One of the all-time great political satires is Dr. Strangelove. This is a Stanley Kubrick film from 1964 made during the height of the Cold War, about the sort-of accidental start of all-out nuclear war and the destruction of humankind. It is very funny, its main targets were the sheer absurdity of the arms race, pointless tensions between the US and USSR, the maddening decisions of people in power and how comfortable those people in power are with doing terrible things. The titular Dr. Strangelove is a Nazi scientist recruited by America because of his brilliance…but he is still a Nazi scientist. The film has recently been adapted into a play, which has been receiving rave reviews and is often cited as being as important now in 2025 as it was in 1964. The film was actually based on a book, a thriller with no comedy, but Kubrick saw the potential as a satire.
Satire is supposed to highlight the idiocies, hypocrisies and flaws of those in power using comedy, often with comedic exaggeration, to make these points and when done well, can be a powerful force in shaping public opinion. How did this film shape public opinion? It is hard to say, especially from 2025, but the Cold War did not end in nuclear armageddon, so there’s that. Moreover, any reference to nuclear weapons and nuclear war will trigger the absurdity of Dr. Strangelove in the minds of those in the audience. Politicians who wanted to increase the nuclear arsenal of America to add a few more thousand warheads would be confronted with pushback influenced by Dr. Strangelove.
Satire To Bring About Change
Don’t Look Up is a comedy written and directed by Adam McKay in which scientists discover a planet-destroying asteroid is heading towards Earth, and their struggles to be heard and when they are heard, for action to be taken. The film is shot through with criticism of the media – who at first treat the impending disaster as some kind of puff piece; incompetence in government with the president played by Meryl Streep portrayed as an idiotic, vain and selfish leader; and tech billionaires with Mark Rylance playing such a figure who wants to manipulate the situation for his own benefit and is utterly consumed by arrogance and hubris. The film is very clearly about climate change; it is not especially subtle, but it doesn’t seem like McKay was trying to be. Part of the problem of Don’t Look Up is the idea that despite the fact that the danger has been pointed out and more or less understood and accepted, nothing is being done, the message has not motivated change, and how will the film do that? Part of McKay’s solution to this seems to be simply abandoning being subtle. Did Don’t Look Up shape public opinion? This seems mixed; it was very successful but likely preaching to the converted, but one thing it did perhaps achieve by its intentional lack of subtlety was to try and drive home the drastic nature of the climate change problem.
Satire To Learn From The Past
Death of Stalin is a film by one of Britain’s greatest comedy writers and political satirists, Armando Iannucci, who has been involved in The Day Today, Alan Partridge, The Friday Night Armistice, The Thick Of It, In The Loop and Veep. The film is based on a comic loosely based on the death of Joseph Stalin and the turmoil that followed as various people tried to scheme their way to power. The Death of Stalin is not exactly trying to satirise Stalin and his government, after all he’s been dead for 70 years, but rather show the ridiculousness of power and tyranny. How the genuinely terrifying dictators are also stupid people who did stupid things. In the film, Stalin lies for hours after having a stroke with no medical assistance, despite people hearing him collapse, as they are all too scared to enter his office. And even when the other soviet leaders find him, they want to be quorate before they vote on calling a doctor, and even then…most of the medical establishment was caught in Stalin’s purges. It also shows how the seemingly invincible can be brought down spectacularly quickly. Beria, as head of the security services, was poised to take over, but instead was arrested and shot within minutes.
Satire To Bring Down The Powerful
A recent Oscar contender was The Apprentice, a satire about Donald Trump, but not President Trump, the much younger real estate businessman being mentored by right-wing demagogue Roy Cohn. Presumably, the film is a contest about who can be the most objectionable person in America. It has often been said that Trump is beyond satire, and perhaps this is why this satire didn’t focus on his recent political career but on his earlier business career. Is Trump’s political career unsuitable for satire? After all, this was a person whose right-hand man organised a press conference about how the election was “stolen” at Four Seasons Total Landscaping opposite an adult book store rather than the Four Seasons hotel. That is beyond Spinal Tap levels of ridiculous incompetence, and perhaps how every music documentary since This Is Spinal Tap has had to make sure they didn’t have a Spinal Tap moment, every filmmaker wanting to make a satire about Trump with have to wrestle with the problem of using comedic exaggeration against a man who long ago passed any imagined exaggeration. How did it shape public opinion? It will be very interesting to see how/if it does. Most people are in very definitive camps regarding Trump, but it is possible this film could successfully change how Trump’s business career is seen. His supporters will often say he is a billionaire businessman, obviously, he knows what he is doing, could this undermine the foundations of his supposed brilliance?
