The Onion in US Supreme Court: How the single most powerful and influential organization in human history defended parody

Satire media publication, The Onion has filed a rather unusual amicus curiae brief before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), defending the idea of parody in support of Anthony Novak, a man arrested and charged with a felony for running a parody Facebook page of the Police Department of Parma, Ohio [Anthony Novak v. the City of Parma, Ohio]..After being acquitted unanimously by a jury, Novak filed a civil rights lawsuit against the police alleging, among other things, racial insensitivity on their part. But the Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals granted the police qualified immunity – a legal doctrine that shields policemen from civil lawsuits arising from incidents that occur while they are on the job. As a result, Novak's case was dismissed.On September 28, his counsel petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the Sixth Circuit's ruling. In support of his plea, The Onion filed an amicus brief replete with satire to demonstrate how parody works..Why The Onion filed the brief.The expression of interest as amicus began with the company claiming to be the "world’s leading news publication established in 1756" and enjoying a daily readership of 4.3 trillion while being the "single most powerful and influential organization in human history."It even claimed that, on top of it's journalistic pursuits, it operates the majority of the world’s transoceanic shipping lanes, stands on the nation’s leading edge on matters of deforestation and strip mining and proudly conducts tests on millions of animals daily.In the concluding paragraph, the publication revealed that it had a "self-serving interest" in filing the brief."The Onion files this brief to protect its continued ability to create fiction that may ultimately merge into reality. As the globe’s premier parodists, The Onion’s writers also have a self-serving interest in preventing political authorities from imprisoning humorists. This brief is submitted in the interest of at least mitigating their future punishment," it said. .The brief expressed surprise at an American being imprisoned for mocking the government, as well as concern over the Sixth Circuit's decision, and cited three reasons for the same.The first, it said, was the obvious fact that its business model was threatened when the absurdity of actual events eclipsed what the staff at The Onion could make up. "Much more of this, and the front page of The Onion would be indistinguishable from The New York Times," it stated.Secondly, comparing the domestic regime with that of Iran and North Korea , it claimed that its writers were disappointed with a legal ruling that fails to hold government authorities accountable for jailing and prosecuting a would-be humourist simply for making fun of them."The Onion regularly pokes its finger in the eyes of repressive and authoritarian regimes, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea, and domestic presidential administrations," it stated.Thirdly, it claimed that the ruling imperils an ancient form of discourse and suggested that parodists are in the clear only if they pop the balloon in advance by warning their audience that their parody is not true, and that some forms of comedy don't work unless the comedian can tell the joke without a disclaimer."Parody is the quintessential example. Parodists intentionally inhabit the rhetorical form of their target in order to exaggerate or implode it—and by doing so demonstrate the target’s illogic or absurdity," it said..Stating that it could not stand idle in the face of a ruling that threatens a millennia-old form of rhetoric that is particularly potent in the realm of political debate, the company advanced four arguments."Put simply, for parody to work, it has to plausibly mimic the original. The Sixth Circuit’s decision in this case would condition the First Amendment’s protection for parody upon a requirement that parodists explicitly say, up-front, that their work is nothing more than an elaborate fiction. But that would strip parody of the very thing that makes it function," it said. .Arguments.The brief, although drafted in a satirical manner, advanced legal arguments and cited legitimate case laws.Parody functions by tricking people into thinking that it is real It argued that the leverage of form - the mimicry of a particular idiom in order to heighten dissonance between form and content - is what generates parody's rhetorical power. The brief cited Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, wherein it was observed that parody needs to mimic an original to make its point. "If parody did not deliver that advantage, then no one would use it. Everyone would simply draft straight, logical, uninspiring legal briefs instead," it said..Tu stultus es. You are dumb. These three Latin words have been The Onion’s motto and guiding light since it was founded in 1988 as America’s Finest News Source...The Onion's amicus brief filed in the US Supreme Court.In a dig at the legal system's continued usage of Latin maxims, The Onion explained how its motto is central to the brief."First, it’s Latin. And The Onion knows that the federal judiciary is staffed entirely by total Latin dorks: They quote Catullus in the original Latin in chambers. They sweetly whisper “stare decisis” into their spouses’ ears. They mutter “cui bono” under their breath while picking up after their neighbors’ dogs. So The Onion knew that, unless it pointed to a suitably Latin rallying cry, its brief would be operating far outside the Court’s vernacular.".Because parody mimics “the real thing,” it has the unique capacity to critique the real thing It argued that parodists can take apart an authoritarian’s cult of personality, point out the rhetorical tricks that politicians use to mislead their constituents and even undercut a government institution’s real-world attempts at propaganda. It cited Farah v Esquire Magazine, wherein it was noted that the point of parody is to censure the vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings of an individual or society..A reasonable reader does not need a disclaimer to know that parody is parody The Onion referred to its 2012 headline that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un was the sexiest man alive and the subsequent coverage of the same by the Chinese government to contend that if readers of parody cannot tell that the parody is not real, there would be nothing funny about the events. The law uses the same reasonable-person construct, it argued. It stated that the reasonable reader test gauges whether a statement can reasonably be interpreted as stating actual facts, thereby ensuring that neither the least humorous nor the most credulous audience dictates the boundaries of protected speech, as was observed in Milkovich v. Lorain J Co. In the context of the Novak case, it stated, "In this case, by contrast, the Sixth Circuit ruled that the defendant officers “could reasonably believe that some of Novak’s Facebook activity was not parody” primarily because Mr. Novak “delet[ed] comments that made clear the page was fake.” Pet. App. 8a–9a. But the lack of an explicit disclaimer makes no difference to whether a reasonable reader would discern that this speech was parody.".It should be obvious that parodists cannot be prosecuted for telling a joke with a straight face Admitting that the fifteenth page of a convoluted legal filing intended to deconstruct the societal implications of parody was bound cause the reader's attention to wander, The Onion produced a paragraph intended to ensure every jurist who reads the brief was appropriately impressed by the logic of its argument and the lucidity of its prose: "Bona vacantia. De bonis asportatis. Writ of certiorari. De minimis. Jus accrescendi. Forum non conveniens. Corpus juris. Ad hominem tu quoque. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Quod est demonstrandum. Actus reus. Scandalum magnatum. Pactum reservati dominii," it wrote. Underscoring how the brief went from a discussion of parody’s function - and the quite serious historical and legal arguments in favour of strong protections for parodic speech - to a curveball mocking legalese, it emphasized that the idea would not have worked if the brief incorporated a disclaimer stating how unusual it was going to be. "For millennia, this has been the rhythm of parody: The author convinces the readers that they’re reading the real thing, then pulls the rug out from under them with the joke. The heart of this form lies in that give and take between the serious setup and the ridiculous punchline," it explained..Grafting onto the reasonable-reader test a requirement that parodists explicitly disclaim their own pretense to reality is a disservice to the American public. It assumes that ordinary readers are less sophisticated and more humorless than they actually are.The Onion's amicus brief filed in the US Supreme Court.Therefore, it contended that the stakes were high, given that it involved one of many equally important components of social and political discourse. Reference was made to LL Bean, Inc v. Drake Publishers, Inc wherein it was observed that although parody is often offensive, it is nevertheless deserving of substantial freedom - both as entertainment and as a form of social and literary criticism..After pointing out that the Court has traditionally been hesitant to chill speech, and that the prospect of chilling parody by imprisoning its practitioners provides equal cause for caution, the publication wrote,"The Onion intends to continue its socially valuable role bringing the disinfectant of sunlight into the halls of power...And it would vastly prefer that sunlight not to be measured out to its writers in 15- minute increments in an exercise yard.".To sum up, the brief requested that Novak's plea for certiorari be granted, the rights of the people be vindicated and various historical wrongs remedied."The Onion would welcome any one of the three, particularly the first," it added..[Read The Onion's Brief]