|
''Our Dumb Century: The Onion Presents 100 Years of Headlines from America's Finest News Source'' is a satirical humor book written by the staff of ''The Onion'' and published by Three Rivers Press in 1999. The chief editor of the book was Scott Dikkers, with specific sections edited by Robert D. Siegel, Maria Schneider and John Krewson. It was awarded the 1999 Thurber Prize for American Humor. The book, spun off from ''The Onion'' weekly-newspaper format of dryly satirizing current events, features mocked-up newspaper front pages from the entire 20th century, presented as though ''The Onion'' had been continuously in print since before 1900. The publication of the book is in itself a parody of other end of the century retrospectives that had been published in 1999, notably ''Time'' magazine and ''The New York Times''. ==Summary== The book satirizes many common beliefs, trends, and perceptions. For instance, in response to the John F. Kennedy assassination theories, one headline declares, "Kennedy Slain By CIA, Mafia, Castro, LBJ, Teamsters, Freemasons" and that he was shot "129 times from 43 different angles." 〔"Kennedy Slain By...", http://www.theonion.com/articles/november-22-1963,10584/, retrieved 10/18/07〕 This is later followed up by an article proclaiming that the "Warren Commission admits to killing JFK." The book often takes a cynical look at American foreign policy over the ages, describing past events with revisionist, modern-day perspectives. For example, the Pearl Harbor attacks are described as being an attack on a "colonially-occupied US non-state" and President Woodrow Wilson encourages Americans to fight in World War I in order to "make the world safe for corporate oligarchy." The article on the 1920 granting of women's suffrage states "Women Finally Allowed to Participate in Meaningless Fiction of Democracy." The article on the beginning of World War II is "WA- (headline continued on page 2)," with "WA-" in especially large print. Smaller stories in the book satirize social and pop-cultural trends of their respective eras, such as the faux-advertisements and gimmicks that abound in the top and bottom corners of the pages. For example, from the 1920s: ''No, No, Nanette Fever Bonus! Sheet Music from "Tea for Two" Inside''. Since the book was written before the year 2000, its prediction for that year satirized Y2K and religious prophecies, including "Christian Right Ascends to Heaven," "All Corporations Merged Into OmniCorp," and a small graphic listing meteors headed for Earth by size. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Our Dumb Century」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|