Why do we have satire

In another major change, millennials are relying on Stewart, Colbert, and other television satirists, not just for a source of amusement, but as sources of news and information.

The goal of good satire is not mockery, but to generate debate and conversation about subjects. Maisel, who graduated from Penn State in fall , began collaborating with McClennen as an undergraduate student when the two discovered they were both blogging about satire. Source: Penn State. Search for:. Magical Thinking.

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Thoughts on the Reader. The Dionysus Awards: Join in the Fun. Philosophy Talk and the Paradoxical Facebook Contest. The First Annual Dionysus Awards. Philosophy and history. December Rawls. Just think about the times when you were reading a legit piece of news and kept checking the domain you were reading from because the story was just too bizarre. Poor media literacy is another issue. We know about that one. The Serbian Shark story at Njuz. But not all satire has such an amusing ending.

Probably the most tragic outcome of satire in recent history is the terrorist attack at the Charlie Hebdo magazine. Will Self wrote an opinion post on BBC in the aftermath of the unfortunate event, questioning whether a satire can be justified in the world which does not have a consensus on morality. Lastly, not all audiences will get the joke. Its meaning might slip through their fingers. The bottom line is satire in the news does matter, and it can influence public opinion for better and worse.

It has the power to challenge the status quo and it plays an important role in society. But there is more complexity to laughter than we may think. It is a natural defense mechanism we all share when it comes to trying to comprehend the absurdity we encounter every day, but it also opens up the doors to our consciousness and can serve as great teacher. Republished with kind permission of Content Insights , the next generation content analytics solution that translates complex editorial data into actionable insights.

Skip to content. We say that Hitchcock's North by Northwest is entertaining because it is suspenseful. Similarly, a quiz shows cultivates suspense with every new question, as we wonder whether the candidate will know the answer or falter. Professional road cycling, too, cultivates suspense, as audiences tensely anticipate where the favorites will attempt a breakaway or speculate whether the leaders will stay up front.

In this respect, most flat stages in the latest editions of Le Tour de France are boring because there is no doubt that the peloton will retrieve the breakaway group before the finish. In other words, these stages fail to entertain because they fail to deliver suspense. Mutatis mutandis , the success of entertainment depends on the success of the aesthetic experiences it is principally designed to deliver.

Specifically, I propose that the aesthetic experiences which constitute entertainment are characterized by a functional dimension of diversion and an emotional dimension of fun. Entertainment has a divertive function. When we are entertained, we are absorbed in certain aesthetic experiences that divert our attention from the seriousness of everyday life. Such aesthetic diversion is not a strenuous activity and claims no greater significance than providing leisure.

In other words, we pursue entertainment for fun. As a fun pursuit, entertainment is also inherently enjoyable and emotionally joyous. As discussed above, while John Oliver's satire has a moral function as a critique, it also functions as easeful enjoyment in a leisurely context. At the same time, Hendrix's performance also explicitly cues aesthetic admiration for his virtuosic skill as a rock guitarist. Hendrix is showing off and the audience is supposed to enjoy it.

This dynamic between critique and entertainment has been central to satire since its inception in antiquity. In this regard, the Roman satirists of the first century BCE, including Horace, modeled their understanding of satire on their predecessor Lucilius. In this regard, the Romans originally situated satire in a context of aristocratic play, in contrast to or as a preparation for the seriousness of real life Habinek.

As entertainment, satire has remained popular and lowbrow in various sociohistorical contexts, even if some satires are now canonical Nokes , 8; Hodgart , 10; Highet , 3. So far, I have argued that, since its inception in antiquity, satire necessarily sets out to critique and entertain. I now further propose that critique and entertainment in satire must also interact. While Hendrix's skillful distortions are indispensable to the critical success of his satire, they also contribute to its aesthetic success as entertainment.

Moreover, had the analogy not been insightful, it would also fail to be funny. Likewise, if Oliver's satire failed to successfully entertain, its critique would also follow suit. To sum up, I propose that satire not only necessarily sets out to critique and entertain, but that these two purposes must interact. An interesting counterexample is the British magazine Private Eye. On the one hand, Private Eye incorporates investigative journalism in a style which is casual but stops short of entertainment.

On the other hand, the magazine publishes cartoons and gags which seek to entertain but lack clear critical intent. For this reason, although Private Eye is commonly classified as a satire magazine, it contains little actual satire. At the same time, although critique and entertainment necessarily interact in satire, neither purpose is instrumental to the other. In particular, it is important to stress that satire is not critique through entertainment—even if satirists like Horace sometimes present it as such to legitimize their practice.

This pursuit of entertainment for its own sake distinguishes satire from other critical art and media. However, whatever entertaining moments Loach's film may have, they are not pursued for their own sake but strictly function in a solemn and didactic aesthetic project that cultivates bemusement and desperation.

Likewise, although Picasso's horrific representation of war in Guernica serves a similar critical function as Hendrix's skillful evocation of bombs falling on Vietnam, it is not also designed as a spectacle for our easeful enjoyment. Instead, Guernica disturbs and invites a more solemn aesthetic appreciation that defies the leisureliness of entertainment.

This distinction between satire and critical media like Guernica and I, Daniel Blake is significant because they lack satire's central ambiguity between its moral function as critique and aesthetic function as entertainment.

As explained, critique is deeply morally serious and introduces the requisite of hard work to amend a perceived social wrongness. By contrast, entertainment is leisurely and pleasant. Crucially, entertainment's fun and divertive aesthetic experiences may appear morally suspicious in a situation which demands a committed response to a perceived social wrongness.

This definitive tension between the moral function of critique and the aesthetic function of entertainment has been central to the reception of satire. Is it entertainment or dire political prophecy? Can it be both? This fundamental ambiguity between critique and entertainment explains satire's mixed reception: hailed for its political interventions, celebrated as aesthetic enjoyment, and dismissed as frivolous pastime that cultivates cynicism. More skeptically, detractors like Julie Webber dismiss satire as cynical aestheticism , My proposal that satire necessarily sets out to critique and entertain not only elucidates the tension at the heart of this mixed reception but also suggests a clear pathway toward resolving the continuing uncertainty about the nature, function, and significance of satire.

On the one hand, my proposal challenges claims that satire can be nonmoral, which is not to say that it is necessarily morally right or virtuous.

The editorial was right to identify the infamous cartoons as satire, because they intended to defend secular individualism by attacking sacred cows of political and religious authority. Satire, even if it is flawed, is rightfully distinguished from gratuitous shock humor or frivolous mockery; otherwise its moral function appears less serious than it is.

On the other hand, my proposal highlights that hyperbolic praise of satire's moral function as critique is also out of place. Since satire also entertains for the sake of it, satirists seem right not to exaggerate their moral zeal and political impact. Moreover, due to the centrality of entertainment for its own sake in satire, the satirical status of some media sometimes remains ambiguous beyond resolve.

Although such highly ambiguous cases are exceptional, they do highlight the fundamental tension between critique and entertainment in satire. Yet, granted that satire's aesthetic function to entertain abates its moral function as critique, it does not follow that satire is wholly amoral or, worse, cynical.

In this respect, the demands of unabated critique seem particularly steep, if not unhealthy. Forsaking hunger strikes, perhaps the complex dynamic between critique and entertainment in satire negotiates a healthier middle ground. In any case, I argue that further study of this complex dynamic between critique and entertainment in satire is required to clarify its nature, function, and significance.

Summing up, my weak proposal identifies a dynamic between a moral and aesthetic function which has been central to satire from antiquity to modern times. However, toward the end of his career, Bruce often ranted about injustices he suffered during his obscenity trials. Importantly, if Bruce had simply been a social critic or secular moralist, and not a satirist, this lack of entertainment would not have been problematic.

Yet, in line with Horace's criticism of Lucilius, modern satirists are praised only if they succeed both to critique and entertain. In analytic aesthetics, genres have become understood as classifications which guide interpretation and evaluation of artworks, along the lines of Walton's categories of art.

Accordingly, my proposal is that satire is a genre which since Roman times has guided interpretation and evaluation of works on the grounds of their purpose to critique and entertain with the qualification that these purposes necessarily interact, although neither is wholly instrumental to the other. My proposal does not only challenge the consensus that there are no necessary conditions for satire but also that satire is not a genre Brown , 4; Test , 10; Rudd , 9; Sutherland , 1.

Again, this consensus is informed by satire's infamous variety. Moreover, when satire does function as a classification of artworks, Condren, alongside others, considers it a mode, not a genre , ; also Griffin , 4; Muecke , 2. Since satire manifests itself in various media and sometimes only in parts of works, it cannot be a genre in this specific sense.

Instead, scholars like Alistair Fowler consider it a mode, or a selection of nonstructural and nonformal characteristics which typically modifies genres , However, genres are not accurately understood as a collection of textual features like form and structure on the basis of which works are classified. Rather, they are frameworks that help us to understand what a work sets out to do and evaluate how well it does it.

Crucially, someone who does not classify Hendrix's performance as satire and also knows nothing about rock music will completely misunderstand the work and most likely only discern noise. Similarly, someone who only classifies the performance as rock music is likely to be oblivious of its critical dimension and therefore only has a limited appreciation of the work. Importantly, this revised understanding of genre can easily accommodate satire's infamous variety see Abell , For one, satire has many typical features but no essential ones, because many features can fulfill the generic purpose of critique and entertainment, but none are strictly necessary.

In this respect, humor and irony are important typical features of satire because they are particularly suited, but not strictly necessary, to fulfill its generic purpose of critique and entertainment.

Further, generic purposes can concur. Especially since the purpose to entertain can be fulfilled broadly, the generic purpose of satire often concurs with other genres, including comedy, science fiction, or rock music.

Likewise, if genres are singularized by purposes, not form or structure, a genre classification like satire can apply across media and to parts as well as entire works. Moreover, genre classifications can be expanded to nonartistic practices. Concretely, although nonartistic expansions of satire are inevitably looser, they are justified when they incorporate the essential purposes of critique and entertainment in their specific interaction.