Plotters Ink Assignment for October 2015 - Humor, Satire or Parody

Nowadays you can't go anywhere without encountering the hugely popular phenomenon known as Minions. People find them funny, though I couldn’t explain why. Is it their yellowness, their goggle-eyes, their shape, their garb, or that they seem to express what many of us are privately thinking but are usually too polite to say? They’re rude, silly, and weird, but who cares? They're also adorable - and we can relate.  (For more Minions cartoons, click here: http://quotesnhumor.com/top-40-funny-minions-quotes-and-pics/)

While humor can be found in every literary genre, even serious dramas (as comic relief), it can be tough to pull off. Not everyone is amused by the same things, which can make your job harder than say, writing a western or fantasy piece.

This month your challenge will be to make us smile, chuckle, LOL or (should you be so lucky) get us to laugh so hard we pee in our pants (just in case, I'll provide a box of tissues and a can of Lysol), and you must accomplish this feat in a one page fictional story, to be read aloud at the meeting on October 8 at 2 PM.  As always, please bring several copies so we can read along with you.

If funny isn’t your strong suit, you can try writing a satire or a parody. Below are some quotes from Wikipedia along with examples and links if you care to do some research.

We hope you enjoy this exercise...need we say, “Have fun with it?”  

From Wikipedia:

HUMOR - is the tendency to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from ancient Greece, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humours (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), controlled human health and emotion… Though ultimately decided by personal taste, the extent to which a person finds something humorous depends on a host of variables, including geographical location, culture, maturity,  level of education, intelligence and context. For example, young children may favor slapstick or cartoons, whose physical nature makes it accessible to them. By contrast, sophisticated forms of humor such as satire require an understanding of its social meaning and context, and thus tend to appeal to the mature audience.

(See more about humor here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour )

SATIRE - Satire is a genre of literature,  in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government or society itself, into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society.

A feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm, but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, ]juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. “Militant" irony or sarcasm often professes to approve of (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist wishes to attack.

Satire is nowadays found in many artistic forms of expression, including literature, plays, commentary, television shows, and media such as lyrics. Examples:  Matt Groening (The Simpsons), CS Lewis (Screwtape Letters), Ray Bradbury (Farenheit 451) and many others. Joseph Heller's most famous work, Catch-22 (1961), satirizes bureaucracy and the military, and is frequently cited as one of the greatest literary works of the twentieth century. The film Dr. Strangelove from 1964 was a popular satire on the Cold War.

(See more about satire here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire)

PARODY - also called spoof or lampoon, is a work created to imitate, make fun of, or comment on an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of satiric or ironic imitation. "A good parody is a fine amusement, capable of amusing and instructing the most sensible and polished minds; the burlesque is a miserable buffoonery which can only please the populace."

The British comedy group Monty Python is also famous for its parodies, for example, the King Arthur spoof Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974), and the Jesus satire Life of Brian (1979). In the 1980s there came another team of parodists including David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker. Their most popular films are the Airplane!, Hot Shots! and Naked Gun series.

Parody is a frequent ingredient in satire and is often used to make social and political points. Examples include The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, which parody a news broadcast and a talk show to satirize political and social trends and events. 

(See more about parody here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parody)