:: Sunday, February 22, 2004 ::

On the Media: Satirizing Journalism

According to WNYC's On the Media, Philip Roth once defined satire as "the imaginative flowering of the primitive urge to knock somebody's block off."

Just now, the program interviewed actor Tim Robbins about his play Embedded, a satire about the media's involvement in the War in Iraq. Robbins holds the media as accountable for misinformation as the Bush administration.

Robbins said his writing was feuled by anger, anger partly resulting from personal attacks on his family due to their criticism of the war in Iraq.

Cinnamon Stillwell of the conservative news and media watch dog site ChronWatch described Robbins' play as "a means for him to spread the gospel of anti-Americanism."

Ric Sipes of the LA Weekly has a more balanced response:

Robbins barrages the audience with a mélange of Iraqi War re-enactments which are designed to make us feel threatened. And, in that sense, the scale of the hyperbole is no different from the Fox News ticker, only the message is inverted. But do we feel endangered when we leave the theater, worried that Big Brother is closing in? Or do we feel we’ve merely witnessed a strong personal attack? Are we affected enough to join Tim’s War, or sufficiently aggravated by the play to defend his enemies? Or do we simply withdraw from the growing chaos which involves us all?

:: Unknown 1:38 PM | [+] ::
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