A Question about Satire, Intent, and the Dead Author

As many of the readings have reiterated, especially the first six chapters of Authorship in Composition Studies, contemporary literary and composition theory has generally agreed that the author is dead. Foucault famously predicted/suggested it, Barthes announced it, and scholars since have primarily either accepted that pronouncement or repeated it after searching for the pulse themselves. In just the first few chapters of Authorship in Composition Studies, Barthes and Foucault (and Eliot—though he seems to have been more concerned with lionizing or deifying authors and the literary tradition) are foundational to the arguments and methodologies of each essay. Rebecca Moore Howard uses the two to illuminate the distinction between author, writer, and student; Paul Butler draws from their texts in problematizing the distinctions between copyright infringement and plagiarism, as well as the apparent contradictions or hypocrisy in thought among some writing instructors; and so forth. This all makes sense in the poststructuralist, destabilized scholarship of contemporary scholarship, and this methodology reveals and has revealed much about the relationships between people, language, and texts; however, the author’s death is problematic for me—a relatively new observer of these conversations, and one who grew up being fascinated by my understanding of genius and auteur—because it does seem to overlook many of the ways we rely on our knowledge of authors to guide our understanding of texts; and in my interests, this may be no more apparent than satire.

      To better demonstrate what I mean, I’ll refer to a humorous case from the past month. On February 6^th of this year, a year-old story from The Onion concerning an $8 billion Planned Parenthood “Abortionplex” was posted to the official Facebook page for John Fleming, a Republican congressman from Louisiana, by Fleming or a staffer, along with the comment, “More on Planned Parenthood, abortion by the wholesale.” The story, as most know or expect, was satirical, poking fun at the contentious and politicized issue of abortion, publicly-funded healthcare, and publicly-funded abortion. The post was quickly removed, though not before it was recorded, and the situation has become funnier than the original Onion news story, if even in the most cynical of ways. Fleming has since been characterized as an idiot, moronic, foolish, and several other adjectives and nouns either highlighting his lack of intelligence, reading skills, or cultural awareness.

     It is not my intention to defend Fleming, so I won’t; but I bring up the story because I think it does show how knowledge of the author, however broadly defined (in this case a group author, as The Onion doesn’t provide bylines in its “news” articles), can be essential to our understanding of a text or the interactions between texts and other cultural bodies. The absurdity of The Onion story itself, along with other textual cues, may have offered enough of an indication that the story was false or exaggerated; however, if this reader whose reading was apparently distorted by politics and ideology had been familiarized with The Onion, if the reader had understood the author’s intent (which was to exaggerate/defamiliarize/lie with satirical comedy for the purpose of eliciting laughter, and perhaps changing attitudes), this probably would not have happened.

      I’m only beginning to dig into my understanding of the event, and the dead author, so forgive the holes or fogginess of my logic, and I do realize that many could point to those textual cues in the story, or the body of work produced by The Onion, as more important than any notion of authorial intent. However, I think this example, among others (Why do we assume Swift never meant to eat children?), does show how certain modes of writing problematize our understanding of the dead author or author-function, especially when the roots of these texts involve people trying to connect with other people, traversing the general confines of time and space, in this case one person or group trying to make others laugh.

     So, my questions are as follows: 1) Are all genres, modes, and styles of writing subject to the same conceptions of the author or author-function? 2) If the exodus from authorial intent has occurred for the sake of highlighting and understanding the complex ways texts and language and people interact, could it be more appropriate to move away from eulogizing the author and instead focus on the life of the text, perhaps using the analogy of the author-parent/text-child? 

     This is the link for The Onion story: http://www.theonion.com/articles/planned-parenthood-opens-8-billion-abortionplex,20476/