Humor and Satire on Contemporary Television

Animation and the American Joke
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4724-5772-1
Verlag: Taylor & Francis

Buch, Englisch, 178 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 480 g

Reihe: The Cultural Politics of Media and Popular Culture

This book examines contemporary American animated humor, focusing on popular animated television shows in order to explore the ways in which they engage with American culture and history, employing a peculiarly American way of using humor to discuss important cultural issues. With attention to the work of American humorists, such as the Southwest humorists, Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, and Kurt Vonnegut, and the question of the extent to which modern animated satire shares the qualities of earlier humor, particularly the use of setting, the carnivalesque, collective memory, racial humor, and irony, Humor and Satire on Contemporary Television concentrates on a particular strand of American humor: the use of satire to expose the gap between the American ideal and the American experience. Taking up the notion of ’The Great American Joke’, the author examines the discursive humor of programmes such as The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, King of the Hill, Daria, American Dad!, The Boondocks, The PJs and Futurama. A study of how animated television programmes offer a new discourse on a very traditional strain of American humor, this book will appeal to scholars and students of popular culture, television and media studies, American literature and visual studies, and contemporary humor and satire.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ezell, Silas Kaine

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Medienwissenschaften
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Freizeitsoziologie, Konsumsoziologie, Alltagssoziologie, Populärkultur
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Mediensoziologie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Populärkultur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface; Irony and incongruity in American humor; Frontiers, suburbs, politics, and poop: setting, episodic structure, and the American carnivalesque in the southwest humorists and animated television programs; No laughing matter: the relationship between American humor and American collective memory and history; African-American multiculturalism in The PJs and The Boondocks; The unkindest cut: animated television programs and postmodernism; Conclusion: irony and nihilism: postmodern, or American?; Bibliography; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Silas Kaine Ezell is Assistant Professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University, USA