Comedy: How women are reinventing satire
Sarah Cooper, a previously little-known comedian, has “cracked the code on how to satirize President Trump,” said Monica Hesse in The Washington Post. In late April, the 35-year-old Brooklynite went viral with a short TikTok video that proved the best way to poke fun at the commander in chief is to repackage his own words. In a move that instantly spawned a new comedy genre and soon added targets on both the Left and Right, Cooper grabbed an audio clip of Trump’s notorious public musings about combating Covid-19 infections with disinfectant or ultraviolet light. Quickly, she filmed herself mouthing the words in mostly deadpan earnest, then posted the 49-second clip on TikTok under the title “How to Medical.” Overnight, she had 15 million views and new fans such as Ben Stiller and Jerry Seinfeld. Cooper came across as bonkers, and that was the point. “A lot of bonkers behavior can be overlooked when it’s committed by a man in a suit at a lectern.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has attracted his own TikTok jester, said Jeet Heer in The Nation. Maria DeCotis, another comedian, is using Cooper’s lip-syncing method to “hilariously” lampoon Cuomo’s off-topic remarks at his own Covid19 news conferences, starting with a 98-second riff about his daughter’s dating life. Cooper and DeCotis might owe their breakout turns to California comedian Kylie Scott, who posted her first TikTok pantomime of Trump several days before his disinfectant gaffe. These women are onto something, underscoring the ludicrousness of their targets by barely heightening the ludicrousness. They’ve also pioneered a “bare-bones” entertainment perfect for social media. “The current moment offers few consolations, but at least it has finally given us comedy that moves beyond easy mockery and offers real insight.”