Stephen Bloom: Satire, Parody, or Plain Old Mean-Spirited?

Stephen Bloom alleged on NBC recently that he was misinterpreted by Iowans and others. He did not mean for his piece in the Atlantic to be taken at face value, but rather that it was a combination of parody and satire. We misunderstood him (or are too dense to see the skill of his work). So, what to make of this? First off, the article appeared in the Atlantic. This is not the Onion. The magazine is not widely renowned for parody, and therefore one could be excused for missing it. Secondly, Stephen Bloom is a journalism professor. Not a profession highly associated with satire--if he were to appear on The Daily Show, or better yet, The Colbert Report and make these statements, we might excuse it as satire. But those guys are not journalists--despite the fact that Americans who cite the Daily Show as their main source of news are better informed than their fellow countrymen, these guys are comedians. Smart, well informed, clever, and witty men, yes, but comedians. We get the satire. So the context is wrong. But how about the content? Well, the best of satire should deliver it's rapier wit with such subtly that the intended victim is unaware they have been wounded. That certainly was not the case here. Then there is the bottom line--that both satire and parody are poking fun at something. The author should identify the problem, offer a solution to the problem and be perplexed, annoyed, and perturbed that everyone else, or at least the object of the satire, is too dense to see the validity of such a brilliant solution. So in the end, Professor Bloom, while failing to be effective as a satirist, is still poking fun at Iowa. The piece he wrote wasn't clever. It exaggerated things that occur on occasion without the wit to show what solution he proposed. So it came across as bitter. And it seemed to me that it is he who is sad, not those of us who live here and thrive.