Parody And Satire In Eric Coble's The Dead Guy

I would just like to point out first and foremost, I had this entire review typed up and ready to submit when I pressed backspace while making an edit and the entire review was lost. That being said, I was frustrated and tired when I wrote this, so I pray you keep that in mind.

I will be reviewing the Wichita State University School of Performing Arts production of "The Dead Guy" by Eric Coble.

In this play, the lead character, Eldon, is offered the chance of a lifetime: a million dollars that he has to spend within a week. There is only one catch: at the end of the week, he has to die. At first, Eldon abuses his money spending it only on selfish & materialistic things like alcohol, prostitutes, and vehicles. His choices begin to hurt those
You see, for centuries authors, play wrights and film writers have utilized parody, satire and both in conjunction to poke fun at any number of things, from fictional concepts to historical events. There are problems with both of these categories, however, in that fictional works are just that, not real and thus, lack the sort of reality that "reality television" supposedly has. Nonfiction works are a bit trickier. We have records and proof and facts about many events, but often times these items of re-collective and maybe not always accurate in many situations. This brings about a bit of inaccuracy with some events, making it truly difficult to classify these events as reality, especially when attempting to write satire about the subject. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying they didn't happen or aren't real, just that in comparison to "reality" television, it is hard to combat third party evidence with current human beings being recorded on a daily basis. There is less room for error and more living witnesses to fall back to if
Much like we discussed in our week three blog post regarding Lady Gaga, we see that she performs in an almost ientical style to that of Madonna back in the day. While her antics are not new, they are original in that she has placed her own style into the mix. Because of this, we see an avant garde flair to her performance style, one that lends itself to inspiration from an earlier Madonna. It is an old idea brought back from the dead and updated for out current generation. Because of this, we cannot label it as a clone or a copy, but rather, an avant garde style that is working for her. Similar to this, I believe this play to be a new remodel for satire & parody. Reality television is a pretty new genre, and because of that, there has arisen a category for writers to poke fun at. This new genre demands these writers to utilize new ideas and concepts to thoroughly convey their points of view. Because of this reason, I find it fair to assess these new satires & parodies as avant garde. They are utilizing an old form of writing in a new way, bringing about a unique and never before seen way to teach a lesson about our society through what our society ironically dubs as "real." Changing with the times and anticipating what will entice society is part of being avant garde. New ideas must constantly be utilized so that a medium does not become stale. As artists, it is ones