UFG+Annotated+Bibliography-Jameson

Works Cited

Colbert, Stephen. "The Word." //The Colbert Report//. Comedy Central. New York, New York, 5 Jan. 2012. Television. Stephen Colbert’s satirical opinions program is a great source to go to when trying to understand the effects of satire. “The Word,” a segment in which the host gives a monologue skewering a topic or person, is especially relevant to my research. The segment is basically an essay, being read by Stephen Colbert, in the character of a conservative talk show host (think O’Reilly, Hannity or Limbaugh), and Colbert frequently points out the hypocrisy of others by taking their views to their illogical extremes. For example, in criticizing the president for passing the National Defense Authorization Act Colbert says, “That’s ridiculous, we will not hold Americans indefinitely, eventually, they’ll die.”

Harris, Robert. "The Purpose and Method of Satire." //VirtualSalt//. Virtual Salt, 24 Oct. 2004. Web. 05 Feb. 2012. . “The Purpose and Method of Satire,” as the title implies, is specifically concerned with the purposes and methods of satire. This article spends a lot of time closely examining the way that Swift uses satire in “A Modest Proposal,” and therefore it helped me to recognize some of the universal themes of satire through Swift’s essay. Harris writes “Satire is inescapably moral and didactic” because, whether it’s stated or not, the writer is arguing that one method of thinking is good, or at the very least better, than the one in which she is usually critiquing. Among other things Harris argues that satire should contain both wit and humor, which could be why The Onion often faces the ire of well-read individuals who considered it “witless.”

Hodgman, John. "Money Talks." //The Daily Show//. Comedy Central. New York, New York, 1 Nov. 2011. Television. Like //The Colbert Report//, //The Daily Show// with Jon Stewart frequently showcases satirical reportage. Jon Hodgman has a segment called “Money Talks” in which he takes on the persona of a “wealthy-American.” In the segment, he mimics the inhumane rationalizations that are embraced by people with overly simplistic understandings of meritocracy (to put it politely). He gives the following advice to the poor, “If you work hard and make sacrifices all people can be part of the 1 percent… or maybe you’re just not working hard enough,” which points out the ridiculousness of meritocracy.

"Obama Criticized For Living In Lavish Mansion While Most Americans Struggle To Make Ends Meet." //The Onion - America's Finest News Source//. The Onion, 1 Feb. 2012. Web. 05 Feb. 2012. . //The Onion// is, in many ways, much less serious than the segments from //Colbert// and //The Daily Show//. Intellectual brow beaters often point out that stating the opposite of reality doesn’t make good satire, and to an extent that’s what //The Onion// does. However, some of their articles are more serious than others and this one in particular is a good example of satire. The article points to the ridiculous lengths that critics will go to argue that the president is wasting tax payer money: “Obama even employed a personal secretary to "handle the phones and basically everything else.” At the same time, the article makes an interesting point about how far from the common man the office of president really is.

"Romneymania Sweeps America." //The Onion - America's Finest News Source//. The Onion, 25 Jan. 2012. Web. 05 Feb. 2012. . “Romneymania Sweeps America” is a less scathing commentary than it is absurd humor. The article is mainly poking fun at America’s lack of enthusiasm for Mitt Romney, which often includes those who support him. The article does include several moments of strong political satire. About halfway through the authors write, “Countless reverent portraits of Romney have appeared in storefront windows and on building facades throughout the country, often accompanied by one of the candidate's signature inspirational phrases, like "Let Detroit go bankrupt" or "Corporations are people, my friend.” Besides poking fun at Romney’s less than enthusiastic supporters they are highlighting what they are arguing is that the real reason Romney is supported strongly is because he is so rich that he is more concerned with “corporate personhood” than he is with “the very poor.”

Reeves, Carol. "Students as Satirists: Encouraging Critique and Comic Release." //College Teaching// 44.1 (1996): 15-18. //JSTOR//. Web. 2 Feb. 2012. In “Students as Satirists” Carol Reeves argues that teaching students how to write satirical essays is a good way to teach students “critical awareness” through writing. In similar fashion to William George’s article, she makes several important observations about how satire is defined as a genre. She writes “Satire is often aimed at the hypocrisy, inflexibility, and corruption of religious, social, educational, or political institutions and their rituals,” and this is a theme that connects almost all of the works on this bibliography, from “A Modest Proposal” to “Money Talks.”

Swift, Jonathan. "A Modest Proposal." Project Gutenberg. //A Modest Proposal//. Project Gutenberg, 27 July 2008. Web. 5 Feb. 2012. . According to most, “A Modest Proposal” is the prototype for all future satirical essays, which is not to say that Swift didn’t have his own influences. For my project I would like most to emulate the characteristics found in Swift’s essay. As an example of satire, it’s hard to imagine a better text. Swift lays out a serious problem (poverty in Ireland) and proposes an overly rational and totally inhumane solution to the problem. He extends the rationalization to absurd extremes in order to highlight the flaws of a system that he sees as morally corrupt. His essay serves as an example for almost all of the characteristics identified by Reeves, George and Harris, and it’s easy to see how he influenced the satirical essays of //The Onion// and the satirical dialogues and monologues that often take place on //The Daily Show// and //The Colbert Report//.

George, William. "Teaching Satire and Satirists." //The English Journal// 78.3 (1989): 38-43. //JSTOR//. Web. 2 Feb. 2012. In “Teaching Satire and Satirists” William George argues the merit of teaching the genre of Satire to students, which inevitably leads to his constructing a list of characteristics that regularly occur in the genre. Of the characteristics I found helpful, the one I found most important was “characters who do not resist the almost overwhelmingly dominant social forces become pathetic victims or heinous cogs in the society which they have uncritically accepted and which they blindly perpetuate in the name of success.” Arguably, characterization of the non-resistant character in satire is something that I didn’t identify on my own, but after reading William’s piece I could recognize in almost every one of my sources (most often the narrator, or the foil in TV shows).

= You have a range of sources, but not enough writing from your peers. Are there student examples in the English Journal or College Teaching articles?=