Our Dumb Century
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| Author | The Onion, Scott Dikkers, Mike Loew |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Onion |
| Subject(s) | Revisionist history |
| Genre(s) | Satire |
| Publisher | Three Rivers Press |
| Released | March 23, 1999 |
| Media type | Paperback |
| Pages | 176 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-609-80461-8 |
Our Dumb Century is a satirical humor book written by the staff of The Onion and published by Three Rivers Press in 1999. The chief editor of the book was Scott Dikkers, with specific sections edited by Robert Siegel (not the radio journalist of the same name), Maria Schneider and John Krewson.
The book, spun off from The Onion weekly-newspaper format of dryly satirizing current events, features mocked-up newspaper front pages from the entire 20th century, presented as though The Onion had been continuously in print since before 1900. The publication of the book is in itself a parody of other end of the century retrospectives that had been published in 1999, notably Time magazine and the New York Times.
The book satirizes many common beliefs, trends, and perceptions. For instance, in response to the John F. Kennedy assassination theories, one headline declares, "Kennedy Slain By CIA, Mafia, Castro, LBJ, Teamsters, Freemasons" and that he was shot "129 times from 43 different angles." This is later followed up by an article proclaiming that the "Warren Commission admits to killing JFK."
The book often takes a cynical look at American foreign policy over the ages, describing past events with revisionist, modern-day perspectives. For example, the Pearl Harbor attacks are described as being an attack on a "colonially-occupied US non-state" and President Woodrow Wilson encourages Americans to fight in World War I in order to "make the world safe for corporate oligarchy."
Smaller stories in the book satirize social and pop-cultural trends of their respective eras, such as the faux-advertisements and gimmicks that abound in the top and bottom corners of the pages. For example, from the 1920s: No, No, Nanette Fever Bonus! Sheet Music from "Tea for Two" Inside.
Since the book was written before the year 2000, its prediction for that year satirized Y2K and religious prophecies, including "Christian Right Ascends to Heaven," "All Corporations Merged Into OmniCorp," and a small graphic listing meteors headed for Earth by size.
There are a number of running gags through this supposed history of the twentieth century, which are not immediately apparent. One is the existence of a piece of farmyard equipment called 'The Chicken Raper'. Another is that every major celebrity trial, from Fatty Arbuckle to O.J. Simpson, is referred to as 'the trial of the century'. A third is the newspaper fear-mongering by drawing a caricature of America's enemy du jour (among them, Spaniards, Nazis and hippies) assaulting an anthropomorphized Statue of Liberty. A more subtle satire is the rise of a (fictional) company called 'Global Tetrahedron', which first appears as a small business in the first decade of the century and gradually grows into a multinational behemoth.
Several events from the classic film It's a Wonderful Life are also used as stories, such as "Mr. Potter To Pay Fifty Cents on the Dollar" during the Great Depression and "Harry Bailey Wins Congressional Medal of Honor" in the World War II section, with Harry S Truman quoted in the latter story as saying "we owe a great debt to George Bailey for pulling Harry out of the ice when he was 9" and saying George was declared 4-F because of his ear. Also present is the frequent theme of moral outrage at the amount of sex in popular culture, beginning with a depiction of women's undergarments reproduced from a Sears catalogue.
The book became a number one New York Times best-seller shortly after its publication, appropriately on April 1, 1999.
An audio version of the book was produced by Scott Dikkers and adapted by Tim Harrod, and was presented as excerpts from the nationally syndicated The Onion Radio News throughout the same time period and covering many of the same subjects.
