Is Satire Saving Our Nation

The book studies the intersections between satirical comedy and national politics in order to show that one of the strongest supports for our democracy today comes from those of us who are seriously joking. This book shows how we got to this place and why satire may be the only way we can save our democracy and strengthen our nation.

This book is an in-depth analysis of the phenomenon of the takeover of politics by entertainment. The author looks for answers in the parallel evolution of satire, the media, and politics, and how each has influenced the other and the implications of this interconnectedness for political discourse.

Rhetoric, Humor, and the Public Sphere: From Socrates to Stephen Colbert investigates classical and contemporary understandings of satire, parody, and irony, and how these genres function within a deliberative democracy. Elizabeth Benacka examines the rhetorical history, theorization, and practice of humor spanning from ancient Greece and Rome to the contemporary United States. In particular, this book focuses on the contemporary work of Stephen Colbert and his parody of a conservative media pundit, analyzing how his humor took place in front of an uninitiated audience and ridiculed a variety of problems and controversies threatening American democracy. Ultimately, Benacka emphasizes the importance of humor as a discourse capable of calling forth a group of engaged citizens and a source of civic education in contemporary society.

The Lawrence and Lynne Brown Democracy Medal, presented by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State, recognizes outstanding individuals, groups, and organizations that produce innovations to further democracy in the United States or around the world. The 2020 Brown Democracy Medal winner, Srdja Popovic, was a leader in the revolution that brought down the Milošević regime in Serbia and he continues to help protestors around the world learn effective, sometimes humorous, nonviolent tactics. In 2020, he teamed up with Sophia A. McClennen to study the concept of "dilemma actions," which offers a structured, strategic approach to fighting back against authoritarianism, as well as for defending democracy.

What are the theoretical parameters that produce the category public intellectual? By pondering the conceptual elements that inform the term, this book offers not just a political critique, but a sense of the new challenges its meanings present. This collection complicates the notion of public intellectual while arguing for its continued urgency in communities formal and informal, institutional and abstract. While it is not quite accurate to say public intellectuals have disappeared entirely, it is clear they function differently in an age of global neoliberalism and techno-digital overdrive. Today the idea of the public intellectual bears only the slightest resemblance to what it was fifty or even twenty-five years ago. The essays in this collection provide a number of different ways to imagine the fate of public intellectuals and offers a thorough exploration of the commonplace ideologies and politics associated with them.

Explores the ways television documents, satirizes, and critiques the political era of the Trump presidency.

Satire & The State focuses on performance-based satire, most often seen in sketch comedy, from 1960 to the present, and explores how sketch comedy has shaped the way Americans view the president and themselves. Numerous sketch comedy portrayals of presidents that have seeped into the American consciousness – Chevy Chase’s Gerald Ford, Dana Carvey’s George H.W. Bush, and Will Ferrell’s George W. Bush all worked to shape the actual politician’s public persona. The book analyzes these sketches and many others, illustrating how comedy is at the heart of the health and function of American democracy. At its best, satire aimed at the presidency can work as a populist check on executive power, becoming one of the most important weapons for everyday Americans against tyranny and political corruption. At its worst, satire can reflect and promote racism, misogyny, and homophobia in America. Written for students of Theatre, Performance, Political Science, and Media Studies courses, as well as readers with an interest in political comedy, Satire & The State offers a deeper understanding of the relationship between comedy and the presidency, and the ways in which satire becomes a window into the culture, principles, and beliefs of a country.

Is the comedy of Stephen Colbert simply fun or is it powerful political satire? Does it entertain viewers or does it empower them? Or does it teach us that in today's media-saturated world those binaries make no sense? Colbert's America claims that Colbert's satire fosters critical thinking about social issues, encourages active citizenship, and entertains the viewer - all at the same time. The first book to cover the various themes and features of Colbert's America offers readers insight into the powerful ways that Colbert's comedy challenges the cult of ignorance that has threatened meaningful public debate and social dialogue since 9/11.