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satire

I think satire is a very clever way of portraying humor and truth. Satire is usually for an audience that can handle the “degrading” of a culture, but also laugh with it. In Borat, he gets people to sing a song “throw the jew down the well.” That is completely sick and wrong, but people are still willing to do it, which is even worse. He gets at things that if put differently would be inappropriate, but since it is supposed to have some humor incorporated in it. The scary movies are not satires because they are just making fun of other movies like The Ring. They are not making jokes about a culture, or customs like Borat does. Also in satire, there is a whole meaning of truth, unlike in Scary Movie. I think John Stewart of the Daily Show does a great job with satire. His comments about the goverments are serious yet very clever. Colbert does a good job with it too, but I think Stewart just has this mind set of being nasty and humorous all at the same time. Satire does make people feel uncomfortable, but at least it does get the point across without making it a structural debate.



Comments

  1.    1 Mr. W says:

    And Stewart takes it a step beyond just attacking the government; he also goes after the way our media cover the government. That’s when his “senior correspondents” are really useful. That English guy they have is especially good at it. Did you see the one from earlier this week when he was using “air quotes” for everything? Classic.

    Posted December 7, 2006, 11:29 pm
  2.    2 alec says:

    You mentioned that satire is for an audience that can laugh at offensive things. I agree, and I always find myself laughing at South Park or Family Guy, or whatever, but if you think about it, what does satire say about our society. Is America ready to laugh at anything funny, even if it does dive it to controversial and offensive topics.

    Posted December 12, 2006, 5:47 pm
  3.    3 Joe says:

    I agree with you where you say that satire gets a point across by not starting a structural debate, yet making people feel uncomfortable. That is one of the reasons satire is so effective.

    Posted December 12, 2006, 6:03 pm