Our world is governed by politics. All over the globe, people take part in the politics. Some of them take part as actors in politics and some of them just as the audience. Because politicians are not very popular sometimes, the population found a method of entertainment based on politics and in this way appeared the political satire.

Political satire and its beginnings

The appearance of political satire dates from ancient times, from the first types of governments. Even from the first political organizations, the political satire has been used in order to protest or to come with critics against governments. One of the oldest examples of political satire belongs to Aristophanes, who created several comic satires regarding ancient politicians or ancient gods. During the Roman Empire, we may find also some examples of political satire, satires belonging to authors such as Paul of Tarsus or Marcus Valerius Martialis. Political satire in the beginnings has been released as poetry, comedy or epigrams. Political satire was an important method to influence public opinion during the Athenian democracy.

Political satire coming closer to our times

We could speak about political satire in hundreds of pages, but we will try to give here only some headlines. Besides the beginnings of the political satire during the ancient period, there were many other important contributions in this domain during the time. One of the greatest and best known political satires is “Divine Comedy” by Dante Alighieri. In his work, Dante considers that some of the politicians of that period should travel to Hell. Another huge name that has used political satire is William Shakespeare, who used plays such as “Richard II” in order to criticize politics of his times. Mark Twain is another important name in political satire. Even if Mark Twain was considered to be imperialism first, he become anti-imperialism and he choose political satire to express his ideas in his work “King Leopold’s Soliloquy”.

Political satire in the contemporary world

The world has changed very much from the past and even politics are different. Due to this, political satire has to be made totally different and it is done completely different than it was done in the past. If in the past political satire was strongly related with poetry, theater, novels and literature, nowadays political satire is more related with media and television. Politics is on the cover pages of the largest and biggest magazines. Due to this, political satire has to be also there. In the contemporary world, political satire is disseminated to the general public as caricatures, as cartoons, as movies or as stand-up comedies. This method of entertaining based on politics is used both during the election campaign and after the campaign, to criticize government. The internet is used also more and more in political satire, by using social networks like Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

We are sure that as long as politicians will exist the political satire will be present in our lives. And we consider that it is a democratic method to criticize government and have some fun.