During the first week of 2015, the offices of the satirical French newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, were subject to a violent terrorist attack in which eleven people were killed. Two brothers who were members of the Islamic terrorist group, Al-Qaeda in Yemen murdered employees of Charlie Hebdo as they were motivated by a cartoon published in the newspaper that lampooned the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. But this is an unjust limitation of satire. In a world that is becoming increasingly and alarmingly politically correct, the industry of satire is one that has come under numerous attacks. But, so long as something is humorous, it should not be considered taboo in the comedy world and this speech should never be anything but one hundred percent free. Satire is a form of comedy that should never be subjected to censorship in any of its many iterations because its purpose is to criticize society through humor, people who cannot handle it should not relate themselves to it, and creativity is a quality that demands everything but suppression.

What people do not seem to understand is that satire is meant to criticize and to surprise people and if its intended audience is unanimously agreeable, then it has failed and done a disservice to subjects in a position where they deserve ridicule. In a February 2015 episode of Saturday Night Live, actors Taran Killam and Dakota Johnson parodied a sentimental car advertisement by switching the daughter’s role of leaving for college to leaving for ISIS. Almost instantaneously, a negative reaction swept throughout many, especially on social media. The sketch was said to be in “poor taste” and it was “insensitive.” But what people sometimes fail to realize is that SNL and sketch shows like it are not supposed to be politically-correct. Two tweets cited in an op-ed from CNN told what the story was and what it should have been quite well. One man said, “SNL & NBC should be apologizing today. They seem to think ISIS belongs in a comedy skit. They actually call that humor,” while another said, “Seriously? SNL is being criticized for mocking Isis, and the people who join it? There's no group more deserving of ridicule.” And that’s exactly what it comes down to. How can topical humor cross a line when that line shouldn’t even exist in the first place? There is no reason to be careful not to offend a terrorist organization like ISIS; it's the purpose of satire to help people cope with these unfathomable, subhuman actions and put themselves in some sort of position to feel like they have control and feel like they have power over them. To laugh at ISIS, is not to laugh at beheadings because that’s not funny. To laugh at ISIS is to take away some of their power because they are not above the standards we have set for things like Jared from Subway, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and anything like that deserves our ridicule because we deserve to be able to cope.

For people who think something like ISIS should never, ever be joked about, the question should be asked: What are they doing watching SNL in the first place? If satire has become so commonplace in its offensiveness to them, then they have no business involving themselves in the practice time and again. During a conversation with Seth Meyers and editor of The New Yorker David Remnick, Jerry Seinfeld discussed the reaction to one of his jokes by saying, “I can imagine a time when people say, 'Well, that's offensive to suggest that a gay person moves their hands in a flourishing motion, and you now need to apologize.' I mean, there's a creepy PC thing out there that really bothers me.” And this is true. For those offended by Seinfeld’s stand-up routine, there are safer forms of comedy out there that would probably be more their speed. Comedy, to some, is too “edgy,” but I respond to this with, “What edge is comedy toeing the line of?” That edge - that limit - should be nonexistent. Nothing is so important or so terrible that it is immune to ridicule. But those offended can always watch a rerun of Three’s Company or read the latest Family Circus comic strip wherein those underutilize the privilege of freedom of speech rather than embrace it.

And freedom of speech is an enormous privilege and one that should be and has been protected with our lives. Whether Charlie Hebdo is releasing the latest installment of their newspaper or Charlie Chaplin is pushing to play Adolf Hitler in The Great Dictator, these are elements of a creative mindset that must be encouraged to flourish and not stay quietly meek. Memorably, Sony (in December 2014) pulled their movie, The Interview, in which James Franco and Seth Rogen play journalists commissioned to assassinate Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator, from movie theaters when they were threatened with attack from North Korea (which did end up hacking and releasing the private emails of many Sony employees), but that decision should have never even been an option. It is true that no life is worth a dumb stoner comedy being released in movie theaters, but the same cannot be said for the value of life in regards to freedom of creative expression. Halting the release of The Interview can evoke the iconic Voltaire quote, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” And when, eventually, Sony reversed their decision to defeat the North Korean threats, Rogen assured the nation that it was not censored in any way upon its video-on-demand release when he said, to Variety, that it seemed wrong to censor his comedy in any way out of fear that it would upset Kim Jong-un, likening this sentiment to the idea that people would never not make fun of Hitler out of fear that he might be offended or hurt by the joke. “For a moment it truly seemed possible that our movie might just cease to exist,” Rogen said. “It seemed like a rash decision born out of fear. It was disappointing that the immediate reaction was to do exactly what the criminals wanted.” It is disgusting that there had to be any controversy at all over this movie or any movie that seeks to undermine the top-tier of sickening figures and disgraceful topics.

So when Seth Rogen and James Franco pushed for their movie to reach the cinema-going public and when the staff of Charlie Hebdo was attacked by those who took lacking a sense of humor to an inhumane and horrid level, they were, respectively, fighting and dying for what they believed in and what was right. That not one ounce of creativity should ever be censored because the world deserves to say what needs to be said.