Peter Bart: It’s Satire Season, When Doctors Maim, Professors Become Fugitives & Barbie Gives Mattel The Business
deadline.com“Satire is a dangerous game In Hollywood,” Billy Wilder once observed. “It invites self-immolation.” Still, the satiric spirit looms large in many of this year’s buzzworthy movies: American Fiction, Poor Things, Saltburn, Air, The Holdovers and even Barbie.
All mobilize satiric weaponry — humor, irony, even ridicule — in advancing their perspectives. The clever corporate barbs in Barbie are soothingly pink-coated, but by contrast the protagonist in American Fiction is a blunt and self-destructive novelist.
His work supposedly is not satiric enough nor Black enough for him to register success. Barbie was heralded at the Golden Globes while American Fiction was snubbed.
The latter still earned the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival, a SAG Awards Cast nomination and a spot on the AFI’s Top 10 Films of 2023.
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