|
by Annie McAndrew Poster by Emily C. A. Snyder Well, okay, maybe this isn't a parody. (Maybe it is, I don't know!) Parody - satire, lampoon, takeoff, spoof (or, if you prefer, distortion, travesty, misrepresentation; but I hope you don't) - could certainly be couched in article form, if I felt so inclined. As it happens, though, I don't: this should be a halfway serious discussion of the ancient and honorable genre (if the word may be so applied) of parody. 1** On its own, as first heard, the word has somewhat of a negative connotation. It suggests mockery, making fun, a somehow devaluing of the ordinary worth of a thing - in fact, distortion, travesty, and misrepresentation. At the very least it suggests a lack of seriousness, a failure to respect the proper gravity of the parody's object. And it is true that both the word and the thing can be so applied. I would suggest, though, that to leave it at that is to undervalue the concept of parody itself - in fact, to distort and misrepresent it. And while it is true that a parody can itself be parodied (consult the Pirates of Penzance, for example), it is by no means necessary to do so. The nature of the thing does not lie in piling satire on lampoon to the point of ridiculousness. Parody has a value in itself that should, paradoxically if you will, be taken seriously for what it is. What is this value? Before I go into the less evident aspects of the question, I do acknowledge that the value of parody in all its aspects is dependent on mockery. Sometimes its entire purpose consists in mockery: to take a musical example, Weird Al Yankovich's "Achy Breaky Song," or my own "The Song That Goes On and On," are both intended simply and solely to express annoyance with overplayed and overpraised pieces of music, and neither will be understood outside of that context. But, their value does not lie exclusively in the fact that they make fun. They can and should also be valued, among other things, for their cleverness of lyric, and for those combinations of incongruous elements which produce humor.
The other difference is that not every parody functions in the same way as the two above-mentioned, whereas every "What a stupid…" is pretty much just like every other. When Star Wars and Les Miserables, for example, are recast as Star Mis (the plot and characters of Star Wars to the music of Les Mis), there is certainly mockery involved: "I did not pomf 2** until today/Now my poor ego's broken-hearted" is hardly designed to impress the hearer with the depth and grandeur of Han Solo's character. (Of course, neither are his original lines!) The parody does say explicitly what is only implied in the original. It also earns a laugh (hopefully, says the author!) by contrasting the action-ego-etc.-plagued love of Han and Leia with the head-over-heels sappiness of the original lyrics: "I did not live until today/How can I live when we are parted?" [Of course, Marius also gets lampooned in the original: "You talk of battles to be won/and here he come like Don Ju-an/It's better than an o-pera." Marius is just an inherently spoofable sap. But that's another article.] Does the spoofing of Han and Marius and their respective epics imply a denigration of either the characters or the works? In part, certainly - of the poorly done elements of the work, or of the well-drawn idiocies of the characters, and of the plot lines and themes as those characters affect them. But wait, says the reader, those follies and plots and themes are what make [insert the work you're defending] great - without them it wouldn't be true to life, or tragic, or powerful, or whatever your pet accolade may be. And here's the thing: in spoofing both, I am not disliking either. (I can even tolerate "My Heart Will Go On" - occasionally - in the right context - when I'm not traumatized by hearing it blaring from forty different rooms in a women's dorm.) In fact I enjoy both Star Wars and Les Mis, to read, to watch, to learn trivia on, to discuss for any reason or no reason at all. This is because I'm a story buff, and both those works, regardless of what flaws may be in them, are valid and true to some extent on the level of story. But here's the other point: because I like them, I am all the more likely to parody them. (Oh, great, says the dedicated fan; with friends like this…!) The reason, which I hope has some sense to it, is that I delight in incongruity, and also in exploring story-worlds beyond the bounds of what the story reveals. So given the right stimulus (any accident of conversation or thought that brings the two together in mind), I will start exploring combinations of the two: "What would it be like if…Han Solo appeared on the barricades of the Rue de la Chanvrerie? If…Javert came up against Obi Wan? If…" well, fill in your own unlikelihood! And given that one of these works I enjoy comes complete with a well-written and powerful score (and given that another of my delights is wordplay and verbal cleverness), what more natural than that I should set my what-if games to music: "Now the Force has turned around/Anakin is nothing now!" (It works even better when the music itself lends itself to parody. Try inserting the Imperial March into "One Day More" - it weaves in quite well!) And there's one more point: in enjoying and discussing and reading and watching these works, I am quite ready to admit that both have something to say about the human condition (to fall back on a cliché). Most people, myself included, have a dash of Han's sarcastic ego, of Javert's unyieldingness, as well as Valjean's dedication and sacrifice and the heroism of the Jedi. So in making fun of them, by whatever means, I am also making fun of myself. If therefore I make fun in the vein of "What a stupid…", I insult myself, more than likely without any gainful realizations from the process. But if my self-mockery is couched in terms of my enjoyment and delight, I am in the first place more likely to take the hint, and in the second place, that much better off whether I take the hint or not, from being able to take lightly something that might loom far larger in my perception than in reality. Is parody, then, mockery? Most definitely it is. Is it then distortion, misrepresentation and travesty? To a degree - in that it tends to say flat out what is implied; exaggerate what is unique or noticeable; and ignore extenuating factors that may be more subtle. (I will admit also that there are things too fine for even this much mockery: I will not spoof, for example, the Bishop's appeal to Valjean, because it hits me too deeply on all levels to treat it with irreverence.) But is parody, then, bad, the thing that should not be done? No. With prudence, yes; with courtesy, always; but to ignore it completely seems to me foolish and over-scrupulous, tossing the good wood out with the sawdust and the baby out with the bathwater. Parody is, on a base level, a useful tool; on a higher level, a means of intellectual exploration; on a more accessible level (at least to me), it's just fun. It's a way I think and a way I laugh, and a way of valuing even in their flaws those things that I value also for their good points. (If there are no good points I'll leave them alone, never mind knowing them well enough to spoof!) To me parody does not have a default negative connotation, any more than "fantasy" or "literature" do. Another writer or reader might disagree, and that's anyone's prerogative (preferably, though, without distorting or misrepresenting the idea in the process). If you want to spoof or lampoon it, on the other hand, that's fine, and I'm glad you're exploring those fine techniques of writing and thought. Just be warned: you will receive a response in kind!
1** Author's note: This is by no means intended to be an exhaustive discussion of parody. It is limited for reasons of space to musical examples, on the assumption that non-musical parodies will fall into the same rough categories; and within that boundary is limited mostly to my own work, for the reason that it deals largely with the intentions of parody, and I have limited access to anyone's intentions but my own. ("The Achy Breaky Song" is clear enough in its intention to be an exception.) 2** POMF = Puddle Of Mush on the Floor; an expression of sappiness in the extreme Related Links:
The End
(c) 2002
|
It is true that both cleverness and incongruity in these cases serve to further the purpose of mockery. But that purpose could be accomplished much more simply: "What a stupid song - achy breaky schmaky, get a life!" The difference is that "Don't play that song/that achy-breaky song/the most annoying song I know" can express the same sentiment without, in most cases, also conveying a negative impression of the mocker's intelligence or good-will.
 |
 |
Last updated 6 July, 2002
All Rights Reserved. No part of these pages may be used or copied without express permission of the author.