Can satire still be written in the age of multi-culturalism, political correctness, and respect for women and minorities?

If a writer worries about political correctness, it's probable that he won't be able to write satire, since satire, by its very nature, offends somebody or something. In our time, satire, in all media, tends to be very tame. The targets are almost always predictable–idiots of the right or left–or stars and celebrities.

We are given satirical treatments of people like Madonna or Prince Charles or Teddy Kennedy or Clarence Thomas! You see the sickening spectacle of the victims of the satire laughing it up with those who satirize them–this is surely a dead giveaway that the satire has no teeth.

Satire should wound, draw blood, even destroy. Some guy on Saturday Night Live, I understand, used to "satirize" George Bush, and Bush invited him to the White House! Sure, satire can indeed be written now, but the satirist must be willing to be despised and assaulted.

Satire is heartless and anarchic. If it's not it's just another mode of entertainment in the great world of entertainment that the United States has become. This kind of juvenile "fun-poking" used to be the province of Mad magazine–fun for the kiddies. Now we have David Letterman "satirizing" his "guests" before they all run down to the bank en masse. On the other hand, maybe we're too far gone for satire, too corrupt, too Goddamned dumb.

Sorrentino, interviewed