A Golden Age of Parody

Could anything be more absurd than Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize?

Well, yes. Al Gore receiving the prize (2007) was more absurd, and giving the award to Yasser Arafat (1994) was beyond absurd.

But we should take some comfort. Giving the prize to Obama (2009) will be good for the arts. The event lies almost beyond parody, but not quite, and I predict that skilled parodists and rising young talent will struggle to give the Nobel committee its due. We have before us the perfect test for winnowing the hacks from the truly inspired. The cream will rise and usher in a golden age of parody.

You see, there’s nothing funny about Al Gore or Yasser Arafat. The revolutionary Le Duc Tho (1973) whose “peace” efforts were crowned with a holocaust in Southeast Asia deserves faint praise (and obvious disqualification) for refusing the award. Jimmy Carter (2002) is simply too boring in his spitefulness to inspire anything approaching art.

Obama, however, has comedic potential. So far, potential has defined Obama: hope, change, ideals, rhetoric, resets, a nuke-free world, yada yada. The Nobel committee admits it awarded him the prize based purely on this potential. Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said,

We hope this can contribute a little bit to enhance what he is trying to do.

But give the frequently unfunny Saturday Night Live credit for recognizing early the one area in which Obama’s potential has been realized: his comedy value. That is the one item missing from Fred Armisen’s checklist but implicit throughout. Thanks to the Nobel committee, Obama can check it off as “Done” and no one can argue.