Anyways, satire is always around us. It is commonly used in literature, advertisements, television, and even social networking sites. Its main purpose is to essentially make fun of things, like human habits, that are common in society.
I personally am a huge fan of satire because it allows me to get my point across in a humorous way without sounding rude. I'm a very straight-forward person when it comes to everything. Sometimes you just can't hold your opinions in so you just have to tell it like it is and satire is a great way to express your feelings and thoughts.
I religiously watch Saturday Night Live every Saturday evening. (Duh.) Recently, one of my favorite skits was the Long Island Medium parody. Obviously, this parody is based off one of the many TLC reality shows, Long Island Medium. (In case you didn't catch that one!) I also watch this religiously so I understood every satirical example of the show and found it hilarious because every bit of it was true!
This parody allowed the comedians and writers of the skit to be completely blunt about their thoughts and opinions and I think that's very important.
Essentially, the actual show is about a woman who claims to be medium. On a daily basis she helps her clients, and often times just people she meets everywhere she goes, communicate with their deceased loved ones.
Below is an episode of the show I found on YouTube. It's about 20 minutes long... I know what you're thinking... Who has time for that these days!? I think the first 3 or 4 minutes should be sufficient enough to give you a bit of a background on the show.
She's crazy, right? But that's why people love her. Some believe she's just one big phony. They say that she researches beforehand and that it's all scripted. They shouldn't be talking!
At the same time, this can be a feel-good show. It can be very uplifting and let others feel at ease about death. And besides, some people are superstitious and believe in spirits and things of the kind. (Hold on to that superstition thought for later)
Saturday Night Live's parody of this show depicts Theresa perfectly.
Here is the parody I found on Saturday Night Live's website. It's only a couple minutes and it is absolutely necessary to watch! Enjoy!
In this parody, they capture how ridiculous it is that this woman just goes up to complete strangers based off of the most specific and random things that "spirits" say to her. It's just unreal.
For example, an innocent person is just sitting on his couch and BAM! There's Theresa making him sob uncontrollably because some dead guy remembered the sauce. IT'S SAUCE PEOPLE. WHO CARES? NO ONE.
Group sessions? Everything she says is very generic and everyone can relate a dead person to it in some way. "Whose favorite color was in the rainbow? Anyone? Oh hey everyone knew this guy!"
Satire on satire on satire here people!!
Satire isn't only found in comedy skits. It can be found in literature as well as I explained earlier.
One of the greatest American novels, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain, is also chock full of satire.
Twain used satire in his writing to mock people's views and actions during that time period. For example, throughout the entire novel he criticizes the naivety of society.
"That's why they're invited here this evenin'; but we want ALL to come—everybody; for he respected everybody, he liked everybody, and so it's fitten that his funeral orgies sh'd be public." - The King (pg. 168)During the part where this quote appears, the King and the Dauphin are both pretending to be a dead man's English brothers. Quite a few people completely believed them even with their thick southern accents. It wasn't until the dead man's fortune was stolen that they realized the two were frauds. People back then put way too much trust in strangers.
"The people most killed themselves laughing; and when the king got done capering and capered off behind the scenes, they roared and clapped and stormed and till he come back and done it over again, and after that they made him do it another time." - HuckOnce again, the King and the Dauphin were cheating the people out of their money. This time with a play that consisted of the King walking out naked and painted a bunch of different colors. The people who saw the show had never heard of it yet they still paid so much to see it. Regardless, they found it quite comical which exhibits how immature people were back then. Clearly, Twain was criticizing this with a funny comedy portion.
(pg. 151)
"The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back." - Huck (pg. 1)Twain also satirized the idea of being civilized. I think that Twain thought that as long as you were happy, it didn't matter what your status was. The quote above shows this and you can tell that it irritates Huck. It gets a lot of laughs from readers because we know the feeling of when we've been told what to do.
So remember how I told you to keep superstitious beliefs in the back of your mind? You forgot, didn't you? Hey! You remember now! Welcome back. Don't worry; I know the affects Theresa can have on some people.
"Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn't any good to me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn't make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn't make it out no way." - Huck (pg. 11)Twain criticized religion throughout the novel as well. This quote is pretty self-explanatory. We all remember those days when our parents would tell us to keep wishing for what we wanted. Let's be real here, we usually didn't get them! Huck was more superstitious than religious. He and Theresa would've gotten along great!
Mark Twain and the creators of Saturday Night Live are both very clever in inserting satire to get their points across.
And obviously I am, too. Just look at this great blog post about it! Gotcha Again!
My Sources:
Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Saturday Night Live's "Long Island Medium"
YouTube for letting me share!
