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Supreme Court drops landmark decision protecting satire! (Today in 1988 / Twisted History) [1]
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Date: 2025-02-24
On this day in 1988, the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision protecting satire. In the case of Hustler Magazine v. Jerry Falwell, the court ruled 8-0 that parodies of public figures are protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution … prompting satirists across the nation to say, “Awwww yeeaah!”
Satire is Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” (1729). It is Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” (1932) and George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” (1945). It is Slim Pickens riding an atomic bomb at the end of “Dr. Strangelove” (1964). It is Homer Simpson parodying that scene in “The Simpsons.”
Full disclosure: I love satire and have written an immense amount of it over the years. Here are a few highlights:
“Ask Professor Gunn: Firearms advice columnist” — satirizing absurd gun laws and unregulated firearm carnage after the murder Travon Martin, in my local newspaper (note: the following week I chronicled the angry blowback that I received in “Gun satire draws verbal fire”)
During the George W. Bush years, I wrote so much goddamn satire that I had to add an entire “Bush Is an Idiot” section to my then-Humor Gazette website. Select headlines included:
When Sarah Palin was at the pinnacle of her popularity around 2010, my Palin satire drew the attention of a book packager who proposed that I write a Palin humor book. Here is the pitch for my never-published Sarah Palin satire book.
And, I’m still at it — publishing my new thrice-weekly WTF America?! reports featuring the five-alarm satire of my new alter ego Jeremiah Quill.
I am also gearing up to resume video satire, featuring (my longtime other alter ego) Triple Action News anchorman Reid Page. Here is my Jan. 24, 2024, report on his NH primary win: “Cruel, Demented Lunatic Wins GOP Presidential Primary.”
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