Green Light

The Colbert Report is one of numerous satirical shows in todays media that focuses mainly on politics.  Colbert himself is also sometimes a very over-the-top character in his show.  His character commonly agrees with the Republican Party on issues and always comes up with ideas on how to enforce their policies.  These ideas would be considered abrasive and unnecessary if the politicians were to actually enforce them, but because Colbert does it in a satirical fashion, people are able to see that these ideas are ridiculous and would not be affective.  Some times, the lengths at which Colbert’s satires go tend to give the audience the feeling that he does not support the Republicans, but is instead completely mocking them.  The sign of good satire is being able to trick the audience and make them confused as to whether or not the person is joking or is completely serious.  Colbert has this affect on me everytime I watch his show, and I feel that he is a very good satirical artist.

The situation in Iraq seems to be worsening in many ways.  I feel as though we can not focus on surrounding problems until we are sure that Iraqi task forces can handle the problems in Iraq by themselves.  However, if we focus only on the problems within the country, then things will worsen even more.  It is important that we also focus on growing problems with the bordering nations so that we can control the outbreak of a regional civil war.  It is not sure whether a larger war is inevitable, but if we focus on these things, then there is a high chance of avoiding one.

In this day and age, the majority of people will define racism as being discriminatory actions taken against a certain race or group of people.  However, is it possible that racism has evolved so drastically that we can no longer recognize it within society and even within ourselves?  Professor Jack Dovidio, of the University of Connecticut, adresses this possibility in his research:

“Contemporary racism is not conscious, and it is not accompanied by dislike, so it gets expressed in indirect, subtle ways,” (taken from: http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/12/racism.poll/index.html)

This is a very intriguing concept that actually makes a lot of sense.  People today are too caught up in trying not to be racist, that they make themselves more racist that they would be by just acting normally.  If someone is overly positive and kind to a person of another race, then they are being racist, but just in a different way than traditionally thought.  Unfortunately, until everyone in the world can look at each other and not see anything other than another human being, then racism will still exist.  If being positive can also be considered racist, then what direction do we have to go in order stop being racist? Not do anything?

Of all imformative methods used by the media today, satire is often extremely effective.  Rather than become involved in discussions and news stories about serious topics and problems, it is much more comfortable for people to view these things from a comedic standpoint.  By using satire, we are able to see how serious these problems are and at the same time seeing how ridiculous our current problem solving efforts are.  The main problem with satires are the people who do not feel as though the problems are rightly adressed.  They would rather be politically correct than face the true problems with the country.  The movie Borat is a great example of this.  I loved the movie and saw it twice because I felt that it passed along good messages in a truly satirical fashion.  I probably liked the movie much better than some people because I already knew that most of these problems existed and had no problem with seeing them adressed.  However, the people who were pranked in the movie, who are now suing the movie’s makers, may not have been able to see that the movie is important in the progression towards solving these problems.  These people’s statements are very ironic because they add to the satircal ideas in the movie and show that many Americans are ignorant to the issues that occor within their own nation.  Satire is an important method in realizing the issues that plague the world today.