In:The Power of Satire
Edited by Marijke Meijer Drees and Sonja de Leeuw
[Topics in Humor Research 2] 2015
► pp. 207–216
TV Satire and its Targets
Have I got News for You, The Thick of It and Brass Eye
Published online: 22 October 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/thr.2.15bas
https://doi.org/10.1075/thr.2.15bas
The question of the relationship between satire and its targets is also one of
both mediality and politics. When it comes to television political satire, that
relationship is extremely intimate. This might in turn make it difficult for satire
on television – a notoriously top-down medium – to be very critical of politics.
Building on investigations into “new political television”, this chapter compares
the relationships of three very different British satires, namely Have I got News
for You, The Thick of It, and Brass Eye, with their political targets, asking to what
extend they are collusive, incorporative or antagonistic. Is it possible for TV
satire to be truly subversive?
References (11)
Basu, Laura. 2014. “British Satire in the Thick of It.” Popular Communication: The International Journal of Media and Culture 12(2): 89–103.
Baym, Geoffrey and Jeffrey P. Jones. 2012. “News Parody in Global Perspective: Politics, Power, and Resistance.” In Not Necessarily the News? Global Approaches to News Parody and Political Satire, ed. by Geoffrey Baym and Jeffrey P. Jones. Special issue of Popular Communication: The International Journal of Media and Culture 10(1–2): 2–13.
Gray, Jonathan, Jeffrey P. Jones and Ethan Thompson (eds.). 2009. Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era. New York: NYU Press.
Gray, Jonathan. 2009. “Throwing out the Welcome Mat: Public Figures as Guests and Victims in TV Satire”. In Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era, ed. by Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey P. Jones and Ethan Thompson, 147–166. New York: NYU Press.
Jones, Jeffrey P. 2010. Entertaining Politics: Satiric Television and Political Engagement. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Kuipers, Giselinde. 2011. “The Politics of Humour in the Public Sphere: Cartoons, Power and Modernity in the First Transnational Humour Scandal.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(63): 63–80.
Meikle, Graham. 2012. “‘Find Out Exactly What to Think – Next!’: Chris Morris, Brass Eye, and Journalistic Authority.” In Not Necessarily the News? Global Approaches to News Parody and Political Satire, ed. by Geoffrey Baym and Jeffrey P. Jones. Special issue of Popular Communication: The International Journal of Media and Culture 10(1–2): 14–26.