Satire TV

Satire TV
Author: Jonathan Gray
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2009-04
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 0814731996

This work examines what happens when comedy becomes political, and politics become funny. A series of original essays focus on a range of programmes, from 'The Daily Show' to 'South Park'.

Satire TV

Satire TV
Author: Jonathan Gray
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2009-04-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 081473216X

A fascinating look into what happens when comedy becomes political and politics becomes comedy Satirical TV has become mandatory viewing for citizens wishing to make sense of the bizarre contemporary state of political life. Shifts in industry economics and audience tastes have re-made television comedy, once considered a wasteland of escapist humor, into what is arguably the most popular source of political critique. From fake news and pundit shows to animated sitcoms and mash-up videos, satire has become an important avenue for processing politics in informative and entertaining ways, and satire TV is now its own thriving, viable television genre. Satire TV examines what happens when comedy becomes political, and politics become funny. A series of original essays focus on a range of programs, from The Daily Show to South Park, Da Ali G Show to The Colbert Report, The Boondocks to Saturday Night Live, Lil’ Bush to Chappelle’s Show, along with Internet D.I.Y. satire and essays on British and Canadian satire. They all offer insights into what today’s class of satire tells us about the current state of politics, of television, of citizenship, all the while suggesting what satire adds to the political realm that news and documentaries cannot.

Satiric TV in the Americas

Satiric TV in the Americas
Author: Paul Alonso
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2018
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 0190636505

Satiric TV in the Americas is the first book to focus on Latin American TV satire in order to understand their critical role in challenging the status quo, traditional journalism, and the prevalent local media culture. It introduces the notion of "critical metatainment" as negotiated dissent, a key concept for the study of postmodern satire.

Humor and Satire on Contemporary Television

Humor and Satire on Contemporary Television
Author: Silas Kaine Ezell
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2016-05-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 131711941X

This book examines contemporary American animated humor, focusing on popular animated television shows in order to explore the ways in which they engage with American culture and history, employing a peculiarly American way of using humor to discuss important cultural issues. With attention to the work of American humorists, such as the Southwest humorists, Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, and Kurt Vonnegut, and the question of the extent to which modern animated satire shares the qualities of earlier humor, particularly the use of setting, the carnivalesque, collective memory, racial humor, and irony, Humor and Satire on Contemporary Television concentrates on a particular strand of American humor: the use of satire to expose the gap between the American ideal and the American experience. Taking up the notion of ’The Great American Joke’, the author examines the discursive humor of programmes such as The Simpsons, South Park , Family Guy , King of the Hill, Daria, American Dad!, The Boondocks, The PJs and Futurama . A study of how animated television programmes offer a new discourse on a very traditional strain of American humor, this book will appeal to scholars and students of popular culture, television and media studies, American literature and visual studies, and contemporary humor and satire.

Music in Comedy Television

Music in Comedy Television
Author: Liz Giuffre
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2017-03-27
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1317273575

The study of television and music has expanded greatly in recent years, yet to date no book has focused on the genre of comedy television as it relates to music. Music in Comedy Television: Notes on Laughs fills that gap, breaking new critical ground. With contributions from an array of established and emerging scholars representing a range of disciplines, the twelve essays included cover a wide variety of topics and television shows, spanning nearly fifty years across network, cable, and online structures and capturing the latest research in this growing area of study. From Sesame Street to Saturday Night Live, from Monty Python to Flight of the Conchords, this book offers the perfect introduction for students and scholars in music and media studies seeking to understand the role of music in comedy onscreen and how it relates to the wider culture.

Entertaining Politics

Entertaining Politics
Author: Jeffrey P. Jones
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2010-12-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0742565297

In this completely revised and updated edition (including eight new chapters), Jeffrey Jones charts the evolution and maturation of political entertainment television by examining The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, Politically Incorrect/Real Time with Bill Maher, and Michael Moore's TV Nation and The Awful Truth. This volume investigates how and why these shows have been central locations for the critique of political and economic power and an important resource for citizens during numerous political crises. In an age of Truthiness, fake news and humorous political talk have proven themselves viable forms of alternative reporting and critical means for ascertaining truth, and in the process, questioning the legitimacy of news media's role as the primary mediator of political life. The book also addresses the persistent claims that these programs have cynical effects and create misinformed young citizens, demonstrating instead how such programming provides for an informed, active, and meaningful citizenship. The new edition takes account of the many changes that have occurred in television and political culture since Entertaining Politics' initial release.

A History of Television News Parody in America

A History of Television News Parody in America
Author: Curt Hersey
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2022-07-26
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1793637792

In this book, Curt Hersey explores the history of U.S. media, demonstrating how news parody has entertained television audiences by satirizing political and social issues and offering a lighthearted take on broadcast news. Despite shifts away from broadcast and cable delivery, comedians like Samantha Bee, Michael Che, and John Oliver continue this tradition of delivering topical humor within a newscast format. In this history of the television news parody genre, Hersey critically engages with the norms and presentational styles of television journalism at the time of their production. News parody has increasingly become part of the larger journalistic field, with viewers often turning to this parodic programming as a supplement and corrective to mainstream news sources. Beginning in the 1960s with the NBC program That Was the Week That Was, the history of news parody is analyzed decade by decade by focusing on presidential and political coverage, as well as the genre’s critiques of television network and cable journalism. Case studies include Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update;” HBO’s Not Necessarily the News; Comedy Central’s original Daily Show, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and The Colbert Report; and HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Scholars of media history, political communication, and popular culture will find this book particularly useful.

News Parody and Political Satire Across the Globe

News Parody and Political Satire Across the Globe
Author: Geoffrey Baym
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2013-09-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1135751641

In recent years, the US fake news program The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has become a surprisingly important source of information, conversation, and commentary about public affairs. Perhaps more surprisingly, so-called 'fake news' is now a truly global phenomenon, with various forms of news parody and political satire programming appearing throughout the world. This collection of innovative chapters takes a close and critical look at global news parody from a wide range of countries including the USA and the UK, Italy and France, Hungary and Romania, Israel and Palestine, Iran and India, Australia, Germany, and Denmark. Traversing a range of national cultures, political systems, and programming forms, News Parody and Political Satire Across the Globe offers insight into the central and perhaps controversial role that news parody has come to play in the world, and explores the multiple forces that enable and constrain its performance. It will help readers to better understand the intersections of journalism, politics, and comedy as they take shape across the globe in a variety of political and media systems. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Popular Communication.

The Power of Satire

The Power of Satire
Author: Marijke Meijer Drees
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2015-10-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 902726855X

Satire is clearly one of today’s most controversial socio-cultural topics. In this edited volume, The Power of Satire, it is studied for the first time as a dynamic, discursive mode of performance with the power of crossing and contesting cultural boundaries. The collected essays reflect the fundamental shift from literary satire or straightforward literary rhetoric with a relatively limited societal impact, to satire’s multi-mediality in the transnational public space where it can cause intercultural clashes and negotiations on a large scale. An appropriate set of heuristic themes – space, target, rhetoric, media, time – serves as the analytical framework for the investigations and determines the organization of the book as a whole. The contributions, written by an international group of experts with diverse disciplinary backgrounds, manifest academic standards with a balance between theoretical analyses and evaluations on the one hand, and in-depth case studies on the other.

Parody and Taste in Postwar American Television Culture

Parody and Taste in Postwar American Television Culture
Author: Ethan Thompson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 371
Release: 2010-12-14
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 1136839798

In this original study, Thompson explores the complicated relationships between Americans and television during the 1950s, as seen and effected through popular humor. Parody and Taste in Postwar American Television Culture documents how Americans grew accustomed to understanding politics, current events, and popular culture through comedy that is simultaneously critical, commercial, and funny. Along with the rapid growth of television in the 1950s, an explosion of satire and parody took place across a wide field of American culture—in magazines, comic books, film, comedy albums, and on television itself. Taken together, these case studies don’t just analyze and theorize the production and consumption of parody and television, but force us to revisit and revise our notions of postwar "consensus" culture as well.