Sunday Satire

I woke up today and realized I had roughly four days to write a blog on satire. I didn’t even really know what satire was, but I knew I had to figure it out, so I read the Sunday Comics (to prepare of course). I started with the front and the very first thing I read was "Blondie", which used satire to make fun of American award shows  (Young, Marshall.). By then I was a little worried that my brain was playing tricks on me, but then I started to read the comic after "Blondie", which was "Zits" (Scott, Borgman.). In "Zits", the artists had used satire to make fun of healthy diets. Connie, the mother in "Zits", calls the family for “dessert time,” which actually is a “spinach-wheatgrass-flaxseed-gojiberry-spirulina-oatmeal-kale-soy smoothie.” Walt, the father in "Zits", then tells Jeremy, his son, “Good health is going to kill me, once it’s finished making me angry and resentful.” This is satire, because it makes fun of how eating healthy food makes people “angry and resentful” but people still do it. Walt’s line also uses sarcasm because good health can’t kill you. So, just by “preparing” I already found two examples of modern satire.

By this time I was interested, so I went online to the Buffalo News and found another great cartoon that uses satire.  The cartoon was of two movie critics who are at the “movies” when actually they are just sitting in theater seats watching their movie on a tiny handheld device.  The artist is making fun of the how nowadays people can, and do, watch entire movies on the screen of their small handheld device. This is also funny because people buy giant flat-screen TVs and yet they are happy to watch movies on their small handheld devices. I also found another cartoon that uses satire. It was another "Zits" cartoon, which, like the movie critic cartoon, makes fun of people’s use of technology. In the comic, Connie dressed up as a cellphone that said, “Hi Jeremy. How was your day?” Jeremy then said, “Now that’s just desperate.” Connie then responded with, “Ah, but you’re talking to me.” This comic is making fun of how texting is replacing talking in society (at least for teenagers).  Just by going online I found these, and more, modern examples of satire that people see everyday. 

Much like the satire that can be found today, Mark Twain used satire in his book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Unlike the satire in the modern day examples, Mark Twain used satire to express how society itself was wrong. He used satire to show how slavery was bad, and by using satire he told the South without disrespecting them or angering them (much). On the other hand, satire today is the same as when Mark Twain used it because in all of the examples the author, or artist, described a problem that should be fixed. Mark Twain used satire in his book to show other problems with the South, like their gullibility and feuds, which is like the artists today who use satire to correct problems, like the overuse of technology in society today. Both Mark Twain and artists today also used satire to add humor to their works. In the "Blondie" cartoon, Dagwood and Blondie, the two main characters, are watching an award show, which takes forever to reveal the winner. The artists, Dean Young and John Marshall, use satire to make the comic funny by showing Dagwood leaving the TV to go bathe and make a sandwich, and returning to the TV before the announcer finishes telling who the winner is. Mark Twain used satire in his novel to add humor also. He includes the characters of the Duke and the King to not only show problems with Southern society, but to add humor to his story through their cons and mischievousness.

     

Satire is a commonly used literary technique, not only in the past when Mark Twain was writing, but today as well. Satire is everywhere from news stories to the Sunday Comics, we only have to look.

So, look around. What satire can you see?

My Sources:

I found sources just by reading the Sunday Comics, going online to the Buffalo News and directly to the comics' websites. Satire is found everywhere, even today. I also used Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to show that satire used in the past is still in use today.

Scott, Jerry, and Jim Borgman. "Zits." Cominc Strip. Buffalo News [Buffalo] 25 November 2012: Print.

Young, Dean, and John Marshall. "Blondie." Comic Strip. Buffalo News [Buffalo] 25 November 2012: Print