“A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down…” – who here hasn’t heard that classic phrase? A spoonful of sugar also helps you down onions, it seems.
At its heart, this is quite a nice piece of theater criticism. It speaks to the legions of playwrights who try to make their production stand out by converting the play to another time and place, pointing out why such remixing is rapidly becoming trite and ineffective. The problem, however, is that such an article, while enlightening, would never be read by very many people. It might be able to be published in a theater magazine or newsletter, and would be read only by theater aficionados. The majority of the population, given the choice between education and entertainment, will opt for entertainment every time. Look to the recent success of reality shows, or the “Idol” trend of amateur entertainment, alongside the ever-declining ratings of the news.
The Onion solves this problem by following a growing trend in today’s media – edutainment. Not the overt cartoons and games of the past attempts at edutainment that have given the term such a bad name – Carmen Sandiego, The Oregon Trail, Schoolhouse Rock – but newer versions, that focus primarily on entertainment, with the message almost smuggled in. Consider The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Mythbusters, or, of course, The Onion. They are “stealth edutainment” – educational, but not overtly so.
If this article were published as a serious piece in say a newspaper or magazine, most would pass it by. Yet since it has been written as a comedy piece, people will make the effort to track down and read this article themselves. Political commentary programs and election speeches bore the populace to tears – but legions of fans tune in for that exact same information from Stewart and Colbert and the ONN. Students will yawn at a science lecture in class, then hurry back to their dorm so they don’t miss the exact same information on Mythbusters.
There is a growing movement to ridicule these shows, especially by the traditional media. They accuse them of propaganda, or of making light of serious issues (as though that were a bad thing). I’m in favor of these programs, though – anything that can persuade the general populace to educate itself is worthy of accolades, in my opinion.
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