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Death of the Author and Satire

post #1 of 3
9/29/08 at 12:03pm
Thread Starter 
(For reference, here is Ronald Barthes' essay "Death of the Author")

Here's a question I've been chewing on for a bit. If one is to not consider authorial intent when critiquing a work of art, how can you judge satire? What I mean is, what makes Forest Gump a borderline offensive conservative baby-boomer fable and what makes Starship Troopers a brilliant satire? Why is the music of the Westboro Baptist church considered hate speech and not satire? Without reviewing authorial intent, how do you divide the two?
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post #2 of 3
9/29/08 at 12:16pm
Death of the author and Starship Troopers don't mix, if we consider the author Verhoven. He is fully cognizant of what he's doing. Forrest Gump is trickier. I don't think Zemeckis has ever said he was making a conservative film, though that's not something you can say and still work in Hollywood. I think the conservative angle is why a lot of people have latched on to why they don't want to spend three hours with a retarded* main character.

*Not "Full Retard," to keep someone else from making that joke (this my first footnote since DFW passed.)
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post #3 of 3
9/29/08 at 2:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick Ripoll View Post
If one is to not consider authorial intent when critiquing a work of art, how can you judge satire?
Or adaptations in general, for that matter (especially when comparing Heinlein and Verhoeven's versions).
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