Modern satire

Satire is, basically, a word used to describe works of art, including and especially literature, which is designed to ridicule and, often, parody. It is most often recognized in the political sense of making light of genuinely serious problems and issues.

However, since Satire is a formalized subject one must recognize that, like any written genre, it also has its forms and modes, and although in ancient times satire was more likely to be presented as poetry, it clearly also is presented as narrative and dramatic text.

A good example of popular modern satire would be Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. The ironic utopia Huxley illustrates in Brave New World sets out a vision of humanity that has eradicated healthcare issues, abolished war and is technologically and, from their perspective, socialogically advanced. However, the book also describes a world which has eliminated family, diversity, art and culture, even religion and philosophy. Brave New World was written at a time where the Westernised world revelled in new breakthroughs in genetic science, technological advances, and (to an extent) self-congratulating in terms of how civilzed it had become. The satire is Brave New World is, as such, probably more obvious to the western world, but is nonetheless a great introduction to modern satire. Another example would be…

 

The Onion is an American news satire organization. It is an entertainment newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club. It claims a national print circulation of 690,000 and says 61 percent of its web site readers are between 18 and 44 years old.[  Since 2007, the organization has been publishing satirical news audios and videos online, as the "Onion News Network".

The Onion's articles comment on current events, both real and fictional. It parodies such traditional newspaper features as editorials, man-on-the-street interviews, and stock quotes on a traditional newspaper layout with an AP-style editorial voice. Much of its humor depends on presenting everyday events as newsworthy and by playing on commonly used phrases, as in the headline, "Drugs Win Drug War."

A second part of the newspaper is a non-satirical entertainment section called The A.V. Club that features interviews and reviews of various newly released media, as well as other weekly features. The print edition also contains restaurant reviews and previews of upcoming live entertainment specific to cities where a print edition is published. The online incarnation of The A.V. Club has its own domain, includes its own regular features, A.V. Club blogs and reader forums, and presents itself as a separate entity from The Onion itself.

 

The Second Supper is a web site and newspaper published in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The newspaper is published weekly from its headquarters in Downtown La Crosse.

Originally created as a satirical newspaper, The Second Supper has since 2007 become more focused on local interest stories. Weekly issues include music, new films, cult classics, and book reviews, as well as Q&A's with established and up and coming musicians such as Hanson, Wes Borland, Killdozer, Julien-K, and Freezepop. Local interest stories and editorial columns take up the main share of content, often sticking to a universal theme for the week's issue.

The Second Supper has had its share of controversy. In 2006, the paper published a sartirical piece about the then United States Vice President Dick Cheney. For the 2007 Oktoberfest issue, the paper's cover featured a gloved hand emerging from water, in reference to La Crosse's history of river drownings.

The Humor Times is an American monthly newspaper that "reviews the news" using humorous editorial cartoons, columns by political comedians, a fake news section ala The Onion, and more. The paper was founded in Sacramento, California by James Israel, with the premiere issue appearing in April, 1991. It was originally titled the Comic Press News.

The publication features editorial cartoons that comment on current events in the United States and throughout the world. Some of the editorial cartoonists include:
Pat Bagley, Mike Baldwin, John Darkow, Walt Handelsman, Mike Keefe, R. J. Matson, Mike Lane, Jeff Parker, Rob Rogers, Steve Sack, Dan Wasserman and many more. These cartoons are grouped by subject, with short quips written by publisher/editor James Israel above each cartoon, stringing them together in a storyline that adds even more humor to the subject. The sections are titled separately — for example, a page on President Bush may be titled "Bushed."

The paper also features political strip cartoons by various artists. These include:
Lloyd Dangle's Troubletown,
Ruben Bolling's Tom the Dancing Bug,
Jim Siergey’s Cultural Jet Lag and more.

Other, non-political cartoons are also featured, such as
Dan Piraro's Bizarro, and
Mike Baldwin's Cornered.

More features of the paper include:
Will Durst's comical political observations,
Grist Magazine's environmental news column, and
Jim Hightower's Hightower Lowdown.

The fake news section is titled "Faux News", and features articles that mimic real news stories, but are full of satirical twists. Authors are from various sources, and usually include a Humor Times original each issue.

The Humor Times began as the Comic Press News in April 1991, changing its name with its 16th anniversary issue in April 2007. The name-change was noted in a in Sacramento's only daily newspaper, the Sacramento Bee.

 

Private Eye is a fortnightly British satirical and current affairs magazine, currently edited by Ian Hislop.

Since its first publication in 1961, Private Eye has been a prominent critic of public figures deemed incompetent, inefficient or corrupt, and has become a self-styled "thorn in the side" of the British establishment, though it also receives much criticism and ire, both for its style and for its willingness to print defamatory and controversial stories. This was reflected in its once prominent libel lawsuits, for which it became notorious.

As the UK's best-selling current affairs magazine, such is its long-term popularity and significance that many recurring in-jokes in Private Eye have entered popular culture from its pages.

In many ways satire is a way many people express their opinions. It always serves as a good laugh as well.



On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 5:07 PM, Andreya Duey wrote:

“A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift begins by discussing the extreme poverty that is in Ireland and expresses at how the country’s position is not helped  by England. The narrator of "A Modest Proposal" by Swift is very cold and rational, despite his somewhat sympathetic early description of the poverty he witnesses although this narration is the key to the presence of satire and irony in "A Modest Proposal". He believes in a cycle of poverty where the parents are too poor and thus their children remain poor and thus useless to society and his only offering is that these children be put to use. Shockingly, the “use” these children are designated for is food. The narrator of "Modest Proposal" backs up this frightening statement with economic rationalization and concludes that the children will contribute to the feeding and clothing of Ireland’s massive population. The essay begins innocently by establishing the speaker as a concerned citizen genuinely sympathetic to the Irish poor, whose suffering he describes in moving detail.  

"A Modest Proposal"  goes on to further to suggest all of the ways such a system could work. Since he has the belief that every poor family has a price, he is convinced that mothers would gladly carry and then sell their children for 8 shillings, that the rich would find the youngsters to be an excellent delicacy, and with the extra money going to the landlords ,the whole economy would be benefit, the population and poverty problems would be solved. The state would no longer be responsible for these poor children’s welfare and Ireland would no longer be reliant on England. Although there have been a few rather gruesome details omitted in the modest Proposal by Swift the general idea one should pay close attention to is that Swift’s satire is meant to point out the flaws inherent to a strictly rational way of dealing economic and social problems . He is also suggesting that the Irish people are not necessarily the victims that for personal economic gain they would “sell out” the families and go along with such a disgusting proposal. The reader’s confidence in the speaker vanishes quickly after the first few paragraphs, however, as Swift engineers one of the most shocking moments in all of English literature. The modest proposal, humbly presented and drafted at great length, argues for the many advantages of the Irish people raising their children as food to be sold at great profit to the landlords throughout the kingdom. Far from being horrified by this suggestion, as the reader surely is, the speaker continues to imagine himself as a disinterested patriot offering his countrymen a practical and almost miraculously effective way to reduce poverty, overpopulation, and an unfavorable balance of trade with England.

"A Modest Proposal" is a very short satire, it is nonetheless loaded with political, moral, and economic questions worth exploring. In general, I read the piece two times to try and capture the very essence of what he was trying to convey. The first time, just  to appreciate the humor and language that comprise the brilliant satire of "A Modest Proposal" having fun with it without driving yourself nutty thinking about the implications of what the narrator/Swift is saying on a sentence by sentence basis. The second time, do a little seeked the underlying history of the piece beforehand about the Age of Reason, especially as it relates to rationalist approaches to state management. I thought about how the Irish are being represented and question whether or not there are any “good” points that the narrator makes. I considered the role of England, the Catholic versus Protestant representations, and the way the poor of Ireland are not shown to have much initiative. The most powerfully ironic aspect of this essay is rather obvious. The modest proposal is of course anything but modest. It is in fact savage, frightening, perhaps even insane. But other subtle ironies and satiric targets may be overlooked if the speaker is simply dismissed as an extravagant madman. Most important, Swift characterizes him as rational and calculating in order to show that these qualities are dangerous when taken to an extreme. People who rely on speculative reason to solve problems may end up thinking the unthinkable rather than following what should be more natural and humane impulses of common sense and compassion, and those who treat humans as numbers rather than as living beings recall how often the speaker in the essay computes and quantifies are only one short step away from making it easier to murder them.