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Political Satire on US Television


Political satire is the most 'serious' form of expression in cultures across the world. Political satire is basically a form of expression which uses, ridicule, irony, sarcasm etc. to expose the folly or vice, or to lampoon an individual or a system related to politics to try, and bring about a political change. From print to cinema, political satire has been present in all media and has left a long-lasting impact on societies.

In US, many satirists have commented upon the state of political affairs since the days of American war of Independence. However, the stand out political satire has been the shows on US television. The two stand-out genres of satirical shows, which originated from US are- late night talk shows and animated series.

Over the years, many late night talk shows have been aired on US television and each one of them has been tremendously popular. The first show in this genre, which continues to run till date, is "Saturday Night Live". First aired on NBC in October 1975, this show has now entered its 37th season. The show has had legendary hosts including John Belushi, Eddie Murphy and Will Ferrell among others. The show was the pioneer in the field of political satire on television. Impersonations of famous politicians like Bill Clinton and mock ad campaigns for elections were few of the show's highlights. Following this show were, Tonight Show with Jay Leno, An Evening with David Letterman, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, being the famous examples.

The show by Jay Leno was aired for the first time in May, 1992. After, a brief sabbatical in 2009, it resumed in March 2010. Its popularity can be gauged by the fact that even Barack Obama made an appearance on the show in March 2009. He is the first US President to do so, after assuming office. All these shows and their anchors gained tremendous popularity amongst the youth audiences. Not only did they entertain audiences, they were even credited as the shows giving the average US teenager, his/her share of knowledge about politics.

Another massive contribution of US television in the field of satire, are, two other legendary shows, namely, The Simpsons (since 1989) and South Park (since 2004). The audiences could identify with the characters of these two series; and this made the satirical comments even more hard-hitting. While Stan and Kyle from South Park struck a chord with all audiences for their right and left inclined ideologies respectively, Homer Simpson and his family can be termed as the most beloved set of television characters. Both these series take up political issues like corruption and incompetent government. At the same time they talk about more day-to-day issues like racial discrimination, religion and caste-based issues.

The popularity of political satire in US can be significantly attributed to the shows discussed above. Today, these shows have attained dizzying heights and unprecedented popularity across the world, which proves its originality and likeability by the audiences.

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