satire: more harm than good?

entertainment

Well-known member
Jon Stewart and his impersonators. This smug, snarky attitude applied from behind an audience of your own cheerleaders.

I don't like it. I think it has secured a program for mass sublimation of liberal narcissism.

I think it's very unhealthy for everyone involved.
 
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beiser

Well-known member
isn't this like a ten-year old take? does anyone disagree? will anyone even argue that Jon Stewart was ever funny?

i guess i liked his bit where he went super serious doing testimony about 9/11 first responders and absolutely destroyed people with it. I've started to appreciate "hamming it up" as a positive value.
 

luka

Well-known member
satire certainly loses its bite when shame has been jettisoned entirely.
 

luka

Well-known member
It could attack in the spaces between professed ideal and action but those vulnerable points don't quite exist in the same way now
 

luka

Well-known member
And Possibly it is too genteel and what is needed is some real spite and viciousness. Going for the jugular in a way that these people are too well bred to really contemplate
 

luka

Well-known member
But showy 'anger' doesn't really cut the mustard either. That's not what is required.
 

entertainment

Well-known member
It could attack in the spaces between professed ideal and action but those vulnerable points don't quite exist in the same way now

maybe it's the 20 years of mass satire that's made the right adapt to a posture that's unmoved by such attacks
 

beiser

Well-known member
don't say "don't be hypocrites" if you really mean "don't do bad things" or people will start being forthright about doing bad things and that is a worse situation
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Lotta people been saying this in the UK about Have I Got News For You - that when all politicians become figures of fun, people feel they might as well vote for the one who actually seems "fun". Hence former HIGNFY guest presenter Boris "Boris" Johnson is the incumbent PM.
 

linebaugh

Well-known member
I'm not sure. I think the Jon Stewart era daily show offered something the left of electoral politics is lacking now. It was folksy, common sensical, not too serious. like trump. Dems don't do enough to soothe their technocratic edge. Watching Daily Show in middle school was my introduction into politics, i.e. a very stupid person could engage. And the content wasn't all that different from the format you see from right wing media online- politician does something, show some other thing that makes said politician out to be a hypocrite, rinse repeat. very effective.

I don't think I would enjoy it now, for all the reasons already mentioned, but not everyone can be as cool and smart as I. I think it served a purpose, and I'm not sure the show could serve that same purpose if it wasn't a little nauseating.

And I don't really buy the line that its the smugness of Jon Stewart style satirists that is the problem. Its the smugness off the NYTs, CNNs, SNL, and standard hollywood celebs. The line that its jon stewarts fault feels like posturing, in fighting. my generation went to college, learned Obama was actually a bad guy and now its a race to see who can disavow the most beloved libs as bitingly as possible.
 
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version

Well-known member
I never watched it at the time. They've just uploaded a bunch of the new skits on YouTube. There's one with Priti Patel as a dominatrix and one with Trump trying to cut a deal with the virus.


 
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