And there's another major factor working against television satire: big money. The more expensive a form, the less it can afford to defy the mainstream. A glance at the Web reveals how easily an irreverent site can be co-opted. One of the funniest online celebrity satires is a video spoof on iFilm (ifilm.com) called Mel Gibson's Signs of Anti-Semitism.
The video uses scenes of Gibson in M. Night Shyamalan's movie Signs, but here the Gibson character finds Jews everywhere rather than extraterrestrials. He is horrified when he spots a Star of David in his field instead of alien crop circles. When he discovers an alien locked in a closet, what emerges is not a scary hand as in the film, but the sound of Adam Sandler singing his Hanukkah Song. Good luck finding anything else as clever on iFilm or YouTube (youtube.com), sites now loaded with movie trailers, clips from television shows and other big-business gambits.
There is no better reason that the little satiric Web sites have a value way out of proportion to their relatively tiny audiences. They prove that while celebrity culture is everywhere, it is not monolithic. Smart people pay attention too, if only to make the best jokes.
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