I have attached a link to Youtube star Nigahiga's "Dude vs. Wild - The Desert", which is a very humorous re-make of popular wilderness survival show Man vs. Wild. The star of the show is Edward Michael "Bear" Grylls, a British adventurer, writer and television presenter.
This video in particular is just an imitation for a decent laugh. However, some comedy shows such as Family Guy and South Park use parody in order to inform the audience on world issues and even as a way to reform them. This difference in the positive and negative intention intrigues me. Of course, in both situations the fact still stands that the media is being made fun of, which altogether isn't positive. In satirical television shows, if an object is criticized because it falls short of some standard which the critic desires that it should reach, it is merely used as fodder for the scripts. The overall purpose is to shame society into improvement by attacking its own shortcomings and "ridiculousness".
In my opinion, it seems like parody, and satire for that matter, is almost a stale way of trying to improve an issue. Yes, it allows certain individuals (especially in politics..) to hear of how they are being received. Nevertheless, the overall essence of satire is harsh criticism and aggression. From what I've seen and heard, humans do not sit well with "constructive criticism" and feelings are easily damaged. I'm sure there are plenty of other ways to try to reform something, but then again you do have to applaud writers for the attempt.
Strange how no one likes to be lied to, but never seem to want to hear the truth either.
Very true, all though if the creator really likes the source they're parodying then its not that negative. By the way, I hope you don't mind but I was going to do a comedy related post this week as well. I'll try not to stray too close to parody.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting post -effective video; great closing line.
ReplyDeleteEver read Jonathin Swift's "A Modest Proposal"?
Things to think about: What's the difference between parody and satire?
You say that satire is stale and that people don't like constructive criticism. So should critics just keep to themselves then? Is satire a problem or a solution?
Consider expanding on this post for your end-of-year project.
I must admit that I'm guilty of enjoying parodies like Family Guy and South Park entirely too much. I did notice that they seemed to highlight certain issues in order to spark up a reform. I really think you did a great job writing about this topic.
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