American Reality Is Beyond Parody, but Satire Isn’t Dead
Plenty of contemporary comedy gazes upon American stupidity and concludes that Americans are stupid. The Chapo Trap House anthology Chunks suggests instead that people behave strangely because the world around them has become so strange.
Ruby McCollister stars in 2026 comedy anthology film Chunks. (ColdFeet Films)
A specter is haunting contemporary American satire: the specter of reality. This specter poses an existential threat to comedy as social critique. How do you make jokes in this era of hyperabsurdity?
Donald Trump’s two administrations sandwiched four years of Joe Biden mumbling incoherently as he stumbled around. Corporations speak in the language of therapy, and airlines charge passengers for micro-comforts while advertising travel as an expression of personal freedom. Billionaires promise to colonize Mars while American cities see their bridges collapse.
Streamers make a career out of broadcasting themselves gambling, eating, fighting, shopping, hurling insults, and slowly losing their minds. Kash Patel exists. So does the late Roman spectacle of a physically repulsive imperial leader planning a massive triumphal arch to honor himself, staging gladiatorial fights for his birthday on his palace lawn, and waging a futile war on Persia.
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