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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/26/like-trying-to-sell-satire-to-the-daily-mail-paperchase-stewart-lee
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| My futile attempt to sell satire to the Daily Mail | My futile attempt to sell satire to the Daily Mail |
| (about 3 hours later) | |
| Pasting together doctored drawings of the Daily Mail’s long-running cartoon dog, Fred Basset, I’m creating the mother of all monetisable Christmas cash-in books. | Pasting together doctored drawings of the Daily Mail’s long-running cartoon dog, Fred Basset, I’m creating the mother of all monetisable Christmas cash-in books. |
| In the first of a typical three-frame strip, Fred defecates insolently on a pavement. Then Fred’s owner scoops up the excrement before – and this is the twist – popping it through the letterbox of an immigrant family, and saying “Merry Winterval, my coloured friends! You’re in England now!!” It’s hilarious, no? | In the first of a typical three-frame strip, Fred defecates insolently on a pavement. Then Fred’s owner scoops up the excrement before – and this is the twist – popping it through the letterbox of an immigrant family, and saying “Merry Winterval, my coloured friends! You’re in England now!!” It’s hilarious, no? |
| Was it possible to work the lucrative adult Ladybird book market, using a similar level of ironic self-awareness of the Daily Mail brand, across a range of self-parodying Daily Mail products, without necessarily undermining the integrity of the loathing-ridden opinion sluice itself? | Was it possible to work the lucrative adult Ladybird book market, using a similar level of ironic self-awareness of the Daily Mail brand, across a range of self-parodying Daily Mail products, without necessarily undermining the integrity of the loathing-ridden opinion sluice itself? |
| After all, Lego’s funny children’s Batman, Adam West’s liberal gay Batman, and Christian Bale’s fascist asthma Batman all coexist commercially. And Paperchase were already interested in an exclusive stockist deal. | After all, Lego’s funny children’s Batman, Adam West’s liberal gay Batman, and Christian Bale’s fascist asthma Batman all coexist commercially. And Paperchase were already interested in an exclusive stockist deal. |
| Greetings cards. Cash-in books. Sex novelties. All with an ironically arch Daily Mail flavour | Greetings cards. Cash-in books. Sex novelties. All with an ironically arch Daily Mail flavour |
| But now the whole thing is ruined! And all thanks to that political-correctness-gone-mad brigade that they have now!! | But now the whole thing is ruined! And all thanks to that political-correctness-gone-mad brigade that they have now!! |
| As a proud member of the “metropolitan liberal elite”™, I would normally have been delighted that a tiny minority of “leftwing bullies”© had forced the high-street card shop Paperchase to dump an advertising deal with the Daily Mail, fearing the negative association of Paperchase’s wholesome family card retail values with the Mail’s conduit of poisonous hate, sudoku and Sarah Vine. | As a proud member of the “metropolitan liberal elite”™, I would normally have been delighted that a tiny minority of “leftwing bullies”© had forced the high-street card shop Paperchase to dump an advertising deal with the Daily Mail, fearing the negative association of Paperchase’s wholesome family card retail values with the Mail’s conduit of poisonous hate, sudoku and Sarah Vine. |
| Usually, I am the sort of person who thinks that anyone who has ever worked for the Daily Mail is worse than Adolf Hitler, even the temps and the tea lady. And I’m not alone. So disgusted are youth voters by the repellent newspaper, it’s now clear that the Daily Mail’s increasingly hysterical attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, the coddled egg of British politics, may even have helped secure his triumphant loss in the last general election. | |
| I find that a damning Daily Mail review can attract hundreds of thousands of paying punters, precisely because they assume that anything hated by the hated Daily Mail must be worth seeing, while anything it likes must be awful. | I find that a damning Daily Mail review can attract hundreds of thousands of paying punters, precisely because they assume that anything hated by the hated Daily Mail must be worth seeing, while anything it likes must be awful. |
| My current tour poster proudly boasts the following Daily Mail quote from the 2001 Bad Sex award-winning novelist and Daily Mail columnist Christopher Hart; “Clever-clever, oh-so-fashionable and deeply unfunny ‘anti-populist’ comedian Stewart Lee is an exceptionally well-trained lapdog of the Brexit-hating establishment.” | My current tour poster proudly boasts the following Daily Mail quote from the 2001 Bad Sex award-winning novelist and Daily Mail columnist Christopher Hart; “Clever-clever, oh-so-fashionable and deeply unfunny ‘anti-populist’ comedian Stewart Lee is an exceptionally well-trained lapdog of the Brexit-hating establishment.” |
| Ker-ching!!!! Thanks, Christopher! The ticket-buying public’s hands are, as you might once have written, “moving away from my knee and heading north. Heading unnervingly and with a steely will towards the pole. And, like Sir Ranulph Fiennes… will not easily be discouraged.” (Rescue Me, Christopher Hart, 2001) | Ker-ching!!!! Thanks, Christopher! The ticket-buying public’s hands are, as you might once have written, “moving away from my knee and heading north. Heading unnervingly and with a steely will towards the pole. And, like Sir Ranulph Fiennes… will not easily be discouraged.” (Rescue Me, Christopher Hart, 2001) |
| I understand, from a purely business point of view, Paperchase’s need to disassociate itself from the elderly and expiring racists that read the Daily Mail, to court instead the affections of the growing market of tomorrow’s mixed-race polyamorous avocado-coveters. But on this occasion, I was on the verge of sealing a three-way creative partnership with both Paperchase and the Daily Mail that would have made me millions. | I understand, from a purely business point of view, Paperchase’s need to disassociate itself from the elderly and expiring racists that read the Daily Mail, to court instead the affections of the growing market of tomorrow’s mixed-race polyamorous avocado-coveters. But on this occasion, I was on the verge of sealing a three-way creative partnership with both Paperchase and the Daily Mail that would have made me millions. |
| Sitting across the desk from the editor, Paul Dacre, last week, I gave him my pitch: “The Daily Mail is already adept at working contradictory markets simultaneously,” I flattered the hate magnate, as he sucked hard on his fourth Calippo of the morning. “The print edition pretends to despise the very ephebophiliac swimwear sleaze that the Daily Mail website thrives on, for example. | Sitting across the desk from the editor, Paul Dacre, last week, I gave him my pitch: “The Daily Mail is already adept at working contradictory markets simultaneously,” I flattered the hate magnate, as he sucked hard on his fourth Calippo of the morning. “The print edition pretends to despise the very ephebophiliac swimwear sleaze that the Daily Mail website thrives on, for example. |
| “But imagine if, Paul baby, as well as profiteering from the hateful scaremongering that is your vile newspaper’s raison d’etre, you could also empty the pockets of those who claim to despise your organ, by selling them irresistible satires of your own sickening values.” I emptied my sample sack. Dacre’s two eyes exploded in hot greed. Greetings cards. Christmas cash-in books. Sex novelties. And all with an ironically arch Daily Mail flavour. | “But imagine if, Paul baby, as well as profiteering from the hateful scaremongering that is your vile newspaper’s raison d’etre, you could also empty the pockets of those who claim to despise your organ, by selling them irresistible satires of your own sickening values.” I emptied my sample sack. Dacre’s two eyes exploded in hot greed. Greetings cards. Christmas cash-in books. Sex novelties. And all with an ironically arch Daily Mail flavour. |
| “These greetings cards are sure to be top-sellers.”, I told Dacre. A photo of columnist Quentin Letts disgorges the opinion, “Middle-class parents are middle-class because they have learned what it takes to succeed. Happy Birthday.” Sarah Vine opines: “Jacob Rees-Mogg is worth far more than the flaccid consensus of the commissars of political correctness. Merry Christmas.” | “These greetings cards are sure to be top-sellers.”, I told Dacre. A photo of columnist Quentin Letts disgorges the opinion, “Middle-class parents are middle-class because they have learned what it takes to succeed. Happy Birthday.” Sarah Vine opines: “Jacob Rees-Mogg is worth far more than the flaccid consensus of the commissars of political correctness. Merry Christmas.” |
| And a sepia-toned card of the first Viscount Rothermere, the paper’s 1930s proprietor, declares, in Daily Mail font, “I urge all British young men and women to study the Nazi regime in Germany. There is a clamorous campaign of denunciation against ‘Nazi atrocities’ which consist merely of a few isolated acts of violence, but which have been generalised, multiplied and exaggerated to give the impression that Nazi rule is a bloodthirsty tyranny. Congratulations on passing your driving test.” | And a sepia-toned card of the first Viscount Rothermere, the paper’s 1930s proprietor, declares, in Daily Mail font, “I urge all British young men and women to study the Nazi regime in Germany. There is a clamorous campaign of denunciation against ‘Nazi atrocities’ which consist merely of a few isolated acts of violence, but which have been generalised, multiplied and exaggerated to give the impression that Nazi rule is a bloodthirsty tyranny. Congratulations on passing your driving test.” |
| In order to annoy politically correct prudes and killjoys, I had arranged for the darkest recesses of Paperchase to showcase a range of naughty, but saucy and harmless, adult Daily Mail-themed items. The paper’s star columnist and author of 50 People Who Buggered Up Britain, Quentin Letts, had agreed to lend his image to a fun range of used female sanitary products, Quentin Lil-Letts. | In order to annoy politically correct prudes and killjoys, I had arranged for the darkest recesses of Paperchase to showcase a range of naughty, but saucy and harmless, adult Daily Mail-themed items. The paper’s star columnist and author of 50 People Who Buggered Up Britain, Quentin Letts, had agreed to lend his image to a fun range of used female sanitary products, Quentin Lil-Letts. |
| Meanwhile, the vibrating head of the Daily Mail royal columnist Robert Hardman crowns the novelty “Hardman” Sphincter Stimulator; and a special brass hammer, designed for nailing your own penis to a table, was to be called The Paul Dacre Nail Your Own Penis to a Table Hammer. | Meanwhile, the vibrating head of the Daily Mail royal columnist Robert Hardman crowns the novelty “Hardman” Sphincter Stimulator; and a special brass hammer, designed for nailing your own penis to a table, was to be called The Paul Dacre Nail Your Own Penis to a Table Hammer. |
| Dacre actually laughed himself silly at the final few strips in my Fred Basset book. In the end, the beagle just looks on bemused while his squatting owner simply scrapes his own human foulness directly from his own bottom himself, to deposit through the offending immigrants’ door; until the climactic strip where, perching atop a brass bust of Jan Moir, Fred Basset’s owner defecates directly into the immigrants’ letterbox, with a triumphant cry of “Brexit Means Brexit! Now get back to Bongo Bongo-land!” | |
| “We’re looking at a massive hit,” said Dacre, his Calippo melting in his excited hand. And then the phone rang. The Paperchase partnership was off. “Sorry son. You get yourself a coffee and I’ll tidy your samples away,” said Dacre kindly. When I came back, my novelties were bagged up, but I could hear Dacre in his private bathroom, squealing and using an electric toothbrush, so I left. | “We’re looking at a massive hit,” said Dacre, his Calippo melting in his excited hand. And then the phone rang. The Paperchase partnership was off. “Sorry son. You get yourself a coffee and I’ll tidy your samples away,” said Dacre kindly. When I came back, my novelties were bagged up, but I could hear Dacre in his private bathroom, squealing and using an electric toothbrush, so I left. |
| When I got home I unpacked my futile creations. All present and correct, except the Robert Hardman probe. Never mind. It’s not like this deal is going anywhere fast. | When I got home I unpacked my futile creations. All present and correct, except the Robert Hardman probe. Never mind. It’s not like this deal is going anywhere fast. |
| Stewart Lee’s Content Provider is in London until 3 February and continues to tour in 2018 | Stewart Lee’s Content Provider is in London until 3 February and continues to tour in 2018 |