Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era » (New Edition)

Jonathan Gray is associate professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of Television Entertainment and Watching with The Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality and co-editor of Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era and Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World (both available from NYU Press).

Jeffrey P. Jones is Associate Professor of Communication & Theatre Arts at Old Dominion University. He is the author of Entertaining Politics: New Political Television and Civic Culture and co-editor of The Essential HBO Reader.

Ethan Thompson is Assistant Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi.

Satirical TV has become mandatory viewing for citizens wishing to make sense of the bizarre contemporary state of political life. Shifts in industry economics and audience tastes have re-made television comedy, once considered a wasteland of escapist humor, into what is arguably the most popular source of political critique. From fake news and pundit shows to animated sitcoms and mash-up videos, satire has become an important avenue for processing politics in informative and entertaining ways, and satire TV is now its own thriving, viable television genre.

Satire TV examines what happens when comedy becomes political, and politics become funny. A series of original essays focus on a range of programs, from The Daily Show to South Park, Da Ali G Show to The Colbert Report, The Boondocks to Saturday Night Live, Lil' Bush to Chappelle's Show, along with Internet D.I.Y. satire and essays on British and Canadian satire. They all offer insights into what today's class of satire tells us about the current state of politics, of television, of citizenship, all the while suggesting what satire adds to the political realm that news and documentaries cannot.

Foreword David Marc ix

Part I Post 9/11, Post Modern, of Just Post Network?

1 The State of Satire, the Satire of State Jonathan Gray Jeffrey P. Jones Ethan Thompson 3

2 With All Due Respect: Satirizing Presidents from Saturday Night Live to Lil' Bush Jeffrey P. Jones 37

3 Tracing the "Fake" Candidate in American Television Comedy Heather Osborne-Thompson 64

Part II Fake News, Real Funny

4 And Now... the News? Mimesis and the Real in The Daily Show Amber Day 85

5 Jon Stewart and The Daily Show: I Thought You Were Going to Be Funny! Joanne Morreale 104

6 Stephen Colbert's Parody of the Postmodern Geoffrey Baym 124

Part III Building in the Critical Rubble: Between Deconstruction and Reconstruction

7 Throwing Out the Welcome Mat: Public Figures as Guests and Victims in TV Satire Jonathan Gray 147

8 Speaking "Truth" to Power? Television Satire, Rick Mercer Report, and the Politics of Place and Space Serra Tinic 167

9 Why Mitt Romney Won't Debate a Snowman Henry Jenkins 187

Part IV Shock and Guffaw: The Limits of Satire

10 Good Demo, Bad Taste: South Park as Carnivalesque Satire Ethan Thompson 213

11 In the Wake of "The Nigger Pixie": Dave Chappelle and the Politics of Crossover Comedy Bambi Haggins 233

12 Of Niggas and Citizens: The Boondocks Fans and Differentiated Black American Politics Avi Santo 252

About the Contributors 275

Index 277