Anna Turner, former editor of the now defunct Amusement section, paints a sad portrait in Friday's "Amusement Eulogy." I agree with her on many points. I, too, regret the termination of the Amusement section and view satirical outlets as vital components of any critical and vibrant media network. Ms. Turner's examples of The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and The Onion are, indeed, several of the best-written and most incisive modules in our national media. Moreover, The Miami Student writer Curtis Dickerson displays good Onion-esque wit in his Oct. 8 article "City council bans weekend." I laughed. This is impressive satire, and I'm sad to see it go. In fact, barring any knowledge of the context that surrounds the discontinuation of the Amusement section and Ms. Turner's eulogy, I would be inclined to agree with her in full.
Ms. Turner's omission, though, of any reference to her controversial "Sidewalk etiquette 101" article seems like a deceitful maneuver, and the implied likening of her own "satirical" condemnation of pregnant women as "uggo ... bloated sex-maniacs" to the satire of Stewart, Colbert or the Onion is absurd. Good satire uses humor to attack bigotry and wrongheadedness among those in power or within prevailing social trends. As my good friend Madelyn Detloff notes in her Sept. 23 letter, the population of pregnant women here in Oxford is "hardly hegemonic." Whether or not it was meant in jest, Ms. Turner's article reads as an attack on a voiceless minority. What's the point?
Yet, this discussion has gone on plenty long. To return to the more pressing matter, I can't condone the decision, whoever's it was, to terminate the Amusement section of The Miami Student. I would prefer to see the section left intact and to give The Miami Student further chance to learn from its mistakes.
Editor in Chief Catherine Couretas writes in her Oct. 4 op-ed piece, "in printing Anna Turner's piece, we were testing our limits." That may be, and I think pushing boundaries is healthy, especially among student writers. Test strange waters, practice dissent, even risk making mistakes, all valuable philosophies in good writing, I'd say. I think The Miami Students hould test its limits, but in doing this, why not write about things that matter? Take on the state legislature, the university administration or even graduate students like me if you think we're stepping out of line. I agree with Ms. Turner that satire is valuable tool here, which is why I'd like the see the Amusement section survive. But seriously, leave pregnant women and other harmless minorities out of it.
Ben Wetherbee
wetherbj@muohio.edu
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