March 19, 2009

If you don’t know about The Onion, you should. The satirical newspaper and website, through spot-on parodies of journalistic conventions, gets to the heart of the news in ways that are rarely matched by media that deal with, you know, the truth. Weirder still is when real-life events read like Onion “parodies.” If the AIG story — in which architects of a financial meltdown rake in bonuses for their work — doesn’t sound like a parody, nothing does.

The Onion also deserves attention for its spot-on treatment of Jewish and religious affairs. While the rest of us can only write angry editorials decrying Holocaust deniers, The Onion, in a recent “article,” eviscerated their repellant worldview. The article purports to be a report from a convention of “radical seismologists” who gather to deny the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. No good joke survives its explanation, but here goes: The article mirrors the grotesque distortions and faux historiography of Shoa deniers, to devastating effect. As one so-called expert “tells” The Onion, the goal of the conference was neither to “prove nor deny the earthquake of 1906.” Rather, he explains, it was held to “facilitate an appropriate atmosphere in which the hidden and unhidden angles of the most important geological issue of the 20th century could become more transparent.”

And if you think The Onion is exaggerating the dissembling of the real-life deniers, compare that to this statement by Richard Williamson, the defrocked bishop who embarrassed the Vatican with his Holocaust denial. “It is about historical evidence, not about emotions,” he said, referring to the “debate” over whether the Holocaust occurred. “And if I find this evidence, I will correct myself. But that will take time.”

Take your time, reverend. In the meantime, we’ll keep looking for the truth in a parody newspaper, and finding it.

Comment: comments@njjewishnews.com

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