PRESENT TENSE:IT WAS reported this week that British comedian Chris Morris has finally got the go-ahead to make a satire based on jihadist suicide bombers. A couple of colleagues sucked the air through their teeth when they heard this. That's an understandable response. You need a moment to think about it: the satirist behind The Day Today and Brass Eye tackling Islamic fundamentalism and suicide bombers. In a comedy. It had better be good.
Morris remains the most important British satirist of the last couple of decades (which is why I go on about him a bit in this column). Aggressively cynical and brave, he hasn't even done much recently, but his influence continues to wash through television on both sides of the Irish Sea. RTÉ2's promising new satire of television news, This Is Nightlive, owes so much to Morris that its creators ought to have signed over their houses to him as collateral.
Morris has been talking about the suicide bomber movie Four Lions for some time, so let's hope he really is getting his chance to make it. The script, its production company last year explained, "understands how terrorism relates to testosterone. It understands jihadis as human beings. And it understands human beings as innately ridiculous."
It is, apparently, about "berks" with bombs. Surely the Irish as much as any other nation are aware that terrorism can attract fools. They may be dangerous fools, but they're fools nonetheless.
Morris spoke about the project early in 2008. "There is this Dad's Army side of terrorism and that's what this film is exploring. Most of us would dearly love to laugh in the face of our worst fears. Why aren't we laughing at terrorists? Because we don't know how to, until now."
That's not really true. The Onion satirised the 9/11 terrorists within days of the attacks ("Hijackers Surprised To Find Themselves in Hell"). An episode of South Park got some gags out of an attack by terrorists. And the Australian comedian Brendon Burns did a routine which not only had a go at Glasgow Airport's hapless suicide bombers but also at other comedians who won't join in the mocking.
Yet, the idea of comedy and suicide bombers in the same sentence makes people flinch, not just because this is the most visceral and fearsome aspect of the war on terror. It's because most comedians in Britain are white non-Muslims who probably feel it's just best to leave that whole scary topic alone.
The self-censorship goes beyond terrorism and into making jokes about Islam full stop. Usually, when someone makes a crack about one or other branch of Christianity, offended letter writers will point out that the same jokes wouldn't be made about Muslims. And they're right, even if not quite in the way they might think. Islam is as replete with ludicrous, hypocritical, confused nonsense as any religion. Just like Christianity, it should be held up for ridicule if and when it is deserved. A joke mightn't always be funny, but no-one should be afraid to tell it.
The Danish cartoons controversy showed that religious fundamentalists can greet such attempts - clumsy or otherwise - by over-reacting in a preposterous fashion. Much of the world's media allowed the mob to win the argument by refusing to re-print the cartoons even by way of showing the public what the fuss was about. Yet, many newspapers and broadcasters ran excerpts from Jerry Springer: The Opera - which featured Jesus in a nappy - because the concerns of some Christians were not expressed through the medium of a petrol bomb.
It was argued that the cartoons were about insulting all Muslims rather than mocking terrorists, but the end result was violence all the same. And the western media's reaction cemented one very strong tenet of modern popular culture: don't mess with the Muslims.
So, satirists target Bush or Cheney or Blair knowing that their target is unlikely to react to the joke by blowing up the joker. Islamic fundamentalists, on the other hand, have a reputation for many things, but a sense of humour is not among them. It means that British mainstream comedy - for whom this problem is particularly pertinent - has left the joking up to a few Muslim comedians, whose comedy is often based around white people's perceptions of them. But because there are only a handful of Muslim comedians, the vast majority of British satire has been aimed at safer targets.
By taking on the jihadists, Chris Morris is only channeling the comedies that mocked the Nazis before, during and after the second World War. And he has already proven his skill for taking on career-damaging subjects. Despite the furore caused by his 2001 Brass Eye on the media's obsession with paedophilia, the subsequent hysterics went some way (and more) to justifying every joke in that show.
With Blair and Bush gone, it will be time for satire to find a new edge. Morris may be among those at the sharper end, but we might only know he's been influential if another comedian stands up at some future Royal Variety Performance and announces, "A suicide bomber walks into a bar. . ."
shegarty@irishtimes.com
