Modern Satire

                Today, media is the main source of satire.  Television and spoof movies display satirical elements in their works nowadays.  They have a range of messages from politics and current events to more specific things like products or people.  One main program which deals almost completely with satire is Saturday Night Live.  The popular show has featured many skits which mock just about everything.  Their actors play the role of someone or something and use familiar actions and/or characteristics which will give the viewer a few laughs, but not without delivering their stand on a subject.  A popular skit had to do with President Obama during his election campaign and his ideas for his upcoming term.  SNL proceeded to poke at Obama’s ideas to make them sound outrageous and humorous, but then brought in candidate John McCain and made fun of his ideas also.  The show reflects on the national problems and events and puts them into more humorous terms which people then watch for enjoyment.  But it also has a wide array of topics that don’t pertain only to politics.  Andy Samberg is one of the most popular cast members on SNL.  He has performed in many skits, many of them with his musical group “The Lonely Island.”  These are much more lighthearted forms of satire and they are mainly for their comedic value.  They usually include strange topics, vulgar language, and an over-the-top script.  For example, one of their skits was about Rastafarianism in which Samberg portrayed a college student who dressed in loose clothing, rode a longboard, had dreadlocks, and smoked marijuana.  This playfully mocked the lifestyle by emphasizing and exaggerating common stereotypes.  Generally, most of their skits followed this guideline.  Another popular form of this solely comedic satire is the show South Park.  South Park, an animated show on Comedy Central, is very similar to SNL but usually deals with mocking the misfortunes of people and bashes them.   Throughout the 13 seasons, the show has mocked current events and trending people of the time when the episode was aired.  Some famous people and events that were satirized include Tom Cruise, Barbara Streisand, Oprah Winfrey, Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, the cast of Jersey Shore, the BP oil spill, NASCAR, the release of the Nintendo Wii, and countless others.  Creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker then took these people and events and dedicated an episode to mocking them based on what made them recently famous.  One example of their satire is an episode where one of the characters is excited for the release of the Nintendo Wii.  He goes on adventure dealing with outrageous happenings such as time travel and war so he can get the Wii sooner.  This mocked the excitement for the release of the product back in 2006 where people stood in line for a week waiting to obtain this trivial device.  Many episodes mock the usually embarrassing or stupid actions of a real life person or event.  The effect of this satire I think is that people enjoy the shows solely for their entertainment value.  These shows touch on subjects but in the end people come back for a few good laughs.  The shows satirize the events and use them as a guideline for a skit or episode.

                Then there are much more serious, but still comedic, forms of satire.  Examples of this would be The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report.  These are two shows that deal with real world news but put a comedic twist on them to make the news more enjoyable for the viewer.  They show or discuss an event and then provide humorous commentary on the subject.  But the main difference from SNL and South Park is that these two shows actually show serious current events in how they are playing out instead of recreating them in a skit.  The shows include a person connected to one of the shows’ main topics and then the hosts discuss their feelings towards the subject. The effect of this form of satire is that people see multiple sides of a situation and argument.  These shows point out flaws, many times in politics, that they see as important for the viewer to know, like in the case of voting for someone with crooked ideals that might be seen as reckless or wrong.  But I think that because of shows like these, people are much more aware of key aspects of day to day life.