The Satiric Exaggeration Of Satire

[MalignD at aol.com]

<< That's why I say that to understand reality, you have to take satire and 
then wildly exaggerate it. >>

People say things like this from time to time, e.g., fiction is obsolete 
because it can't compete with reality.  But it's glib and it's a distortion.  Art 
isn't something whose quality can be measured by the reliatve degree of 
madness in the reality it seeks to portray  ("You can't make this stuff up.").  Even 
satire:  it doesn't work or not work relative to the degree it attempts to 
outstrip reality.  Some of the worst satire is the most strenuous at trying to 
do just that.  There's little worse than zany satire.

What's funny in the lines you quoted from Dr. Strangelove (at least to me) 
are the the words, likely written by Terry Southern.  This --

 "The whole idea is to kill the bastards...At the end of the war, if there 
are two Americans and one Russian, we win."

--is just not as funny or as sharp as this --

"Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say 
no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks." 

I'm not sure I can explain why.  (Actually, I think I can, but it would be 
boring.)