Satire is rich
Workplace Satire is a rich playground of ideas. But, what are we laughing about when we laugh about librarians? What can we "brew" for librarians by stirring Satire's cauldron?
Everyone knows what the joke is when Tammy Swanson of Parks and Recreation strips down in the center of the library, while her Librarian colleague ignores her nakedness. Instead, the librarian cautions the group to be quiet saying "Shush, this is a library!" in the "Jammy" episode of Parks and Recreation. While there is more to unpack in this single scene (including the fact that the librarian has chosen to take Tammy's side, her coworker, over that of a patron, perhaps suggesting the nefarious nature of librarians to only accept those who are already members of their own rank?). Even a naked woman's hysterical strip tease isn't enough to interfere with a librarian's duty to say "Shhhhh," and maintain the status quo above all else?
Parks and Recreation: Ron and Jammy (American TV Series). Season 7, Episode 2. Jan 13, 2015.
Like in Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut or The BigU by Neal Stephenson, whether you dress it in a letterman's jacket or slip it into a co-ed's overtight T-Shirt, the bucolic setting of a campus makes a great stage for dark comedies, as well as for satirical and dystopian futures. Hocus Pocus is arguably Vonnegut's darkest and most troubling book. Its protagonist has killed and sexually exploited more people more horribly than any of Vonnegut's other characters. Previously a professor fired for sleeping with the university president's wife, he writes his story out in a college library out one line at a time on scraps of paper and pages torn from books after the college has become a prison.
Stephenson, Neal. 1984. The Big U. New York: Vintage. https://www.biblio.com/9780394723624.
Parks and Recreation (American TV Series). 2009. Parks and Recreation (American TV Series). NBC.
Reference Tramp: She always answered “yes “
Bookmobile badgirl she gave it away free all over town
