ABSTRACT
The competing models of satire can be explained in part due to the various authoritarian or anti-authoritarian intentions of different satirical texts, but, more importantly, they potentially reflect an internal, unresolvable conflict embedded in the form of satire itself. To explore this conflict, this chapter turns to Ben Elton and Rowan Atkinson's 1980s television show Blackadder, which paradoxically supports the assumptions of both models of satire, and thus presents an ideal, archetypal satirical text. The political satire of Blackadder positions the show at the cutting edge of social commentary in the coming decades when shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report would come to dominate critical political discourse in the United States. Blackadder self-reflectively makes fun of its own mimetic conventions in the same way it ridicules other formal structures. Just as The Daily Show undermines the authority of traditional television news to declare what is true, Blackadder undermines the traditional sitcom's authority to establish acceptable entertainment.
