If you want some satirical news, I've got the scoop

In my family, there is always a battle over the newspaper in the morning. I actually love reading the news, as weird as that might sound, even when they are depressing and demoralizing (which they, let's face it, often are). Recently, I have also come to love satirical news, mostly in the form of satirical news shows. I love satirical news shows for their ability to deconstruct real events and show people a different side to a story or an interview that "normal" news shows have displayed as one-dimensional. My favorite fake news show is The Daily Show, followed by This Hour Has 22 Minutes and The Colbert Report (check them out if you haven't done it already). For those of you who are looking for a satirical newspaper to read, I have found you a list of good newspapers here. My personal favorite happens to be the one on top of the list, The Onion. The Onion has more resources than the other satirical newspapers featured on the list, which clearly rubs off on the quality of its "news" coverage. 

What I am essentially trying to say with this is that if you don't read the news because you think they are "too depressing" or for some other similar reason, there is no longer any real excuse for being ignorant.

I love this dude - Pawel Kuczynski

If I ever decide to buy art, I am definitely going to buy it from Pawel Kuczynski. Kuczynski is a Polish artist who paints satirical, "thought-provoking" images. He has been awarded with 95 (!) prestigious prizes and distinctions and his artwork has been displayed everywhere in the world. I stumbled upon his artwork yesterday, when I was browsing satirical art online. I find Kuczynski's paintings extremely engaging and interesting, mostly because they don't have any text on them (for the most part).  Kuczynski makes his satirical points solely through images, showing that satirical art and images do not have to be in the form of cartoons. Below I have posted some of his paintings that I particularly liked, hope you like them too!

A painting showing how politicians "fool" voters into voting for them by making it seem like "the grass is greener" in a society with their political ideology. The voters are behaving like sheep, following the shepherd without questioning him.

The truth about politicians?

Is slavery really gone?

Problems being painted over

Two different worlds

Shiny happy people holding hands

So now that I am done with my series of blog posts about satire and movies, I thought it could be interesting to dedicate one blog post to the topic of satire and music. My favorite satirical song is REM's Shiny Happy People. Allegedly, the chorus of the song ("Shiny happy people holding hands") is taken from a Chinese propaganda poster. The song was released in 1991, two years after the Tiananmen Square  uprising (where the military killed and injured hundreds of students), and it is meant to satirize how the slogan or headline "Shiny happy people" concealed what was really going on in China at the time (and in other parts of the world as well). Another, perhaps more straightforward, example of a satirical song is "Weird Al" Yankovic's Eat It. The song is a parody of Michael Jackson's Beat It, but instead of warning a person of trying to be a bad ass and getting into a fight, Yankovic's version of the song warns people of trying to get away with not eating more food. Yankovic sings "I don't care if you're full / Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it / Open up your mouth and feed it / Have some more yogurt, have some more spam / It doesn't matter if it's fresh or canned / Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it / Don't you make me repeat it." This, if anything, is satire of our contemporary consumer society, where obesity has even become more common than malnourishment and starvation. This also ties in with what I wrote about in my last blog post, about similar satire in The Hunger Games. 

 

Above you can see the music video for REM's Shiny Happy People, and below "Weird Al" Yankovic's Eat It-video.

Satire in Movies - Part V - "The Hunger Games - Catching Fire"

Satire and Sci-Fi are two genres that often intertwine. Books such as 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 are often referred to as satires, for example, even though they are more commonly known as science fiction novels or dystopian literature. The Hunger Games-trilogy is a more "modern" science fiction series, which is currently being made into movies (the second movie, Catching Fire premiered in November). The movies, and books, are set in a future society where the United States has been made into a dictatorship named Panem where 12 "districts" slave under the rule of a despotic president, President Snow, and his "capital." The main character, Katniss Everdeen, is from the poorest of the 12 districts, District 12. In the first movie/book she is forced to take part in Panem's annual "Hunger Games," which is a television series where one girl and one boy from each district are chosen to go into an arena and kill each other until only one "victor" remains. This in itself can be seen as satire of our contemporary society, where almost everything is shown on TV for entertainment. The fact that the country is called Panem, derived from the latin panem et circenses (bread and circuses) also suggests that the trilogy is satire of how people can ignore atrocities happening around them if they are entertained and have food (the whole society is basically built on this premise).

In the newest movie, Catching Fire, there are many examples of satire. In this movie, Katniss and Peeta (who were both declared victors of the Hunger Games in the first book) are forced to go on a victory tour through all twelve districts. After many plot twists they are then, once more, forced into the Hunger Games arena (I am not going to go into the particulars of how this happened). One of the clearest examples of satire in the movie can be seen in the scene were Katniss and Peeta are attending a party thrown by President Snow in their honor. Peeta declares that he is too full to eat anything more. He is then asked if he wants to drink some sort of liquid that other people attending the party say will make him throw up what he has eaten so that he can eat more ("How can you otherwise taste everything?" they ask). Peeta declines and asks Katniss is she wants to dance, and on the dance floor when they are alone he says "People in the districts are starving and here they are making themselves sick so that they can eat more." This can in many ways be seen as satire our contemporary society. Perhaps, people in rich countries today do not commonly take drugs to throw up food, but in a society where 15% are starving and 20% obese, this scene still has to be regarded as something that we can learn from.

Satire in Movies - Part IV - "The Joneses"

This will be my second-to-last blog post about satire in movies, so make sure you enjoy it!
 

The Joneses (2009) is a fairly recent satirical movie. It is about a family, the Jones family, which moves into a wealthy neighborhood and immediately claims the position of neighborhood trendsetters. All members of the family are extremely good looking, the husband has an extremely well-paid job and the teenage kids have all the newest gadgets and clothes, quickly making them extremely popular amongst their peers. However, something is not quite alright with the family. In fact, the family isn't a family at all, just four actors who have been paid by a company to sell their lifestyle (the things they wear, the things they like) to rich families in the same neighborhood.

In many ways, this movie is a dark satire of our consumer society. Of course, the movie is an exaggeration of how far this consumer society has come, but it still makes some valid points about our consumer habits. It shows just how much people are ruled by materialistic thinking and beauty. The Jones family has only got a surface, no real depth or feelings or anything that people who are looking for anything else than shallow materialism would want. However, despite this, people are queuing up to know the family and to become like them. The fact that the family's family name is Jones also adds to the satirical effect of the movie. As it is now, people are already trying to keep up with the Joneses; fashions, gossip and information. What I think is most interesting about the movie, though, is that the Jones family eventually ends up victims of the consumer life-style and materialism that they are trying to sell. Is this the movie makers’ way of saying that people who focus too much on consumerism and materialism eventually self-destruct? Or that we, as human beings, are destroying our world through our mass consumption? No matter the case, the movie is extremely interesting and if you want to watch a modern example of satire, I highly recommend it.