Daniel Tosh and Satire

Daniel Tosh and Satire

Satire is the use of wit to attack human conduct or situations and occurs often in pop-culture. Many comedians use satire to "poke fun" at such things as athletes, religion, television shows, and many other examples. Daniel Tosh's comedy is a very effective example of satire used by comedians.

When it comes to athletes, Daniel Tosh loves to use satire to make fun of either the sport or some of the people involved in the sport that have some controversy going on about them. He uses both modern day and some past examples to do this. For example, when Barry Bonds was in question about whether or not he used steroids, Tosh has this to say about it, "We'll put an asterisk next to Barry Bonds' name, sure, as soon as we put one next to Babe Ruth's name. Getting to break records before black people were allowed to play? Excuse me, where is that asterisk?" As you can see it is both funny and yet it makes the audience think for a second about whether or not baseball players from the early 1900's should have an asterisk put next to their name because of the fact that African-Americans were not allowed to play baseball with white people.

Religion is also a very satirical subject for Daniel Tosh. In many of his stand-up shows you will be able to find many examples of him slamming many different religions. As in this joke where he uses satire to make fun of Adam and Eve, "If you look at the Bible and you look at Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we all know who sinned first. Ladies, do you have to eat everything?" In this joke it is satirical in the way he makes fun of the fact that most women say men are such terrible people, and yet they were the first sinners because they ate the apple in the Garden of Eden. Also it is satirical because of the fact that women always say they think they are fat and he uses this against them with the last line of the joke.

Daniel Tosh is very good at satirizing many of the shows on television and using the premise of the show against them. His joke about the MTV show Cribs very effective in doing this, "They have a show on MTV that I can't stand, 'Cribs.' You ever watch 'Cribs'? Yeah, that show should be called, 'Wanna Feel Like a Failure?'" As you can see he is very satirical in this joke in that he is making fun of how celebrities show off their $1 million mansions with their 5 cars and all of the other luxuries they have while people at home watching see all of this and feel saddened because they don't have nearly the amount of things that these people do.

Daniel Tosh uses satire in such an effective and witty way that not only does he make you laugh a lot at what he has to say, but in some instances, he also makes you think about the joke and see the meaning in it. Yes, sometimes he can cross the line a little bit, but