Description
Comedy has been mocking society’s foibles since the poets of ancient Rome but right now may be the Golden Age of satire, with everyone from Jon Stewart to John Oliver shaming the shameless by taking pungent, potent pokes at society’s hypocrisies.
This multimedia talk explores how satire challenges society’s taboos, with examples from Groucho Marx, Richard Pryor, Monty Python, “SouthPark,” Key & Peele, the Russian Orthodox Church, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, Janet Jackson’s right breast, “Saturday Night Live,” and Mel Brooks’ outrageous and/or horrifying and/or hilarious “The Producers.”
Most of all, we’ll see how satire gets people to examine their assumptions. Because, ultimately, satire is less about changing your mind than getting you to think.
