Looks like we’re caught in a cycle, and recycle of the same old, same old stories about 1MDB, Najib Abdul Razak, Mahathir Mohamad, Muhyiddin Yassin, Anwar Ibrahim, Umno and so on. The usual incumbent politicians and their mugshots headline the news, mouthing platitudes in predictable patterns of response. What does this predictability lead to? Dull reporting, and consequently, dulling of the public mind.

Sometimes I’m amazed at how the media would leave unchallenged, and treat as serious news, the stupid utterances of the incumbents and their affiliated upstarts. Yes, our politicians do say the darndest things. Indie filmmaker Amir Muhammad (2007) had compiled more than 100 of these ‘darndest’ utterances in a paperback. Although dated, the book crosses a few red lines to show the type of misfits running the country.

I see a minority of millennials emerging across racial groups who have stretched further the red lines to engage with wit and humour in the political process. Some have made a name for themselves at home and abroad, a few chalking a level of notoriety for their snarky snipes on the corrupt, poking the demagogues, exposing falsehoods, and targeting their wit at any cultural and political figures whose bad public behaviour deserve a jab or two.

Our political satirists and stand-ups may yet develop in form and style as the Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef, or Bill Maher (HBO Real Time), Jon Stewart (former host of The Daily Show), Stephen Colbert (The Late Show), John Oliver (Last Week Tonight) or the late George Carlin, besides his sardonic social critique, was remembered for his 5As in life.

In an interview with Jon Stewart, Carlin alluded to his childhood growing up in a broken family, schooled by nuns, how he got involved with drugs and alcohol as a political satirist. He said: “In our school we did not have As, Bs, Cs and Ds, The only As I got (and this will be a little corny) I've got their Attention, Approval, their Admiration, Approbation and their Applause.”

Far from the Stewart-Carlin league are our Malaysian stand-ups, but they nonetheless are intelligently funny. Their informed comedic commentary - without malice - distilled from the public sphere and coupled with their sharp observations of human behaviour, do contain nuggets of wisdom and socio-political insights. For instance the punnily named MACC (Malaysian Association of Chinese Comedians), Comedy Court and Harith Iskandar, among others.

I occasionally watch their performance on YouTube for a break from the predictable - and boring - news coverage. Malaysian political satirists certainly got my approval and applause for unpacking the ‘news’, critiquing the country’s politics without deviating from the facts, and entertaining their audience. Their Malaysian-style semantics and stage antics remind me of home.

But there’s a limit to political satire and caricatures given our government’s reactionary clampdowns on subversive humour.

For obvious reasons, we ought to reject a copycat of Charlie Hebdo or Jyllands-Posten cartoons in Malaysia. Nonetheless, our home-grown comedic political pundits and news satirists - from Fake Malaysia News and Cilisos to Zunar and Fahmi Reza, from Namewee and Ahmad Nabil to satirical videos like ‘Onederful Malaysia CNY 2014’ - do have a pride of place in our national creative industries (as long as in good sense they steer clear of lampooning religion and race).

Thriving in times of political misinformation

Political satires in repressive societies inevitably emerge and thrive in times of widespread political misinformation and abuse of power. It’s long overdue that our politicians are mocked and bagged for their bad behaviour.

Our leaders are obviously incapable of any levels of self-mockery with class - certainly not in the likes of President Barack Obama. His comedic riffs at the White House Correspondents dinners during his presidency, and his easy engagement with comedians has certainly endeared him to viewers in the US and abroad as the “coolest president ever”.

Many of our political leaders are characteristically stilted, feudalistic in mindset, racist to an extent, and generally lacking in ‘coolness’ to endear them to the rakyat. If our leaders could chill a bit, and occasionally laugh at themselves, they might even get our attention, approval, admiration and approbation.

Given that the series of Bersih protests, petitions and political posturings have so far achieved little in fundamental reforms, we turn to political satires for momentary comic relief from the unending reports of unresolved 1MDB scandals, misinformation, abuse of power and folly.

Our Malaysian-style political satirists who practise their ‘art’ without heaping malice on anyone or party may just be our lost jesters now found, speaking truth in wit and humour to the powers that be.

ERIC LOO worked as a journalist and taught journalism in Malaysia from the late 1970s to 1986. He is now Honorary Senior Fellow in Journalism at University of Wollongong in Australia. Email: eloo@uow.edu.au