Saturday night live is a fun show that often makes it’s viewers laugh by using some sort of political satire. Political satire is when irony, humor, exaggeration, or riddicle is used to expose and critique someone’s stupidity or vices in politics. This video portrays two comedians acting as nightly news anchors, they go over the breaking news stories from that day (1/29/2022), and put a sarcastic and humorous twist on the stories. I think that putting news in this form is sometimes more comprehensible and easier to watch, because it takes heavy issues and makes them lighter. However this does not mean that these types of sources are always reliable places to get your news.
Originating in the early 1700’s, political satire has been around for pretty much as long as the American Government has. At that time the colonists used political cartoons as they fought for their independence, because many people were illiterate and undereducated. As I stated above, political satire can be used to make heavy political topics easier for the common public to digest. This is exactly what happened in the 1700’s and continues to happen now. Political satire was used in the 1800’s to criticize political corruption in New York’s government, and in the 20th century, entertainer Will Rogers performed a fake political campaign. Nowadays political satire can be seen as cartoons, live action television programs, movies, internet channels, and more.
Questions
- Do you think getting all of your news from political satire sources is reliable? Why? or Why not?
- Do you enjoy watching, reading, looking at, etc. political satire? Why?
- Find an example of political satire and discuss whether you agree or disagree with it.
- Since political satire can be offensive, do you think it should be used directly by candidates running for office? Why? or Why not?
- Say you are an artists, comedian, actor, etc, would you produce political satire if given the chance? Why? or Why not?
This assignment was honestly really fun. I enjoyed the freedom it gave and it helped me learn more on a topic that I didn’t know much on. I would say definitely keep doing this with future students.
I thought this was very funny and interesting. I liked what you thought about it and your questions. I really thought it was great how it tied into political culture.