Many of you are probably familiar with The Onion. For those of you who aren't, The Onion is an internet-based fake news program with a humorous, satirical bent (somewhat similar to The Daily Show with John Stewart and The Colbert Report). Its standard modus operandi is to present absurd news items in the deadpan style of traditional news networks like CNN.
This video brings together tropes from disaster news reporting and horror movies. More specifically, it presents cliched horror movie music and dialog in the form of a national disaster report. Because The Onion often deals in satire, one finds oneself asking a few questions of it:
Is this satire? If so, what is it satirizing and how? What does it say to us, the viewers? Does it make an argument? If so, what is that argument and how is it made? Why use comedy/satire at all?
[sample post composed by instructor]
