Satire and Dissent

Amber Day

Description

Satire and new media in the American political landscape

In an age when Jon Stewart frequently tops lists of most-trusted newscasters, the films of Michael Moore become a dominant topic of political campaign analysis, and activists adopt ironic, fake personas to attract attention—the satiric register has attained renewed and urgent prominence in political discourse. Amber Day focuses on the parodist news show, the satiric documentary, and ironic activism to examine the techniques of performance across media, highlighting their shared objective of bypassing standard media outlets and the highly choreographed nature of current political debate.

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction: Poking Holes in the Spectacle
2. Ironic Authenticity
3. Truthiness and Consequences in Parodic News
4. Heroes and Villains: Satiric Documentarians Spearhead the Debate
5. Irony in Activism
6. Moving beyond Critique

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Popular Culture
• Humor
• News
• Politics
• Cinema
• Topic
• Culture
• Media
• Humour

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 16 février 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253005144
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

SATIRE and DISSENT
SATIRE and DISSENT
Interventions in Contemporary Political Debate
Amber Day
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bloomington Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
601 North Morton Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47404-3797 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796
Fax orders 812-855-7931
Orders by e-mail [e-mail]
2011 by Amber Day
All rights reserved
Parts of chapter 3 previously appeared as And Now . . . the News? Mimesis and the Real in The Daily Show, in Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era, edited by Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey P. Jones, and Ethan Thompson (New York: New York University Press, 2009). Reprinted with permission of New York University Press. Parts of chapter 5 previously appeared as Are They for Real? Activism and Ironic Identities, Electronic Journal of Communication 18.2-4 (2008). Reprinted with permission.
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Day, Amber.
Satire and dissent : interventions in contemporary political debate / Amber Day.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-35588-1 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-22281-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Television in politics-United States. 2. Television talk shows-United States. 3. Documentary films-Political aspects-United States. 4. Irony-Political aspects. 5. Political satire, American-History and criticism. I. Title.
HE8700.76.U6D39 2011
791.45 65810973-dc22
2010033161
1 2 3 4 5 16 15 14 13 12 11
For AUDEN DAY MCEVOY
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction: Poking Holes in the Spectacle
2 Ironic Authenticity
3 Truthiness and Consequences in Parodic News
4 Heroes and Villains: Satiric Documentarians Spearhead the Debate
5 Irony in Activism
6 Moving beyond Critique
Notes
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have never managed to do anything without thoroughly mulling, debating, philosophizing, and kibitzing about the details with a team of advisors, and this book is no exception. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Jonathan Gray, who allowed me to tap his advice at many stages along the way and whose guidance was of enormous importance to me. Jeffrey Jones also provided valuable counsel and encouragement. Thanks, too, to Indiana University Press s readers for helping to mold the project into shape and to the staff at the press for shepherding it along. My colleagues at Bryant University have also been immensely supportive, particularly my chair, Mary Prescott, and the other members of the English and Cultural Studies department.
This project has gone through several incarnations, and its beginnings were significantly shaped by my coaches, Susan Manning, Jeffrey Sconce, and Tracy C. Davis, who provided patient mentoring and wise counsel. Robert Hariman and Chuck Kleinhans read chapters in the early stages, offering their time and their invaluable expertise, while Dilip Gaonkar ensured that I kept my head above water. Thanks also to some of my earliest readers, Iona Szeman, Ann Folino White, Stefka Mihaylova, Jesse Nijus, Dan Smith, and Christina McMahon, who supplied much-needed camaraderie along with their detailed feedback.
Finally, I could not have done this without my family, particularly without the help of Patrick McEvoy, my confidant, editor, advisor, and friend, who is an endless source of patience, enthusiasm, and love. And thanks to Auden, whose gestation roughly coincided with that of this book, supplying a non-negotiable deadline. Though he has yet to discover satire, this book is dedicated to him.
SATIRE and DISSENT
INTRODUCTION
Poking Holes in the Spectacle
While voter apathy may be a perpetual problem, interest in traditional news coverage may be on the wane, and professional political dialogue may be merely a repetition of partisan talking points, there is nevertheless a renaissance taking place in the realm of political satire. Turn on the television in any number of countries around the world, and you are bound to find at least one highly topical news-parody show providing its own take on contemporary events. As you forward choice clips from those shows, you will also likely encounter the newest satirical internet video. A trip to the multiplex offers you a slew of fiercely political documentaries which embody a striking blend of polemic and satire. Meanwhile, a multitude of activist groups is looking to capture your attention by staging elaborately ironic stunts or satirically impersonating their enemies. The political discourse taking place in the satiric register currently appears far more vibrant than any of the traditional outlets for serious political dialogue. And this is not something that has gone unnoticed. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, political satire has been attracting renewed attention, as various media from hard news to talk shows speculate about the impact of Michael Moore s Fahrenheit 9/11 on a presidential election, loudly bemoan the rumor that American youth get more information from fake news programs like The Daily Show than from legitimate newscasts, and include prankster satirists in their roster of talking heads. Whether or not satire has become verifiably more popular, satiric media texts have become a part of (and a preoccupation of) mainstream political coverage, thereby making satirists legitimate players in serious political dialogue.
A number of new forms-or emergent genres-seem to have exploded in popularity almost simultaneously, all markedly political, all incorporating the real into the mimetic in striking ways, and all straddling the line between satire and serious political dialogue. This book focuses primarily on three of the most prevalent forms: the satiric documentary, the parodic news show, and ironic, media-savvy activism. These emergent genres are notable for their relative lack of fictionalized material and impersonations, relying instead on deconstructions of real news events, improvisational pranks, and ambushes of public figures. All share a uniquely performative form of parody and satire that injects the satirist s body into the traditional political world, as he or she physically engages, interrogates, and interacts with the real. They thereby cultivate a blurring of the traditional categories of entertainment and news, art and activism, satire and political dialogue. The question is, why? What does this simultaneous emergence tell us about contemporary media? Political dialogue? Publics and counterpublics? Notably, these forms have generated strong affective communities, capturing the interest of many in a way that organized politics has often struggled to do, as viewers look to the parodists to voice their opinions within the public arena. The fact that this mode has become so popular (not simply in audience numbers, but in increased legitimacy as a form of political speech) makes answering these questions particularly important.
Throughout what follows, I draw on the terms irony, satire, and parody. While I describe the documentaries, for the most part, as satiric, refer to the fake news programs as parodic, and use the more general ironic for the activist stunts, all three modes overlap to a significant degree. I have brought them together precisely because I see them as collectively making up the larger phenomenon I am describing. I will offer definitions of each mode when appropriate, but I also intentionally allow these concepts to bleed into one another to some extent, as I am less interested in formalism or a dissection of aesthetics than I am in analyzing the satiric/ironic/parodic register as a particular discursive strategy within the context of the larger media playing field. Similarly, while it would be possible to write a book about any one of the individual films, television programs, or activist groups profiled here (and, in a few cases, theorists already have), my intention is to provide a broad overview of the historical moment, connecting the dots to describe and analyze a large shift in both entertainment and political dialogue.
While I will argue against theories of satire and political humor that depict these modes as inevitably functioning conservatively, I do not wish to replace such theories with the impression that this humor is inherently subversive. Rather, I concur with Simon Dentith s assessment of parody when he argues that there is no general politics of parody, 1 as its workings are integrally dependent on the particular social and historical circumstances of its deployment. That said, I do believe that political satire may have more popular resonance and traction at particular moments in history than others. Part of the impetus for exploring this material is my feeling that political parody, irony, and satire have not only surged in popularity since the 1990s, but they have become complexly intertwined with serious political dialogue. In other words, these modes seem to offer a particularly attractive method of political communication at this moment, one that continues to gain traction.
This pull toward the ironic, this book contends, is directly related to the manufactured quality of contemporary public life. We live our lives interacting with virtual worlds as we play our video games, surf the web, and engage in virtual social networking