Tuesday, February 21, 2012

You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it.

Candide was so revolutionary for its time as Voltaire was brave enough to poke fun at absolutely everything-artistocracy, religion, the military, sex, relationships, education; pretty much everything. Satire used to be used to call attention to social wrongs, and bring about change. Do we still use satire in this way today? What subjects are the object of satire in the 21st century? Does our modern satire serve a greater purpose? Comment.

17 comments:

  1. satire does live today because there are many instances where the government is being made fun and its to show that they need change. yes our satire is greater in purpose because it just shows how corrupt we are and how if we dont change there will be chaos upon us
    -Brandon Bernard

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  2. Kristien Salisbury - I guess there is satire today. I hear there is a lot of it in the government. I myself don't notice exactly what it is because I don't pay attention to politics a whole lot. Also there might not be Satire. Today we can openly protest now... In some ways the protesters use satire to get people to look at the gruesome truth. Modern satire has the same goal as satire back in Voltaire's days: to be noticed.

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  3. McKenzie Johnson
    Yes we still use satire to bring about change today. Mostly is this prevalent in our politics and especially during elections to poke fun of electoral opponents to gain peoples votes. Other subjects of satire are usually about the environment or the treatment of other countries through satire which I find mostly in newspaper articles or magazines.Our modern satire serves about the same purpose then as it does now, it's a way for people to shed light on problems in a humorous but serious way to call attention to them.

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  4. Veronica Wallace
    Yes there is still satire today. People today make fun of everything and use a lot of satirical devices in everyday life. We have all of those shows on comedy central making fun of politics. We have SNL that makes fun of anything and everything. But its more of a different reason to be satirical then it was then. People back then do it to make a point of change, and to show people what other people are really doing. Today people do it to show how low our society can go with schemes and being dumb.

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  5. Tori Miller
    Voltaire's satire did had a purpose. He wrote Candide to bring attention to ridiculous beliefs and actions in his society at the time. Humor is a great way to gain attention and Voltaire utilized that wisely. However, our modern society makes fun of celebrities, situations, and certain groups of people for the sole purpose of gaining more views for their show and popularity. This may tie into the whole post modernism movement of works of art not having to have a meaning.

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  6. tori
    *did have a purpose*

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  7. Political cartoons are a huge part of today's satire. We still have numerous examples of modern satirical things to express problems in the world. Shows like Saturday night live are political satires. They poke fun of problems going on around the world. Voltaire might have been the first to express the problems in his country into one satirical book but now today there are multiple and numerous amounts of these thigs today. Cartoons and Saturday night live are prime examples

    Brianna parlette

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  8. Shonique.Edwards
    Satire is still used to bring about change, but that is not its initial purpose anymore. A lot of modern productions have satire to just make fun of many things. Yes, there is satire to emphasize the errors in politics and society. But we also use satire to point out other stuff, like Voltaire does. In Family Guy, satire is used to make fun of religion, government, education, relationships, sex, and other aspects of society. Other shows also use satire for unnecessary reasons. Unlike back then, we take satire too far, turning it into ignorance, instead of using it to make positive changes.

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  9. Keith Knudsen
    I'm with Brianna. Most of the modern satires are seen in political cartoons. though some are used to prove a point, satires today aren't for making a change- they're more of explaining a perspective and trying to make people laugh.

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  10. Jessica Vilberg
    Satire is still used a lot today with T.V shows like Snl and cartoons like family guy. They don't only poke fun of the government, but they used political figure like Obama,McCain, and Clinton to shows things that the government is doing or did that is ridiculous. They do have a purpose, because while you are watching something funny, you learn about what is actually going on in the world if you don't know already. Many more people become more aware of what is going on in the real world, or can understand it better, when they watch the shows.

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  11. Satire is used in our modern day and is shown in south park for example when an oil spill happened in the gulf, the creators of south parked poked fun at the owner of BP by having yum say im sorry plenty of times and make it sound like he cared but he truly didn't.Our modern satire shows everyone how they truly sound by poking fun at them and showing them that what they may have said in that situation or done was soo stupid and just down right in need of being made fun of.
    Mickale Foard

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  12. Giovanna Sutherland
    The use of satire has changed a lot throughout history.Our use of satire still pokes fun of politics and other people of high power, but that is all it does.You rarely see satire being used to make a difference anymore. Now it's just a way to call someone stupid to their face without getting sued or something. Shows like SNL, Mad TV, and MAD poke fun of politician and movies but they do not try to change the way things are just make fun of things that happen.

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  13. Tay brown
    Satire is still used in the modern world. It is used to bring about Change in alot of aspects such as politics.... Whenever a political debate is going on then there is some cartoon or comedian making fun of something that has happen. Teenagers and how casual everything is is also another situation that is satirisized. However satire overall is used to make fun of something or a certain situation rather than try and make a difference with it.

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  14. Onecia Burton
    Voltaire uses satire to poke fun at everything. He did this to bring attention to social wrongs and to bring attention to change that needs to take place. In the 21st century satire is still used but in a different way, now it makes satire seem as just that's satire. In a wah it us used to bring about change.

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  15. Stephana Reid
    There is satire today, especially political satire. Televison shows like SNL, The Daily Show, and Family Guy use satire to bring up an issue and make it funny, rather than protesting against the issue, which shows that satire is not used for the same reasons today as it was in Voltaire's time.

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  16. As everyone has already said, satire is used in the modern world but nothing comes fron it. All the tv shows and comedians make fun of everything in the world but they're only doing that for themselves, to get the satisfaction of gaining fans and money. They don't do it for the reason Voltaire, or any other satirical author, like Johnathan Swift, , which was to bring the issue to attention. They wanted something to be done about.it. They could care less whether or not people found them funny, as long as they got their point accross.
    Andie Sifontes

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  17. Satire is still used today as wanting to bring about change to social wrongs. Today this is mainly done through politics. George Bush is a great example of this, people wanted change from his presidential service. The Iraq war helped into that satirical phase about George Bush. People really thought he was a crack-head idiot. Satire is really big on Tv also. Shows like South Park and Family Guy are some examples of cartoons that satarize a lot of social wrongs.
    Marlena Hill

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