Satire: Democracy’s Most Unexpected Enemy
Nick Meador writes on his blog:
A 2009 study found that people tend to interpret ambiguous political satire according to their own views and self-image. This has enormous implications for satirical programs mocking democratic behavior, produced by media conglomerates that support Internet censorship. (The following is an essay that I was not able to place with a magazine, but still wanted to share with the world. Feel free to re-post on your blog or website, in accordance with the Creative Commons license. Just give me credit and link back here.)
“The revolutionaries of any decade will become the reactionaries of the next decade, if they do not change their nervous system, because the world around them is changing. He or she who stands still in a moving, racing, accelerating age, moves backwards relatively speaking.” – Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising (1)
On Thursday, December 1, 2011, Stephen Colbert addressed the Stop Online Piracy…
Life Would Suck If SOPA Passes
Comic creator David Rees, known for Get Your War On, has put forth Get Your Censor On, an attempt to convey what life may be like under the much-feared Stop Online Piracy Act. If we don’t band together to work to prevent SOPA from coming to fruition in Congress, you could find yourself having conversations such as these in the near future:
How The Family Circus Confronted the Web
Tuesday cartoonist Bil Keane died at the age of 89 — and one webmaster fondly remembers how Keane gracefully confronted unauthorized parodies on the internet.
Keane was a good sport about fake Amazon reviews that gushed about supposedly hidden literary themes in collections of his newspaper comic strips, and he once even drew his own characters into a “guest appearance” in a Zippy the Pinhead strip. But in 1999, Keane’s syndicate threatened legal action against the “Dysfunctional Family Circus” site, which had been re-captioning Keane’s cartoons for over four years.
Heading off a “free speech” showdown, Keane resolved the situation with a friendly phone call to the webmaster, who ultimately decided to voluntarily remove the images just because “He’s actually a nice guy.”
The Radical 1930s Cartoons Of Syd Hoff
Cartooning legend Syd Hoff wrote comics for the New Yorker for 44 years and illustrated dozens of children’s books. However, under the alias A. Redfield, he also created work with a harder-hitting tone for the Daily Worker and New Masses. Via Phil Nel, a collection of Hoff’s political cartoons, which remain as poignant and relevant as ever, in light of the world we live in today:
Louis C.K. on George Carlin (Video)
A future master praising a past (and always remembered) master:
Afghanistan Getting Its Own Politically-Charged Version Of ‘The Office’ Sitcom
The Office was a hit in England before it became a hit in the States. With the mock-documentary, hand-cam style of filming, Afghanistan is now getting it’s own version entitled The Ministry. Daily Mail reports:
Rather than being set in a Slough paper manufacturing firm, ‘The Ministry’ is based in the war-torn country’s Ministry of Garbage. The mock-documentary has been filmed in exactly the same way as Ricky Gervais’ BBC comedy.
Footage of the characters addressing the camera directly, as if being interviewed, is interspersed with scenes of them apparently going about their working lives. The comedy, which will be broadcast on Afghanistan’s largest commercial television station Tolo TV later this year, features a sleazy manager, a dozy security guard and a man-hating female secretary.
Video: President Obama Says It’s ‘Time To Be A Dick’ (Parody)
With news of President Obama’s frustration with the debt talks, here is a parody from Funny or Die of what Obama may really want to say. As he said about the debt talks:
“I have reached the point where I say enough,” and added “I’ve reached my limit. This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this,” according to the Republican aide. After leaving the debt talks, Obama said this confirms the totality of what the American people already believe” about Washington politicians who are “too focused on positioning and political posturing.” (RawStory)
Wikileaks’ Mastercard Parody
Wikileaks is suffering under a banking blockade. In response, they decided to help make Mastercard’s advertising more accurate:
Censorship, like everything else in the West, has been privatized.
For six months, five major US financial institutions, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, Western Union and the Bank of America have tried to economically strangle WikiLeaks as a result of political pressure from Washington. The attack has blocked over 90% of donations, costing some $15M in lost revenue. The attack is entirely outside of any due process or rule of law. In fact, in the only formal review to occur, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner found, on January 12, that there were no lawful grounds to add WikiLeaks to a financial blockade.
Brave New Films Invites You To Edit Sarah Palin’s Movie
The last thing anyone wants to do is give Sarah Palin more media press. More attention isn’t going to make her go away, however. Brave New Films is inviting you to help edit her new film by adding comments she forgot mention.
There’s nothing funny about Palin or her influence on our democracy, but together we can use satire to make an impact and undermine her aura of authenticity and altruism. Satire is an effective tool to take the conservative opposition’s perceived strengths and use it against them, which is what we’re doing here with Palin’s movie.
Submit what you think Palin has left out at palinundefeated.com and you could win her bobblehead.
Music Video Parodies Weiner Scandal
Rep. Anthony Weiner announced today that he did indeed tweet the lewd picture of himself, as well as engage in various inappropriate conversations with other women. (Read more about his press conference at The Hill) As you sit and contemplate the use of social networks in political scandals, here is a music video about Weiner’s ‘accidental’ Twitter post in the parody form of SNL’s “Dick in a Box”:
Lord Vader Says: Obi-Wan Kenobi Is Dead
Den Dhur and Hallis Saper write on the Galatic Empire News:
CORUSCANT— Obi-Wan Kenobi, the mastermind of some of the most devastating attacks on the Galactic Empire and the most hunted man in the galaxy, was killed in a firefight with Imperial forces near Alderaan, Darth Vader announced on Sunday.
In a late-night appearance in the East Room of the Imperial Palace, Lord Vader declared that “justice has been done” as he disclosed that agents of the Imperial Army and stormtroopers of the 501st Legion had finally cornered Kenobi, one of the leaders of the Jedi rebellion, who had eluded the Empire for nearly two decades. Imperial officials said Kenobi resisted and was cut down by Lord Vader’s own lightsaber. He was later dumped out of an airlock.
The news touched off an extraordinary outpouring of emotion as crowds gathered in the Senate District and outside the Imperial Palace, waving imperial flags, cheering, shouting,…
President Bush Kills A Gopher (Video)
Via Funny Or Die:
Barack Obama sent Navy Seal Team 6 to take out Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad and made a statement confirming it on Sunday night. Former President George W. Bush finally responds to who and what has been terrorizing him for years.
American Death Cult Part III: Pavlov Speaks*
A creepy house in backwoods Wisconsin funded by bloodmoney, built by a minion of the Aztec Night Lord Tezcatlipoca and a talking Chihuahua seeking redemption and to end the millenia-old feud with the Ho-Chunk culture hero Red Horn. Must be Thursday.
The first and most cardinal rule of any heavy drug habit is to hold fast to your center, not allow yourself to panic at the inevitable bad trip. Assenine braggarts are likely to tell you that it’s an inborn character trait that you simply either have or do not have, and that it is not possible to cultivate a tolerance.
Utter and complete bullshit. Dangerous bullshit. Because it denies the essential primacy of DISCIPLINE in the process and is a telltale sign of the feckless self-indulgent irresponsibility that means imminent death or at least a lengthy sanatorium stay. No, what is required is a steely willfulness and intense focus.
There are several techniques…
South Park Sued For ‘What What (In The Butt)’ Parody
You have to love the way that Trey Parker and Matt Stone keep getting themselves into legal trouble for the scripts of South Park. Keep up the good work gentlemen! From the Hollywood Reporter:
Less than a month after South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker were forced to apologize for lifting material for a spoof of Inception from the website CollegeHumor, the show is again facing accusations of content theft. The producers of the animated hit, including Viacom and Comedy Central, are being sued for allegedly ripping off a copyrighted music video for the viral phenomenon What What (In the Butt).
The video was produced by Brownmark Films based on a song by Samwell. Released in 2007, it became a massive hit and was featured on PerezHilton.com and VH1’s Best Week Ever, and has been downloaded over 33 million times on YouTube. According to the site, it’s one of the…
Cee-Lo Green Changes ‘F-You’ Lyrics To ‘Fox News’ on “Colbert Report” Performance (Video)
On air, Cee-Lo Green changed the F-You to Fox News in this song from his third album The Lady Killer so here’s the unchanged version as the artist intended (via Colbert’s website):
BP is Sorry … for Drilling Into Another Dimension & Releasing Cthulhu on ‘South Park’ (Video)
Here’s some clips from last night’s episode of South Park (Watch entire show here).
Unsatisfied with just destroying the ecology of the Gulf Coast with a mere oil spill, BP ventures into another realm and eventually releases one of the Great Old Ones. 3,000 years of Darkness can’t be that bad, right?
The Daily Show on Obama’s “Wisdom” in the “Ground Zero Mosque” Media Circus
“Yes we can … but should we?” — Jon Stewart
Politics is often defined as the “art of the possible.” However it should also be defined as “you can’t please all the people all the time.” Especially the ones being idiots on the “ground zero mosque” media shitstorm.
Thankfully The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart (who recently George Lucas made a Stormtrooper) is on the money again about President Obama’s mixed public comments regarding this non-story.
I could not complete this post without mentioning the great Jon Oliver’s commentary:
“There is a difference, Jon, between what you can do and what you should do. You can build a Catholic Church next to a playground. Should you?”
