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.
December 10th, 2006 at 8:37 pm
For the most part I agree. Satire makes it more comfortable to view social problems, but Mr. Wasserman said that it should make you uncomfortable. I think if you are apart of the problem it will make you uncomfortable. That’s not to say that if you aren’t part of the problem that you will be comfortable though.
December 11th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
I agree that satire shows the flaws in society that some people are not willing to adress. The fact that the people in the movie are suing sacha cohen is absolutly ridiculous. If they were not so mortified at what they had said they would jsut be happy that they were in a movie. Maybe this will teach them a lesson.
December 13th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
I agree that satire is an affective way of talking about political issues today. South park uses satire as well to show us political issues. While South Park’s main aim isn’t to make the problems of America more known to us, it still shows us how dire some of our problems are.
December 15th, 2006 at 9:14 am
I think people are willing to sue production companies of movies like “Borat” etc because they want to hide the truth. These movies and some articles portray too real of a realization and their way of avoiding the confrontation with the issues is by blaming the situation on other people.