Is this a Dagg which I see before me? John Clarke and the politics in his political humour

Abstract

When John Clarke died in 2016, the Australian media rushed for the opinions of politicians on his passing. Among the many clichés about political satire, former prime ministers intoned that he ‘spoke truth to power’ and lampooned ‘the absurdity of political life’. Ironically, politicians were endorsing the most vehement anti-politics views of themselves and their vocation. Notwithstanding the name of his first comic creation, Clarke was no dagg, which is an Australian colloquial expression meaning a socially unacceptable or unsophisticated person. Actually, he had an astute understanding of politics that cannot be confined to the common and populist anti-politics strain of satire in which the ideal of democracy is simply let down by knavish politicians. While Clarke was keenly aware of the satirist’s watchdog role in democracy, his work shows that he was also alert to democracy’s complexities and to the common human frailties that can have all of us acting foolishly in certain circumstances.