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Satire comes from the Latin word satura, ‘stuffing’, and its popular links with Greek satyrs are mistaken. It uses mockery or imitation to reveal the perceived folly or evil of what is being satirized. Irony, distortion and insult are typical satirical weapons, deployed in work otherwise as disparate as Juvenal\'s Satires, such films as Altman\'s M* A* S* H or The Player and stand-up comedy. Most satire, from political cartoons to comic mimicry and literary parody, deflates by ridicule. But there is no need for satire to be comic: Swift\'s Gulliver\'s Travels, Hogarth\'s Rake\'s Progress, Kafka\'s The Trial and Orson Welles\'s film Citizen Kane are all satirical. KMcL |
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