Satire
Materials: / 1. “Tubes” DVD from Comedy Central2. Mad TV’s “iRack” segment http://www.youtube.com/madtvonfox#p/search/0/xcjLEwZqcQI
3. The Simpsons Movie
4. Shrek DVD
5. History and Appreciation of the Visual and Performing Arts
6. Satire definitions sheet
7. Shrek answer sheet
8. Straight Outta Lynwood DVD
1. Bellwork: Begin work on “Modern-Day Satire.”
2. Show the July 12, 2006, “Tubes” and “Party Pooper” skits from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, whether off the DVD or off Comedy Central’s website at http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=126985&title=headlines-internet and http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=110008&title=party-pooper
3. Ask students what they think satire is as you hand out copies of History and Appreciation of the Visual and Performing Arts.
4. Note that satire is usually funny but it doesn’t have to be. It’s when you use wit — especially irony, sarcasm or ridicule — to criticize a person, a group of people, an idea or attitude, an institution or a social practice.
5. Define satire: the use of wit — especially irony, sarcasm, and ridicule — to attack the vices and follies of humankind. In other words, you exaggerate and make fun of someone or something in order to criticize them. You don’t use satire to say that someone is doing a bang-up job, for example.
6. Explain the four techniques of satire as students jot down the definitions:
a. Exaggeration: to enlarge, increase, or represent something beyond normal bounds so that it becomes ridiculous and its faults can be seen.
b. Incongruity: to present things that are out of place or are absurd in relation to its surroundings.
c. Reversal: to present the opposite of the normal order (e.g., the order of events, hierarchical order).
d. Parody: to imitate the techniques and/or style of some person, place, or thing.
7. Satire wasn’t invented in the neoclassical; however, it hit its height at this time. We’ll get to that more later. However, there’s one other element of drama to cover. Explain the unities: unity of time (24 hours), unity of place (one location, unity of action (no mixing comedy and drama, as we do today). In other words, you couldn’t have things with both happy and sad elements in it, such as any of the modern dramedies, such as Scrubs, Glee or Ugly Betty.
8. Now, back to satire. Satire goes back to the ancient Greeks. They had some of the same types of idiots we have today: corrupt government officials, puffed-up rich people. But the Greeks were the best satire writers ever. The Greek author Pliny (pronounced PLIN-ee) tells us that the poet Hipponax in the 6th century B.C. wrote a satire that was so mean that the people he criticized hung themselves in shame. Now that’s some serious satire!
9. For a modern example, students watch a segment called “iRack,” which parodies the launch of Apple’s iPhone, as well as the Iraq War and ensuing Occupation: http://www.youtube.com/madtvonfox#p/search/0/xcjLEwZqcQI or http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=7093
10. If you have time (or you decide to stretch this out to two days), you can show the opening scene of The Simpsons Movie, which has satire galore: the incredibly polluted river, the Bono- or Michael Sipe-like appeal on behalf of the environment, the crowd turning on Green Day as an homage of Hendrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, Green Day playing “Nearer My God to Thee” as they sink.
11. With the videotape cued to DVD track 5 (20:15), show the “Welcome to Duloc” scene. Ask the students what is being made fun of.
12. Students now turn to pp. 102-103. Tell students that Molière is the pen name of the French playwright Jean Baptiste Poquelin. Note that while the CATS folks count Molière as a neoclassical playwright, he was actually a Baroque one. He even wrote play for King Louis XIV, the consummate Baroque king! The CATS people may be lumping Molière in with the neoclassical satirists because the neoclassical period is the Golden Age of satire. In France, you have Voltaire; in England, you have Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift,
13. Cue the videotape to 51:20, the scene at which Fiona, being carried off by Shrek, encounters the thinly disguised parody of Robin Hood and his Merry Men.
14. After they’ve seen the clip, ask the students to respond to examples of satire from the scene. Possible answers include the following:
e. Princess Fiona fights and successfully defeats Robin Hood and all of his Merry Men without any help and without any weapons (exaggeration).
f. Princess Fiona uses her ponytail to deliver a knockout punch to one of the Merry Men. While frozen in a mid-air martial arts kick, Princess Fiona pauses to fix her disheveled hair before knocking out two of the Merry Men (incongruity).
g. The roles of the hero and the damsel in distress are reversed. In this clip, it’s Princess Fiona, who’s supposed to be the rescued one, who fights and defeats the enemy (reversal). Shrek just stands there.
h. The fight scene is an exaggerated imitation of the martial arts style and special effects used in action movies like The Matrix; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The House of Daggers (parody), which you wouldn’t expect to see in a fairytale (incongruity).
15. What is the criticism being made in this scene of Shrek? Some possible responses are as follows:
i. The traditional story of the knight rescuing the damsel-in-distress isn’t realistic, now or ever.
j. Modern Hollywood movies have become ridiculous because all the emphasis is on the special effects.
k. People jump to conclusions too easily; Robin Hood and his Merry Men assumed that Shrek, because he was an ogre, must be kidnapping Fiona. This is a subtle criticism of racism and other forms of prejudice.
l. The entire movie is a criticism of how people give in to others’ expectations. All through the movie, Fiona loves Shrek, but she thinks she has to marry a prince because everyone else says she should.
16. End with one last example of satire: Weird Al Yankovic’s song, “Don’t Download This Song,” from his album, Straight Outta Lynwood. Who’s being satirized here by the name of the album? Who’s being satirized with the song? What’s the moral that Weird Al is trying to express?
Adapted from “Exploring Satire with Shrek,” a lesson plan by Junius Wright, Read•Write•Think Lesson Plans (http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=810).