The Wonderful World of Satire

Satire Characteristics  Satire at its heart is concerned with ethical reform.  Makes vice laughable and/or reprehensible  Brings social pressure on those who still engage in wrongdoing.

Characteristics (con’t)  Attacks types -- the fool, the boor, the adulterer, the proud -- rather than specific persons.*  *If it does attack some by name, rather than hoping to reform these persons, it seeks to warn the public against approving of them.

What it seeks to do…  reform public behavior  Elevate its audience's standards  (at the very least) a wake-up call in an otherwise corrupt culture.

Audience Assumptions  Satire is often implicit and assumes readers can pick up on its moral clues. It is not a sermon.  witty, ironic, and often exaggerated. It uses extremes to bring its audience to a renewed awareness of its ethical and spiritual danger.

To avoid retribution…  Sometime if the satirist is in danger for his or her attack, ambiguity, innuendo, and understatement can be used to help protect its author.

Shrek Check out this scene from Shrek. Take notes on what you observe. 51:20-53:20

Satire  There are four major techniques employed in satire:  Exaggeration  Incongruity  Reversal  Parody

Hyperbole  Puts emphasis on the target's unfavorable characteristics by exaggerating or overstating.  Example: She's as tough as a junkyard dog. She sprinkles arsenic on her cornflakes at breakfast and eats it with a side of nails.

 "All cartoon characters and fables must be exaggeration, caricatures. It is the very nature of fantasy and fable." -Walt Disney  "All news is an exaggeration of life." - Daniel Schorr

Incongruity  To present things that are out of place or are absurd in relation to its surroundings.  Synonyms: paradox, contradiction.  Related words: mystery, puzzle, enigma, and riddle.  Example: a woman who is impeccably groomed but keeps a messy house.

Reversal  To present the opposite of the normal order (i.e. the order of events, hierarchical order).  order of events, such as serving dessert before the main dish or having breakfast for dinner.  hierarchical order —a young child making all the decisions for a family or when an administrative assistant dictating what the company president decides and does.

Parody  Attacks pieces of literature, music, and artwork and enables the satirist (often an author, entertainer, or advertiser) to use it as criticism to convey a viewpoint Example: Song parody  Original: The Soul selects her own Society— Then—shuts the Door—  Parody: The Soul selects her own Sorority— Then—shuts the Dorm—. "Satire is a lesson, parody is a game." -Vladimir Nabokov

Shrek: Re-watch the scene Let’s take a look at Shrek one more time. This time, see if you can find an example of each satirical technique.

Satirical Techniques in Shrek  Exaggeration  Princess Fiona fights and successfully defeats Robin Hood and his Merry Men without help.  Incongruity  Princess Fiona uses her ponytail to defeat one of the Merry Men, stopping in mid-air to adjust her hair  Reversal  The role of the hero and the damsel in distress are reversed. The damsel saves the hero.  Parody  The fight scene is an exaggerated imitation of the martial arts style in movies like The Matrix.

So what’s the commentary?  The traditional story of the knight rescuing the damsel in distress is not a realistic depiction of the roles filled by men and women in modern society.  Current Hollywood action movies like The Matrix have become ridiculous because they are too focused on special effects.  Any other ideas?