Satirizing Ethics
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Satirizing Ethics by Evan David Alexander Klim A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Sociology Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2019, Evan David Alexander Klim Abstract In “Satirizing Ethics,” I explored three late-night satirical monologues from Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore following the Orlando Nightclub Shooting on 12 June 2016. I examined the monologues using a social constructionist approach in order to understand what lessons each host believed could be drawn from the event and how a satirist references the nomos when tackling an issue in the world. Satire in this sense uses comedic tools like analogy, exaggeration, irony and sarcasm to point out follies within society and each host used his or her platform on late-night television to address issues they believed needed to be addressed following the shooting. I conducted a narrative analysis on each monologue in order to understand what the host and their team of writers thought about the event and what they thought should be the next step following another mass shooting in America. What I found in this sociological analysis of the monologues was that each host aimed to set an agenda in their monologues by emphasizing a) certain facts and information about the event and by b) presenting the audience with a way of viewing what happened and why the issue of gun violence and hate crimes in American needs to be addressed to ensure incidents like the one that happened in Orlando do not happened again. In other words, satire is the start of politics, as the host and his or her team of writers look to start difficult conversations with their audience about the world they live in and how it might improve through democratic means. Acknowledgements Thank you to my supervisor, George Pollard. Thank you to my secondary reader and external reader, Dr. Aaron Doyle and Dr. Cheryl Harasymchuk, for providing suggestions on how I might improve this project. Thank you to my colleagues, family and friends. Table of Contents Qu’est ce que c’est? – An introduction to “Satirizing ethics” ................................... 1 Chapter one : The purpose of satire ...................................................................... 6 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 6 Satire as a tool for world-building and world-maintenance ............................... 6 The role of play in satire.................................................................................... 9 Satire as a martial art and a magic spell ........................................................... 16 Chapter conclusion ......................................................................................... 23 Chapter two : The field of late-night television and the agenda-setting function of the monologue .................................................................................................... 26 Introduction .................................................................................................... 26 The monologue as a satirical editorial on the objects of the day ...................... 27 The satirist as a gatekeeper ............................................................................. 33 Chapter conclusion ......................................................................................... 37 Chapter three : Methods ..................................................................................... 40 Justification for research focus ........................................................................ 40 Research questions .......................................................................................... 44 Protocol .......................................................................................................... 51 Chapter four : The monologues from Bee, Noah and Wilmore on 13 June 2016 . 66 Monday, 10:30 pm – Full Frontal with Samantha Bee on TBS ............................ 66 Monday to Thursday, 11:00 pm – The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Comedy Central ............................................................................................................ 77 Monday to Thursday, 11:30 – The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore on Comedy Central ............................................................................................................ 86 A conclusion ....................................................................................................... 98 Lessons from this project................................................................................. 98 Sociological implications ............................................................................... 112 Limitations .................................................................................................... 116 Bibliography ...................................................................................................... 120 1 Qu’est ce que c’est? – An introduction to “Satirizing ethics” Indeed, an argument could be made that the social scientists who does not perceive this comic dimension of social reality is going to miss essential features of it. … These remarks, needless to say, are not meant to denigrate the serious study of society but simply to suggest that such study itself will profit greatly from those insights that one can obtain only while laughing. – Peter Berger (1963:165) This project explores the role of satire on late-night American television in calling attention to political and social follies deemed noteworthy by the creative team behind a given programme in a comedic way. I focus on the opening monologues from three late-night cable programmes and illustrate how conventions in late-night are used in order to persuade the audience that the issues should be viewed as ridiculous and reprehensible and that they need to be discussed. I situate satire in this project as a form of story telling that aims to make sense of the social world by presenting social reality in a comedic way in order for audiences to draw lessons from what happened (Benjamin 1969:86; Campbell 2008:337; Frank 2002:3 and Weber 1965:152-153). However, in order for a satirist to get an audience thinking about social reality in an entertaining way, a satirist needs to workshop their playful and constructive critique of the target and present the target in a way that gets the audience thinking about the target in a different light. Accordingly, when constructing a monologue, late-night hosts and writers aim to construct a topical monologue. A topical monologue gives the satirist the best chance to connect with the audience, as the writers and host seek to connect with an audience by covering issues discussed in the news media. 2 But what makes satire different from comedy? Berger (1961:212) explored both comedy and satire: to him, “comedy is a signal, an intimation, of transcended.” In other words, by presenting social reality in an entertaining way, a comedian aims to make an audience laugh at the drama surrounding reality. Satire still aims to entertain an audience, but the satirist is more interested getting the audience thinking about how society can improve (Berger 1997:157). Consequently, a satirist sets a political agenda by presenting the target in a filtered manner, where the weaknesses and troubling features of the target become the subject of discussion. I explore monologues following the Orlando Nightclub Shooting from Full Frontal with Samantha Bee (2016), The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (2016a) and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore (2016). Each monologue was broadcasted on 13 June 2016, one day after the shooting. The hosts sought to deliver a topical monologue that could get the audience thinking about the responses following the shooting and what can improve. Indeed, the hosts wanted the audience to sympathize with the victims and their families, but the hosts also wanted the audience to view the responses as weak, since nothing was being done to fix the issues discussed. However, if a satirist wants to get the audience thinking about the agenda, the satirist must act reflexively when presenting the folly, as the satirist wants the audience to come to understand the issue through their point of view. In other words, a satirist writes about things that bug them within the social world, but in order for the message to connect with audiences, the satirist must get to know their audience, what they value and what they believe in so that the satirical message can get the audience sympathizing with the issue discussed. In this sense, while the stories discussed in the monologue might be 3 unsettling for audiences, the job of the satirist is to present a story that can challenge an audience to illustrate to them how important it is to maintain the nomos. A satirist ergo must take their work seriously as they wish to have their point of view heard by an audience. Yes, comedic tools like analogy, exaggeration, irony and sarcasm are used to present the weaknesses of the target in an entertaining way, but this does not take away from the serious nature of what is discussed. In fact, these tools can heighten audience awareness on an issue and how important it is to work towards improving the situation. With what I have written in this introduction, satire appears to be a powerful tool that can be