The Limits of Satire
Drawings of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, proclaiming, “I have changed,” published in Charlie Hebdo, May 2, 2007 Tim Parks The New York Review of Books What does satire do? What should we expect of it? Recent events in Paris inevitably prompt these questions. In particular, is the kind of satire that Charlie Hebdo has made its trademark—explicit, sometimes obscene images of religious figures (God the father, Son, and Holy Spirit sodomizing each other; Muhammad with a yellow star in his ass)—essentially different from mainstream satire?