 at 9:40 PM
For Letterman’s joke to work, you have to agree with his assumption that the Palin daughter (yeah, he meant to refer to the older one) is a low class, hillbilly sl*t.
For the Onion’s joke to work, you have to recognize the obvious fact that that young actress should never be called that word.
Letterman’s joke was mean-spirited, the Onion’s wasn’t.
bluegill on February 26, 2013 at 9:55 PM
Ace has a post today about liberals not laughing at Malkin’s mockery of Michelle Obama. They can lodge the same complaint, that we are just being mean-spirited about Michelle’s light-hearted antics. You think Letterman’s joke didn’t work. But you assert he was really just saying what he believed, so not a joke at all. So your distinctions all seem very subjective. Letterman’s jokes were over the line because of what you think of his diseased mind…but the Onion joke because the joker is just a funny guy. It’s a very weak argument you’re making.
Crispian on February 26, 2013 at 10:16 PM
Just the 9-year-olds.
Ronnie on February 26, 2013 at 10:22 PM
It worked well?
Ronnie on February 26, 2013 at 10:24 PM