Wednesday, March 1, 2017

The Daily Show: (Now) with Trevor Noah

The Daily Show is a show on comedy central that airs four times a week 10 pm central time. An hour that is between the end of regular news and other late night comedy. The airing time is important because it speaks about the nature of the show. A cross between serious news and comedy. The Daily Show is basically entirely satire, although they will be serious sometimes.

The show uses mostly Hyperbole and Understatement. Though it also has a health dose of irony and sarcasm. It itself is a parody of a news report crossed with a late night comedy show. The show tends to exaggerate certain issues and makes fun of people by exaggerating their personalities or having the announcer (Trevor Noah now) act like them in a exaggerated manor.

Every night the Daily Show has at least two guests. They will have anyone from Malala to IceCube. They'll have famous actors, singers, political commentators, activists, other comedians, basically people who have something to say that is relevant to current issues. During these discussions the host will use an mixture of understatement, irony, and hyperbole to get the point across depending on the compatibility with the interviewee and the issue they are talking about. Sometimes the Interviewer will be really serious, only breaking off (going on tangent) to break the tension. There are also times where the interviewer and interviewee build off each other, not only creating a hilarious, and satirical, commentary but just making the audience laugh off their seats.

The Daily show uses a variety of Satirical techniques to bring a (ultimately biased) portrayal of the news that is not only funny but also really informative, especially when you read between the lines. Its goal is not to bring about change but to inform the people about what is happening in the world, using humor and satire to do so.

An great example of the Daily Show and relevant to current issues (although it is slightly older) episode would be Daily Show with Trevor Noah: Obama "baby proofs" America.

Here is an example of one of the Daily Shows interview (This one is quite a bit older and with John Steward).

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