Satire And The Simpsons By Jan Doyle - 884 Words

The media creates television shows that appear to be reality however they are not and when looked at, it is easy to see. I will be discussing the relationships between reality and reality TV, satire, and documentary. Satire is a way of making a serious subject talked about without all of the seriousness that goes along with it. It is used to poke fun at serious topics, for example, politics by using exaggeration and parody. In a show like The Simpsons, satire is used in every episode and even though it is meant to be light to make viewers laugh, it is somewhat educational because they are using real-life situations in the show. An article â€Å"Beyond a joke: Teaching Satire Using The Simpsons† by Jan Doyle said â€Å"Rather than making our classrooms more lounge-roomish, The Simpsons is a powerful tool for teaching the value of social comment, irony and an insight into expressive potential of satire (Doyle, 1999)†. This quote shows that even though the show is meant fo r entertaining the public, it is also used to inform people as well about real life. I believe that the satirical aspect of the show being used to inform viewers would only be very effective for adolescents because when I was a young child, I did not fully understand what was the reason for some of the things that were being shown on that TV show because being a child, you are not as aware of what is going on in the media because children usually do not watch the news. Reality TV shows such as Big Brother appears