Postmodern style often addresses its viewers as sophisticated media readers and consumers. Referring to Sturken and Cartwright's chapter "Postmodernism and Popular Culture," and the Onion News Network clip posted above, describe how the text operates on the level of satire. In particular, how does the clip make use of parody and irony?
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Blog #8
Postmodern style often addresses its viewers as sophisticated media readers and consumers. Referring to Sturken and Cartwright's chapter "Postmodernism and Popular Culture," and the Onion News Network clip posted above, describe how the text operates on the level of satire. In particular, how does the clip make use of parody and irony?
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Satire is a form of media that makes many humorously subtle comments on popular culture. Its main focus is to express alternative views of something common and widely known to those who do not usually take notice. Although a form of comedy, its use in displaying truth through ridicule has often led to new thinking.
The Onion News Network clip not only parodies all News programs in general, but also many common characteristics of our society. The reporter speaks in a deep voice that sounds almost unreal, and is constantly looking down to read his report. His report is on the least influential people, a story which is actually commenting on the many unimportant reports that we see on actual news broadcasts today. The Onion logo in the corner of the screen is clearly based on CNN’s logo, and the information we are fed at the bottom of the screen is hilariously ridiculous. It comments on all of the elements that we see in everyday life such as the issue of naming disasters, controversial kids toys, low quality movies, and large problems resulting from things that are hardly even noticeable. Ironically, the report, which is about uselessness, is itself also completely useless considering that every piece of information it provides has no worth at all.
The clip from the Onion News Network illustrates both the postmodern and the satirical in its use of irony and parody. In the background is a newsroom with all sorts of screens everywhere, which, in a way, is showing reflexivity because it shows part of the behind-the-scenes process of making a news show. The anchor carries the serious tone typical of news anchors, despite how absurd the stuff he’s reporting on is (an extremely long list of the least influential people). The crawl at the bottom of the screen also has stories that aren’t normally newsworthy. It’s these things that make it ironic—the fact that it makes fun of how seriously news programs like CNN takes itself as well as magazines that compile annual lists of the most influential people. According to Sturken and Cartwright, parody “assumes a viewer who is familiar with many different texts” (269). The logo for the Onion News Network looks suspiciously like that of CNN and is set up much like the show, only with ridiculous news stories instead of what would really appear on the show, and also makes reference to Time magazine. It is assumed that the viewer would be familiar with these things and would therefore understand the joke instead of just ending up terribly confused.
The Onion is known for it's satire of the media. In this particular clip, The Onion News (with a logo that parodies the CNN logo) runs a story on Time's Least Influential People list. The story is ripe for irony; if the list of people aren't important, then why would the story about the list be important? It makes fun of how 24 hours news programs begin to report on ludicrous stories once the real news runs dry.
The parody in this piece is mostly in the set, the reporter, and interviewee. The set appears to be a control room, full of television screens and computers, just as it is on CNN or MSNBC. The reporter is a man with a deep and serious tone, similar to that of the sea of other reporters on TV. Finally, the man being interviewed makes fun of the slew of "experts" that are dragged on to 24 hour news networks. He talks in front of a green screen, which is supposed to be a city. The reading suggests that parody only works if you know what is being made fun of. I found the clip to be quite amusing, but if you don't watch a lot of CNN or Fox News, I can see how the clip being shown wouldn't make a whole lot of sense.
This onion-mock-news report perfectly illustrates the idea of parody strategy in the contemporary postmodern culture. Through intertextuality, the clip references our familiar style of daily news report such as the professional tone of a serious looking suited anchor and the rolling text reporting minor news on the bottom line. According to Sturken and Cartwright, a parody assumes a viewer who is familiar with its references and thus enjoy the activity of guessing references and getting the joke. We can reveal the parody aspect in the onion clip work in this way. The onion clip maker has the presumption that every subject mocked by the clip can be easily recognized by consumers who living in this media-dominated society: its style of news reporting is referenced the style of news on major television channel, its icon referenced the icon of CNN channel, its content about an inventory of people that referenced the TIME magazine.
Sturken and Cartwright stated that in this kind of parody, instead of noting the story itself it always reminds viewers it is a remake and raises the viewers’ self consciousness of noting its style, form, genre or convention. In the Onion clip, what address viewers the most it's the realization of the satirical subjects, rather than what the content is about. For example, viewers are entertained by noticing the mocking of “annual least influential people list” from the serious list of most influential people by TIME magazine, rather than who these least influential figures really are. Within the refiguration of this satire, viewers are addressed to a playful engagement with its unique form of popular culture.
Andrew Megow
According to Sturken and Cartwright, Postmodernism has the ability of questioning the very foundations of social structure and the means of theorizing social relations and culture. (251) This means that in postmodernism there's not one but many truths and that pure truth is an illusion.(251) This is why satire works so well here in the postmodern world where you make fun of something that is considered truth but have your own twist to the idea or commentary.
The Onion news clip is parodying how serious 24hr news channels take themselves. It is obviously attacking CNN because of it's logo on the bottom of the screen resembles the likes of CNN's. Also the idea of an expert coming on to the news to talk about what he specializes in is being parodied. Almost everything these days has some form of "expert" so why shouldn't the people's list of least influential people in the world not have one? Also the other parody is the fact of how real this all looks. The set, the actors, they all look like a real news team. It's a fact that a lot of people get the onion mixed up with actual news and that means they're parodying well.
Irony in the piece is the fact that there are 24 hour news channels but there gets to be a point where nothing may be happening in the world at this very moment so the news dries up for a while. So they give us these ridiculous news reports about lists and such which is what the onion clip is commenting on by having a list of least influential people. It's a commentary on how CNN sometimes they have nothing to talk about so they make a list of most influential people. Within all of this, satire will see the news and comment on it's moments of seriousness no matter what the report may be.
Satire is another way of saying irony. I think that the satire in this clip is how it mocks real new stations. One way that they do this is the story that they have, Most un-influential people, which is a way of pointing out how pointless some news cast can be. For instance do we really care anymore what happened between Brett Farve and the Packers. Another way that they make fun of normal newscast is through the scroll that they have at the bottom of the screen.
The parody they used in the clip is how they had the symbol for the onion in the bottom right hand corner designed like CNN's symbol. They also had TVs in the background how some newsrooms will have however they had way too many of them to seem real. The news anchor that they have has a deep voice like almost all news anchors do however he kept looking down at the script. I think that they know how to do comedy and that the onion should keep making the clips.
Most of the Onion's texts and video's focus on the comedy of irony. They talk about a story which is considered absurd within normal news and is so strange that it elicits comedy. In this particular clip, the anchorman talks about the least influential people. There is an inherent humor in that this news is completely irrelevant and that no one really cares about non influential people. This clip is ironic in that it seems professional and real, although it is talking about something completely absurd. This clip also comments on real news, where they have most influential lists and put forth the idea that even those lists really do not mean anything important. The Onion is parodying making lists of influential people to show how these lists really do not mean anything. They are also commenting on the fact that most people are not very influential when they describe the large amount of people are on the list. The Onion uses parody and irony as their main device to effectively create humor.
-Charlie Ripple
Sturken and Cartwright maintain that postmodern art often "...functions to completely undermine the the idea of original value and authenticity." The Onion broadcast is a prime example of the ways in which satire functions as mimesis through reflexivity, in essence how satire acts as a cynical representation of the texts that surround and shape our everyday lives. At the heart of this is an assumption that the viewer or consumer is knowledgeable, and understands the basis for the satire.
This particular ad uses parody, an appropriation of the "Most Influential Person" awards in popular society. They have communicated to us their challenge to the meaningfulness of such awards, and have cynically defined what they believe to be the meaninglessness of such awards, through use of appropriation. They turn the influential award into an un-influential award, magnifying the sense that the award is, in the first place, not that important. It is in this way that the ad operates on the level of irony, showing that the influential award is not influential at all.
This challenge to concepts of social texts is what postmodernism is about at its core, a questioning of the functions of art, media, and culture and our interpretations of those functions.
Andrew Tolstedt
TA: Brent Coughenour
The Onion news clip makes use of irony and parody by appearing in a familiar context,as a prestigous news station, yet the content of the clip is ironic and a bit funny. The clip comments on a number of characteristics that could be seen on a real news channel,the headline story of the day, the brief discusson between the anchorman and an associate of featured person, and the scroll of events at the bottom of the screen. This clip assumes that we can identify popular news networks like CNN by placing thier logo in the same place CNN does,and the fake newsroom background which is almost always featured on news shows.
The main topic,"least influential people" also comments on real news channels covering stories that aren't that significant to society. And the breif interviews from Jim's wife and boss are incorporated in the segment, to back up this pointless story which is how news shows make thier stories more interesting. Sturken and Cartwright talks about says that paradies rely on the original so that it can retell the story with its ironic views so that the viewers can be aware of its adjusted "form,style, genre and conventions."(269)The "Coming Up..." flash at the end of the clip posses the urgency and allure that most news shows feature as well.
According to Sturken and Cartwright, the use of today’s ideas and images are often copies of ones from the past. In the Onion, the use of satire is often used to take what may have been a serious news piece or anything similar and turn it into a parody, The Onion’s use of humor in the sketch pokes fun at the irony that Americans find themselves interested in. A new fad in television countdowns for people are ones such as best looking, wealthiest, etc. This onion sketch does a parody that makes a countdown a ironic situation by making the list of people completely pointless. The use of ordinary people as opposed to the usual celebrity status folk shows the irony of the idea. The Onion is only one example of today’s media exploiting parody and satire to show serious situations within a humorous context. The other best example I can think of is Saturday Night Live and political sketches that poke fun of people who could be our next leader of the country.
Satire by definition "is a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn" in the onion video clip they are using satire to ridicule cable network 24 hour news programming and how we constantly have these unimportant news stories, like the "Top Ten [insert something here]" or "[year] [number] most [adjective]." etc... So in the onion clip they decided to do a story on the number 1 least influencial person ever. Which ironically they have an expert to interview about it. Just like they always do on the news, even if its something that no one could really be an expert on, or something that we don't really need an 'expert' to tell us about. The news is suppose to inform us of something but often times they give us information on something completely unimportant at all, just take up air time. So the union is using satire by creating a completely realistic depiction of a news show, and all the people look like people you would see on channels like CNN.
Marco Cannestra
TA: Brent
In this Parody of a news report done by the onion truly pokes fun at CNN and all news shows that play all the time. They satirize the types of news reports that are reported and the importance of the news they report on. They actually seem to ridicule all news shows and the ridiculousness of some of the stories that are talked about.
The fact that they report on something as ridiculous as the Top LEAST influential people just shows how the types of stories aren't that important. They use irony to say it's important to car about things that are unimportant. It shows things that we see everyday. Disaster, traffic, controversial toys but to a degree that is so extreme you can't help but laugh. When on the bottom scroll bar it says that traffic was slow because people saw that two turtles were fucking. It's ridiculous but so is slowing down for anything of that nature. It comments on how all news is basically not useless just unnecessary.
According to S & C clips such as the one show are used to make people laugh because is "assumes a viewer who is familiar with many different texts... will enjoy the activity of guessing the references and getting the joke."(269) This pertains to the question in many ways. This clip is a satire on life and current events. The text used is to comment and mock what is going on in current events. The text I am talking about can be seen at the bottom of the screen. If one is to read this, the viewer can get a laugh from the things that are said. This can be seen when it talks about Matel calling a recall on some toys. The toys it lists sound funny and mock when Matel actually recalled toys. Things like this are true and are exaggerations to add to the humor. This clip uses irony through the vocal part. They talk about the least important person in the world, and by giving the attention he is no longer unimportant. Thats the irony. This whole clip is a parody of a CNN. That is the look of the news cast, so this clip is a parody of a real newscast.
Parody and irony have a strong influence in our society today, and is shown through this short clip of The Onion News Network. It reports on a story about the least important people, an article written by Time magazine. The entire story is ironic, because if the story is about unimportant things, why would they have to report it?
Parody finds its place everywhere, especially on the television, with the educated crowd. As S&C say, they "assume a viewer who is familiar with many differnt texts." The crowd they aim at is the crowd that will understand their humor, and satirizing. The major parody here is on major news networks: the logo that is similar to CNN's logo, and the strip that shows 'current' issues. They are easily as ridiculous as they are hilarious. Not only are the things they talk about parody, but even the way the reporter acts is parody: how many times have their been reporters who are deep voiced and very "buisness like". The entirety of the segment is parody of news as a whole: whether it be jon stewart, steven colbert or the onion, the information people seek out usually needs some sort of satirical spin on it. They are parodying our culture, and they are trying to educate the masses at the same time, change the world one humorless mind at a time.
This clip paradoy's news networks by imitating their mise en scene and topics, but with added satire to create something different. The main story behind this film can show the sometime mundane subjects the news captures. The story and news anchor are overbearing much like modern American media which begs for the viewer's attention. The irony lies in the fact that the story is utterly pointless. The most un-influential people really shouldn't matter.
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