Baratunde Thurston, director of digital media at The Onion, took an engaged audience on a worldwide tour of satire Wednesday night at Love Auditorium.
In his lecture titled “Satire, Freedom and Black People. Yes, That Is The Title,” Thurston argued that satire is the engine that can drive freedom around the world. As proof, he shared examples that included Afghanistan, where a modeled after The Office tackles women’s rights issues and corruption and war in The Ministry, a government office. Another example from China showed darkly satirical animated films about an animated .
The worldwide satire tour ended at “The Onion, America’s Finest News Source,” which is a satirical newspaper with an accompanying . A vlog alumnus, Steven Hannah ’70, is CEO and president of The Onion.
As the director of digital media at The Onion, Thurston was especially excited about the Congress story since it was with the tweet: “BREAKING: Witnesses reporting screams and gunfire heard inside Capitol building.” Since the tweet came from The Onion, no one takes it seriously, explained Thurston.
The evening ended with a highlight for Diandra Rivera ’12. Earlier in the lecture, Rivera volunteered to read a few pages of Thurston’s upcoming book, How to be Black. At the end of the evening, Thurston delighted the audience by giving Rivera a signed galley proof of the book.
During his hilarious lecture, Thurston also had a serious point: While satire is the use of humor to ridicule, expose or criticize things, it is also critical for freedom and democracy all over the world.
The audience members in Love Auditorium certainly seemed to agree.