“The Parallel Reality” – Saturday Night Live

“In comedy and other forms of entertainment, a person is devised as a way to comprehend the people, and to understand the side of the public.” This is stated by the character in Satire’s Brew as he begins his lecture on the satirical representation of the American presidency.

The class was presented with two Saturday Night Live clips both dealing with Obama the president and those who are in control around him. I immediately begin to realize what this quote is relating to during these two clips. We have Jay Pharaoh, who is known for hilarious Obama impersonations on Saturday Night Live, showing us a different Obama persona as he describes the truth behind an executive order. “I pretty much just happen” says Bobby in his executive order suit. This is where I see the relation between the character’s example of Henry and his persona in which he “allowed for a new and unseen truth to be revealed about the world…” Aren’t these two personas, Obama and the Executive Order, showing us an unseen truth about the Government? Saturday Night Live is known for their clever personas in which they parody the government and most pop-culture.

Most of these sketches and music videos very well have an unseen truth to all of them. While most people just sit and laugh, isn’t Saturday Night Live using satire to educate their audience just like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and South Park? These three shows have very talented writers where not only do make us laugh but they shed light on very serious topics. “Effective satire holds up the mirror to society and makes us laugh at what we are as a culture and society” and “They use satire to make people see the flawed politician’s perceived reality.” These two quotes from Satire’s brew can be placed right next to any of these three shows and it will summarize them immediately. Jon Stewart, South Park and Saturday Night Live (known for opening up with a political sketch) uses satire to educate us the people.

The second clip has Keenan Thompson, Leslie Jones, Chris Rock, Sasheer Zamata and Jay Pharaoh who are talking with one another whether or not they would have voted for Obama if different circumstances would have appeared. This is basically a “what if” sketch while still being a “parallel reality” in which if Obama were to be any different than who he is, the African-American population would have still voted for Obama no matter the case. We see this when Keenan brings up Mitt Romney’s name and everyone in the circle laughs at thought of Romney being president. While this may not exactly be educating us, it’s definitely poking fun and showing society why most of us actually voted for Obama.

Saturday Night Live and Jon Stewart have a very similar way going about things throughout their show. The persona’s they have are much exaggerated and definitely obvious when they’re poking fun at someone or something and they also don’t have much of an opinion on things either. Both shows have multiple angles from different perspectives even if one of them may be wrong. After all, it’s still a late night comedy show. Nobody wants to hear someone’s opinions get shoved down their throat for two hours. We can relate and conclude this blog to my earlier blog posts about Nast and Fox News, and Greenwald v. Keller. These people, these shows all have their own opinions and ways on how to get their point across. “They say and share things we wish to say” is the last sentence in my Fox News and Nast blog. From hundreds of years ago to present day we continue to be educated through the power of satire. When War of the Worlds proved how powerful a radio broadcast can be, to cardboard cutouts of kids who continue to teach the adults the way of life, and to Saturday Night Live and Jon Stewart who continue to use exaggerated humor to bring the truth of the country to us the citizens. Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, and South Park will continue to educate us for a very long time.

Mistaken for Strangers

When being introduced to new music you usually dive in head first with a little bit of skepticism. Everyone believes they know what they like, and don’t know like without even trying and making a solid decision. In this case, a couple of weeks ago I was introduced to the band The National. Originally I thought that it would be a waste time because I have a good sense of what genre of music I enjoy most. But since the National happens to be what I assume is Indie Rock, I decided to give it a go. In summary, I happened to enjoy A LOT of their songs from their most recent album High Violet.

But how exactly do we get closer to a band? How does one truly enjoy and love the artists that create the music that we enjoy today. For starters, most bands let their fans get an “behind the scenes” look at what goes down in the studio and what the nonsense and fun they have that goes on when the band is on tour. We as a fan base enjoy these types of things because we feel so much more connected to the people who create the songs that we already feel so connected too. We get to see the struggle, the arguments, the fun, the good and bad times of what goes on through a bands life.

This brings me to the topic of when we were shown “Mistaken for Strangers” by Tom Berninger, who happens to be the brother of Matt Berninger the lead singer of The Nationals. Tom showed us the fans of what it’s like to be on tour with a band, but not only that, he showed us the struggle of a brother who is watching his brother get famous from the sidelines. Now this film is a perfect example of something known as Public Relations which is defined as the “practice managing the spread of information between an individual or an organization and the public.” PR is basically a form of advertisement to get people to believe something or do something. In this case however, I believe Tom Berninger is not only using this film to get more people to enjoy The National, but for people to discover Tom the director. Throughout this documentary we hardly see a serious question directed towards the band members, but rather questions about Matt the lead singer. This film is showing us the relationship that Tom believes he has with his brother. But this film is doing so much more than show us who The National is.

The film is showing us who Tom Berninger is.

We find out throughout this film that Tom Berninger who I like to believe is an artist and an entertainer. He has an incredible talent of comedy and enjoys making films. What better way to get noticed by having your first well-known film be about a band that’s on the rise to being well-known. Not only do fans of The National get to see the hardships and struggle of the band, we get an inside look on someone who is struggling to get in the spotlight as well.

I truly enjoy the National and I’ve grown to adore all of the bands members. I got to see a side of them that I honestly think I would never care about, but I got to know more about who they all are, and we all discovered something new in the process.