Assault on Society: Satirical Literature to Film

Assault on Society explores over four decades of satirical and dark comedy films, a genre that has been examined only piecemeal before. Since many of these were adapted from novels and dramas, McCaffrey concentrates on literature transformed to the screen. Some works of the genre attack society’s defects with the intent to change them, or at least to make us aware of them. If change seems impossible, the absurdist tone of the work has therapeutic value, as in the case of Dr. Strangelove, Catch-22, Day of the Locust, or A Clockwork Orange. Tom Jones and The Horse’s Mouth feature picaresque protagonists and expose hypocrisy, blindness, and pretense. The legacy of dark humor and satire from the 60s and 70s lives on in the movies of the 80s and 90s.