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   Comedy

Spitting Image was satire’s acceptable face

   ITV ARCHIVE
   John Major in Spitting Image. 'Appearing on the show was a 'badge of
   honour for its 'victims'.' Photograph: ITV/Rex

   Thursday 19 February 2015 19.38 GMT Last modified on Friday 20 February
   2015 00.06 GMT
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   John O’Farrell hopes that the new satire show Newzoids will not opt for
   the “they’re all as bad as each other” level of faux-satire (Opinion,
   14 February). One of the pleasures of satire is imagining the victim
   reading or viewing it at the same time as me, and is besides his or
   herself with rage. Anyone who thinks that Spitting Image reached those
   heights is suffering, in my view, from a kind of false memory syndrome.
   Many of the “victims” regarded it as a badge of honour to be depicted
   as a puppet on the show. Indeed, Norman Tebbit positively rejoiced in
   his skinhead alter ego. I am afraid that Spitting Image, in its early
   days at least, was funny, but did no more than reinforce political
   prejudices. It acted as a kind of licensed fool to the body politic.
   Newzoids will have a lot to do in the era of Charlie Hebdo to get
   anywhere close to “challenging the lazy prejudices of its own viewers”,
   as O’Farrell hopes.
   John Allison
   Warwick
     __________________________________________________________________

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