NEW YORK, NY—Comedians and “Fake News” Correspondents across the nation have been unable to produce any suitable material to satirize Tennessee’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill that advanced in the state’s Senate last month.
“It’s like they created the bill just to f**k with us,” one editor from The Onion told reporters, “I mean, we can’t think of anything more absurd than the proposed law itself. How do you make fun of a bill that’s preposterous enough to claim that if teachers don’t discuss homosexuality, it won’t exist? That’s like saying….no, I honestly can’t think of anything more ridiculous. Sorry.”
Jon Stewart–host of the popular satirical news show The Daily Show–perhaps came closest to soliciting a laugh from his viewers with a reference to Beetlejuice; however, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly’s indictment that Stewart’s viewers are a “bunch of stoned slackers” invalidated that laugh due to the fact that every one of the billions of Daily Show fans were apparently either stoned or drunk while watching and would therefore laugh at “pretty much anything.”
Although Stewart declined to comment, he reportedly told his writing staff in a meeting on Monday that things look “pretty grim” now that Donald Trump has dropped out of the Presidential race, and politicians in the South are “after our f**ing jobs.”
GlossyNews editor, Brian White, has been a complete wreck since he read about the proposed bill. “When I saw the headline in the New York Times, I thought they had finally hired a satirical news columnist. I didn’t realize that it was a serious article until about halfway into it. We’ve got our work cut out for us. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Many of White’s regular contributors have made various attempts to mock the new bill, but none of his writers have been able to find a single lead into a parody that wouldn’t appear to be a parody of itself. “And I’m not even sure if I can wrap my superior intellect around that paradox,” said a very pale and confused White.
Glossy Freshman Correspondent, Ashley Watson, grew up in the South and purportedly understands the complexities of a culture that can “take pride in its hospitality and judgmental nature at the same time.”
“I really can’t comment,” Watson told reporters at a fake news briefing earlier this week, “But I will say that I’ve pitched several ideas, including the headline: Alabama Passes ‘Don’t Say Yankee’ Law, which would prevent Alabama’s children from moving north of the Mason Dixon line and becoming a bunch of damn yankees. But I swear to God it’s just not funny. Nothing compares to the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill. I got nothing.”
Watson is currently working with graphic designers on a visual spoof of the “Tennessee Welcomes You” sign, which would display the slogan: “Tennessee Welcomes You, Unless You’re Gay, or Use Any Word to Refer to Homosexuality.”
Despite the intrinsic humor in the visual, Watson says “It still doesn’t hold a f**ing candle to that dimwitted bill.”
Yep, I’ve only been living in TN for six months now, but I’m starting to get things done!