Satire Unit What is satire An art form

Satire Unit

What is satire? An art form (literary, dramatic, visual) that uses humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, and/or society itself into improvement or reform. What does this mean? Put it in your own words. What is a vice? What is a folly? Although satire is usually humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon and as a tool to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society. Tina Fey as Sarah Palin—as you watch, consider what it is that Tina Fey is satirizing. Teenage Affluenza—as you watch, consider what it is that is being satirized.

Satire and the Law The relations of satirists to the law have always been delicate and complex. In the United States, satirists attack individuals only at the risk of severe financial loss to himself and his publisher. In totalitarian countries he risks imprisonment or death. Under extreme conditions satire against the reigning order is out of the question. Such was the case in the Soviet Union and most other communist countries. For example, a poet was sent to a concentration camp and his death for composing a satirical poem on Stalin. Why would the law care about satire?

Main types of satire Juvenalian: any bitter and ironic criticism with personal attacks, angry and moral indignation, and pessimism Horatian: meant to delight and humor using laughter and ridicule in a nonaccusatory manner to highlight vice and folly

Satirical Techniques (this is where the project comes in) Exaggeration/hyperbole Distortion/reversal Understatement Invective/diatribe Pun/malapropism Incongruity Parody/allegory