ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
British Literature Videos 176 videos
Meet Charles Darnay, the nobleman who spends more time on trial and in prison than attending balls and drinking expensive wine. Don't feel too bad...
Written in Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, sometime between the 8th and 11th centuries, Beowulf is an epic poem that reflects the early medieval warri...
Brave New World is supposed be an exciting book about a negative utopia and the corrupt powers of authority. So where’s the big car chase? What's...
A Modest Proposal...in 21st Century Media 74728 Views
Share It!
Description:
We were so moved by Angelina Jolie's overseas adoptions that we created a proposal to bring foreign-born children over by the thousands! Think about the possibilities. We're being totally serious... or are we?
Transcript
- 00:04
A Modest Proposal… in 21st Century Media, a la Shmoop.
- 00:08
A Modest Proposal drew up a fool-proof plan for ending the famine in Ireland: eating babies.
- 00:15
Hey, anything is good with Sriracha, right?
- 00:18
But Swift didn’t really mean to suggest that we should actually make babies part of
- 00:22
our everyday diet… maybe only on special occasions…
Full Transcript
- 00:29
He meant it as satire: by presenting a solution so ridiculous… it was humorous.
- 00:35
A lot of people didn’t get the joke. Including the Queen.
- 00:39
You’d think an old woman who wears a crown would have more of a sense of humor…
- 00:44
With today’s popularity of news satire like the Onion and the Daily Show…
- 00:49
…people are a lot savvier to the art of irony.
- 00:55
So we have a proposal for you.
- 01:00
We’re tired of all the brainless summer blockbusters.
- 01:02
Sure, we love explosions and giant robots as much as the next moviegoer, but whatever
- 01:08
happened to nuance, character development, and symbolism?
- 01:18
Movies aren’t being developed just for us anymore: they’re being developed for the
- 01:22
world.
- 01:24
We need to take back the movie industry, and here’s how we propose to do it…
- 01:29
Start importing Chinese babies.
- 01:32
Hear us out… China accounts for the second largest box
- 01:35
office earnings in the world, and will soon overtake the U.S. by most estimates.
- 01:39
There are even scenes shot for some movies specifically for the Chinese audience.
- 01:44
Iron Man 3 had a small sub-plot added for its Chinese release.
- 01:52
And the next Transformers movie is currently seeking acting talent in China on a reality
- 01:57
show called Transformers 4 Chinese Actor Talent Search Reality Show…
- 02:04
We hope the movie will be more creative than the title of that show.
- 02:10
We propose to start importing Chinese babies ASAP. By the thousands.
- 02:15
They have more people over there than they know what to do with.
- 02:18
And when the babies grow up, they will be seeing movies here instead of in China.
- 02:22
We can increase our box office and help with China’s overpopulation at the same time.
- 02:29
Brilliant!
- 02:29
What do you think?
- 02:30
Would it work?
- 02:32
We’re joking, right? Shmoop amongst yourselves.
Related Videos
They say that honesty is the best policy, but Jack lies about his identity and still gets the girl. Does that mean we should all lie to get what we...
Ever wish you could remember everything that you ever studied? How about everything that everyone has ever studied? Yeah, pretty sure our brains ju...
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is an American classic. Hope you're not expecting any exciting shower scenes though. It's not that kind of book.
Do not go gentle into that good night. In fact, if it's past your curfew, don't go at all into that good night. You just stay in your good bed and...
