I came to Hollywood originally writing comedy and writing satire.
The importance of satire is bringing more people to the table. There are a lot of average citizens who aren’t interested in politics and would be more interested if it’s brought to them in a comedic, funny, satirical way.
Effective satire has to be almost identical to the subject that it is skewering.
Gentle mockery or sharp satire aimed at Christians and their leaders have been replaced by abuse of Christianity itself.
Conventional show-biz savvy held that Americans hated to be the objects of satire.
I think ‘Death Race 2000’ is a classic, but it’s a classic from the 1970s, and I think it’s a particular kind of drive-in-exploitation movie satire masterpiece, and it was very much a movie of its time.
It is difficult not to write satire.
In TV writing, Armando Iannucci’s satire ‘The Thick of It’ is brilliant – equal parts hysterically funny, terrifyingly believable, and Oh-my-God-I-can’t-believe-he-actually-said-that – and it’s got the most satisfyingly creative insults ever.
Not all Tories are atrocious heartless fiends, I concede. But those who wield hunger as a weapon while claiming their own meals on expenses, are beyond satire.
For me, ‘Gulabo Sitabo’ is a satire… I wanted to do satire and I think it’s turned out exactly how I wanted it to be.
As ‘Possession’ progresses, it seems less and less like the usual satire about academia and more like something by Jorge Luis Borges.
Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise.
I think comedy and satire are the strongest ways to deal with very serious themes and very painful themes.
Satire is a weapon, and it can be quite cruel.
Comic book readers tend to be pretty secular and anti-authoritarian; nothing is above satire in their eyes.
Satire makes people learn something more than being lectured.
The British ballads became a new kind of form in their hand. And out of them came the blues, a new kind of song of commentary and satire, a song form which, after all, has become the main musical form of the whole human species.
It’s a one-day story of a guy called Newton Kumar, and the backdrop is election: how the most powerful tool we have as citizens is vote but how we don’t utilise it. We really don’t give importance to it. It talks about democracy; it’s a satire, a black comedy.
Social satire has been around since people have been around.
Satire is fascinating stuff. It’s deadly serious, and when politics begin to break down, there is a drift towards satire, because it’s the only thing that makes any sense.
If you look at ‘Network’ or any kind of satire, it’s fundamentally unemotional in some ways.
‘Charlie Hebdo’ had been nondenominational in its satire, sticking its finger into the sensitivities of Jews and Christians, too – but only Muslims responded with threats and acts of terrorism.
Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.
Life serves up satire. Unfortunately. Or fortunately. I don’t know. You have to reel it in to drama.
Whatever is going on in the news and whoever is in the spotlight is up for grabs and fodder for satire.
A lot of people tend to glorify the role of satire and comedians. They put them up as role models, as fighters for the truth and against tyranny, and I think that’s overrated.
I consciously decided to make both ‘Sammy’s Hill’ and ‘Sammy’s House’ more of a warm satire and not go the route of writing a dark and bitter book about D.C.
Ksenia Sobchak as president is like Sergei Shnurov as an artist. It’s satire. It’s a very high-level art project.
We live in an age that’s very suspicious of preachy political rhetoric, which means that there’s room for art that approaches these issues from the side – as satire, as parody, or as a kind of outlandish speculative proposition.
You can’t make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you’re doing is recording it.
‘Dear White People’ started a conversation about race. It’s such a difficult thing to talk about, especially in America because of our history. I love that you can confront it with humour and with satire.
We never dealt with satire or suggestive material. Although some of our films were broad parodies or burlesques of popular dramatic themes, there was no conscious attempt at being either sarcastic or offensive.
Magoo’s appeal lies in our hostility toward an older generation. But he’s not only nearsighted physically. His mind is selective of what it sees, too. That is where the humor, the satire lies, in the difference between what he thinks he sees and reality as we see it.
A lot of political music to me can be rather pedantic and corny, and when it’s done right – like Bruce Springsteen or Jackson Browne or great satire from Randy Newman, there’s nothing better.
I wrote my first play as extra credit for my fourth grade English class. ‘Can Helen Stop Smoking’ was a satire on the ill effects of cigarette smoking. My friend Vicki Haugabrook played as Helen and I directed the show. At the time, my brother Vince was leading the campaign to get our grandmother to quit.
I cry all the time when I watch ‘Glee’ because I don’t know if it’s satire or melodrama and that makes me feel like the writing is aware of itself, and that makes it OK to cry.
I think satire is most effective when you love the thing you’re satirizing rather than… have a vendetta against it.
Politics is a thing that is kind of the same over and over and over again. But we have to find new ways of poking fun at it and letting the air out of people and satirizing things that are worthy of satire.
Some readers took ‘Heaven’s My Destination’ as a satire on Christianity and the Midwest, but today it reads like a loving comedy.
Paul Verhoeven is one of my favourite directors. I love his ability to mash extreme violence with humour and satire.
It struck me that working digitally with a small crew, I could lay out a general plan for Famous and hope for mistakes which would create something more than satire and something less than truthful reality.
Regardless of what amount of satire or sarcasm is heard in what I do, the reason it connects with people is because the fun and the wildness in it is sincere.
We are almost in a time beyond jokes, beyond satire. When the Trump era is called the ‘post-truth’ period, then this is the greatest joke of all, albeit quite depressing.
I think satire suffered under Obama, but not because of Obama. People are more sensitive now than ever, and strong satirical voices are stifled because of that. I don’t think a Clinton presidency would change that.
Satire works best when it hews close to the line between the outlandish and the possible – and as that line continues to grow thinner, the satirist’s task becomes ever more difficult.
My show in Egypt was called, ‘The Show,’ or, ‘Al Bernameg’ in Arabic. Basically, it was a political satire show. It started on Internet by three, four-minute episodes, and then it evolved into a live show in a theater, which was something that was unprecedented in the Arab world.
Indonesian people don’t get satire; that’s the thing. There’s no thought in our humor.
People keep saying you can’t satirize Trump because he’s beyond satire, but it’s not difficult to just let him out and let him walk upon the stage and say his own words.
Satire has been a sanctuary historically monopolized by progressives, originally used as a discreet tool against Western religious fundamentalism.
Status is always ripe for satire, status is always good for comedy.
AJ’ is a very special movie to me. I have been watching Dinesh and Rajkumar from their initial days, and have witnessed their evolution. The film talks about the bond shared between a father and a son who wants to fulfil his father’s dreams. It’s a cross between a comedy of errors and a political satire.
I like the George Romero films, which were really great, social satire movies; really twisted.
I never see myself as writing satire. I think I write about people as they really are, without making them better or worse.
I’ve never been much drawn towards satire of any kind.
Jaspal Bhatti saab was the one who uplifted the image of Sikhs on the national and international stage. There used to be a lot of satire on Sikhs earlier. A guy wearing a turban was portrayed as a joke, but since Bhatti saab entered cinema he changed the entire perspective and idiom of Sardar jokes.
Shelley Jackson’s ‘Half Life’ is the textual equivalent of an installation, a multivocal, polymorphous, dialogic, dystopian satire wrapped around a murder mystery wrapped around a bildungsroman.
I’m uncomfortable with the word satire. In the U.K., there’s quite a bit of sledgehammer weight to that word, which is the antithesis of the subtle approach I strive for.
There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins.
I write for fun. I had written a kind of media satire, but I doubt it will see the light of day. It was just a personal project.
When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel – it’s vulgar.
‘Gulabo Sitabo’ is a simple satire on life. It’s a genre I have tried for the first time.
The Irish and British, they love satire, it’s a large part of the culture.
