As a member of the parody genre, Documentary Now! and the episode “Gentle and Soft” in particular, inherently employs a more overt intertextuality than what is most commonly at play in televisual texts, because the foundation of this genre is in the humor created by references to other texts, genres, events, or people. This blatant intertextuality also exists in the integration of the program’s creators in the televisual landscape and in the program’s adjacent industries, primarily, the music industry. Thus, intertextuality is the basis of the text’s structural categorization as a parody and the cultural and intertextual knowledge that viewers have affect the ways that they consume the text and what meanings they receive from it. As such, …show more content…
Jones and Ethan Thompson, The State of Satire, the Satire of State, parody and satire inherently rely on intertextuality, because parody is the comical imitation of a cultural product and imitation requires a referent. According to Gray’s assertion that intertextuality prepares viewers for the text, becoming a site around which the production of meaning occurs, fully understanding the meaning of the text as a parody requires the intertextual knowledge of the referents of “Gentle and Soft”, primarily, The History of the Eagles and other music documentaries, as well as with the soft rock of the 1970s, the other televisual and parodic work of the creators, and even their musical backgrounds and skills. Thus, the way the viewers consume text intertextually, always bringing previous textual knowledge and experience to every text consumed and comparing it to those like it is particularly significant in the parody genre which in which all meaning established by the text is created in relation to the viewer’s previous media …show more content…
In his work, A Cultural Approach to Television Genre Theory, he suggests that genres are an industry and audience practice meant to organize fan practices, viewing practices, and everyday conversations and to sort television’s vast array of textual options. As such, genre is a culturally constructed textual category, not a textual component. Genres emerge from intertextual relations between multiple texts and through cultural practices. Thus, as a show defined and labeled as a member of the parody genre, Documentary Now! is culturally recognized and defined as an explicitly intertextual televisual text, which is particularly significant because each genre has its own common sense rules that viewers internalize to make sense of future texts, ultimately having a direct effect on how the texts are consumed and understood. However, Mittell’s insistence of genre as fluid and based on cultural context and intertextual knowledge, also allows other generic categories to define Documentary Now!. For example, if a viewer is unfamiliar with the intertextual referents of “Gentle and Soft” they may categorize the program as simply a documentary is they if they are unfamiliar with the actors or the program’s textual referents, which indicate that the program is not a genuine
With ominous opening monologues, mind-bending special effects (at the time, anyway) and totally unexpected-twist endings, The Twilight Zone captured the attention and imagination of America at the end of one of the most influential and change-inspiring decades of the century. During the fifties, Americans experienced vast changes not only in our country's position in the world, but also in our own culture -- and one of the leading vehicles for this change was television. In a time when situation comedies and game shows dominated the air waves, Rod Serling's science fiction anthology program stood out as an example not only of the artistic potential of television in terms of writing and special effects, but also of the power television had as social commentary and a thought...
Younger generations and the more vulnerable in society can be influenced in avoiding peer pressure, but for the individuals filled with wisdom, the shows can reflect based on American modern society. Everybody Loves Raymond and Full House are great shows who faces similar life obstacles a typical person living in the US has today. As a result, most modern family comedy sit-coms are reflecting our society’s generations and the more vulnerable. Based on the success of early family sit coms, American’s adapted to a fast pace lifestyle with the help of modern
This paper will address the failures of political satire to encourage political action, despite the fact that studies have shown that it is conducive for political knowledge acquisition. People may be attracted to political satire because it turns an undiscussable topic as politics into a light-hearted affair. Though not discussing the philosophy of humor per se, Noel Carroll’s theory of emotions can help explain how shows such as South Park, The Daily Show with John Stewart, and others can seta emotional response conducive to accepting other viewpoints. Though I agree with this point, an aporia rises when we ask why is it that these same shows have not sparked discussions or social reaction to the content on these shows? For instance, why is it that discussions about the legitimacy of Occupy Wall Street, gender justice, or even the two party system of democracy have not occurred when viewing these shows, despite the fact these topics are frequently discussed? In this paper, I will demonstrate that although political satire can be used to set a positive emotive response, that it als...
Intertextuality is the idea that each literary work can not be independent, but instead grows off of other literary works. This is extremely popular in today's culture, especially in television. Shows like Family Guy and The Simpsons are heavily dependent on it for humor. Usually most of these instances are extremely obvious throughout the shows, but i picked one that may not be as noticeable as the others. In Family Guy's "Road to Germany" episode, Steward and Brian use a time machine to go back to Nazi Germany. Stewart's words before they enter the time machine followed exactly as they were written in Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder". This obviously then carried the came meaning that it had back in Ray's writing. My second example is this
Satire is one of the many creative genres in which criticism is displayed through strong use of irony and sarcasm. Criticism can be used humorously, although humor is often used to offset the harshness of criticism itself. Different methods can be used to create this type of criticism, though it often comes from showing how ridiculous or offensive an act or comment is when used in context. It is often used in politics usually to indicate how preposterous something truly is, and can also be used for other forms of criticism.
Popular culture is the artistic and creative expression in entertainment and style that appeals to society as whole. It includes music, film, sports, painting, sculpture, and even photography. It can be diffused in many ways, but one of the most powerful and effective ways to address society is through film and television. Broadcasting, radio and television are the primary means by which information and entertainment are delivered to the public in virtually every nation around the world, and they have become a crucial instrument of modern social and political organization. Most of today’s television programming genres are derived from earlier media such as stage, cinema and radio. In the area of comedy, sitcoms have proven the most durable and popular of American broadcasting genres. The sitcom’s success depends on the audience’s familiarity with the habitual characters and the situations
John Marwood Cleese, an English actor, comedian, writer and film producer said, “If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you more open to my ideas. And if I can persuade you to laugh at the particular point I make, by laughing at it you acknowledge its truth”. The point he brings up is the ideology of satire. Satire, by definition, is a technique utilized by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society. This can be done by using humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule ("Satire - Definition and Examples", para.1). Often times, the humor used opens the audiences’ minds to the underlying problem that the writer is trying to reveal. By examining the purpose and methods of satire, dissecting literary works, and displaying examples in the media, satire is shown to be a valuable tool.
Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley, was originally published in 1932. The Industrial Revolution happened not long before the book’s publishing. The Industrial Revolution is marked by big events such as the railroad system, cars, and mass production of many other materials within the confines of a workshop. Knowing this, most of the population would have had a low paying factory job. When Henry Ford initiated the idea of the assembly line, it made many United States citizens crave speed and efficiency. The producers have to meet consumers’ expectations; so many other factories adapted this idea. By doing so, it made it easier to replace workers if one falls ill or is an unreliable worker. America had a very strong focus in technology
The term, “genre’, has many definitions, simplified is the process of grouping objects/text together based on defined similarities such as subject, format, style and/or purpose. John Swales’s states that ‘genre’ covers a group of communicative events, of which the content shares a communicative purpose. The purpose can be recognized and used to identify the ‘guidelines’ of a genre, this in turn gives a framework by which the discourse content is shaped, influenced and styled. This essay will focus on comparing the definitions of ‘genre’ by Carter and Goddard (2015:233), Lynch Kennedy and Kennedy (2012:15) and Frow (2015:10). By applying a critical analysis of all three definitions, I will attempt to discuss the similarities, differences and
Satire is the most powerful democratical weapon in the arsenal of modern media. Sophia McClennen, the author of America According to Colbert: Satire as Public Pedagogy, describes it as the modern form of public pedagogy, as it helps to educate the masses about current issues (73). In fact, ”a Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey in 2004 found that 61 percent of people under the age of thirty got some of their political 'news' from late-night comedy shows” (McClennen 73). This statistic shows how influential satirical shows such as The Colbert Report or South Park can be. Satire invites critical self introspection from us in a way that no other media can. It also acts as an unbiased mirror that reflects the mirror image of the flaws of our society. This beautiful process, when unhindered and uncensored, is the epitome of western freedom of speech, which is the single most significant right that deserves to be cherished and defended.
Mad Magazine, The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live. In our society, satire is among the most prevalent of comedic forms. This was not always true, for before the 18th century, satire was not a fully developed form. Satire, however, rose out of necessity; writers and artists needed a way to ambiguously criticize their governments, their churches, and their aristocrats. By the 18th century, satire was hugely popular. Satire as an art form has its roots in the classics, especially in the Roman Horace's Satires. Satire as it was originally proposed was a form of literature using sarcasm, irony, and wit, to bring about a change in society, but in the eighteenth century Voltaire, Jonathan Swift and William Hogarth expanded satire to include politics, as well as art. The political climate of the time was one of tension. Any criticism of government would bring harsh punishments, sometimes exile or death. In order to voice opinions without fear of punishment, malcontented writers turned to Satire. Voltaire's Candide and Swift's Modest Proposal are two examples of this new genre. By creating a fictional world modeled after the world he hated, Voltaire was able to attack scientists, and theologians with impunity. Jonathan Swift created many fictional worlds in his great work, Gulliver's Travels, where he constantly drew parallels to the English government.
Quoting Victor Turner, Newcomb and Hirsch explain that liminality is, “the ‘inbetween’ stage, when one is neither totally in, nor out of a society” (505), as well as that the arts are inherently liminal, and as such, contemporary cultures use arts to through ritual reflexivity, or examining themselves through art. Thus, they argue that in American that television is the central medium for this “bardic function” of art, which presents a “multiplicity of meanings” (506) and “often focuses on our most prevalent concerns, our deepest dilemmas” (506), in a way that emphasizes process, contradiction, and confusion rather than coherence. So, as an art, television metalanguage through which we understand who and what we are and how values and attitudes are adjusted and meanings are shifted. Furthermore, in the liminal stage, they argue that, rules can be broken, bent, roles reversed, that there are no normal constraints.
Satire is defined as “the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues” (Oxford). The best satirical writers can make the readers believe that an idea is “logical and practical.” This is seen in great abundance in Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World. Through his writing, Huxley uses satire to effectively point out the flaws of society at the time. Even though Brave New World was written in 1931, the satirical points Huxley makes are still relevant in today’s world.
“A Cultural Approach to Television Genre Theory” argues that the application of film and literary genre theory do not fully translate when analyzing television, because of “the specific industry and audience practices unique to television, or for the mixture of fictional and nonfictional programming that constitutes the lineup on nearly every TV channel. 2” The goal of media genre studies, Mittell asserts, is to understand how media is arranged within the contexts of production and reception, and how media work to create our vision of the world.
In a genre analysis, stories, issues and concerns are explored. Researchers who study genre focus on broad patterns within those texts in the genre (Brennen 204). Since my research involves studying sitcoms, my sample will consist of ten popular sitcoms that aired from the 1980s to the present. These sitcoms include Roseanne, 30 Rock, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, I Love Lucy, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Friends, Will and Grace, Cheers, The Simpson and Seinfeld. The reason why I am choosing this sample is because I believe that it is broad enough to display the growth and evolution of the situational comedy genre and most (if not, all) of its pertinent aspects. Each of these shows all fit the standard conventions of a sitcom, however, the each bring a something different to the program, which allows them to stand out and be successful. I also chose them because they are all listed on the Rolling Stones top 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. This list was gathered by actors, writers, producers, critics and showrunners in the television industry (Sheffield,