YouTube link: Crazy Questions w/ Camila – Hybridisation Experiment #2: Satire
This week in class we discussed the second comedy mode: satire. As discussed in class, unlike parody which focuses on subverting conventions of genre, satire focuses on what’s beyond genre. That is, satire aims to ridicule, question, or comment on an idea or norm. For instance, in class, we viewed three examples that satirised the mainstream perception of drugs and their users. Brass Eye utilised A-Current-Affair-like tropes in order to ridicule politicians and news for their response to increased drug-use in the UK, while a sketch from the Chappelle Show highlighted the over-the-top depiction of drug users and addicts, as seen in schools. Moreover, Corey White’s Roadmap to Paradise satirised the conventional perception of drug users and addicts through anecdotal evidence and other research. The point being to show that satire has a certain target or object of satire through which to comment on an idea or norm. Furthermore, there are four elements of satire as outlined by James E. Caron: ‘play, judgement, aggression, [and] laughter’ (2020:172). Our group decided to satirise price gouging through a gameshow format. It involved a Coles CEO (named after the actual CEO) answering a series of simple questions, before the interviewer, Camila got more and more aggressive and interrogative. The point was to show the extent to which price gouging has affected families; there was once a time where you could ‘feed your family for under $10’ (Coles n.d.). Last week coming off of both the strike and Easter break, we had plenty of time to think about, formulate, and produce a parody. This week however, we only had a couple of days to do this, mostly due to our group’s schedules which gave us only a couple hours to work on the artefact together, and with limited resources. This meant our production value was not as good as desired but may have worked better in satirising the gameshow format. Ultimately the poor production quality in contrast to the well-produced intro and use of music (done by another group member) actually seemed to have made the video more satirical. The laughter element is somewhat scarce, but I think in this case, the lack of funny made it funnier and aided in the satire. Overall, considering the lack of time and production value, the video came together well and ridicules Coles’ (and Woolworths’) price gouging.
Caron, J.E. (2020), “Satire and the problem of comic laughter”, Comedy Studies, 11(2), pp. 171–182.