As Scott pointed out in his review, you need not fear that this week's Superhero Movie is another brainchild of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, whose satanic perversions of the parody genre -- Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans -- have been terrorizing unsuspecting audiences every year since 2006. Superhero Movie was actually directed by Craig Mazin, a protégé of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker dream team responsible for Airplane! and The Naked Gun, and produced by David Zucker himself. But it, too, is plagued -- albeit to a much lesser degree -- by what's turning out to be the problem with the entire modern generation of spoofs going back to Scary Movie: relentless pop culture specificity.
The basest incarnations of this, of course, are the Friedberg-Seltzer monstrosities, which may be worthless as comedies but which could prove valuable to historians because they indicate precisely what dominated the American zeitgeist in the few months before their release. It's too generous to call these films' vulgar spasms "jokes," but to the extent that's what they are, they depend entirely on either audience members' awareness of US Weekly-type factoids such as Britney Spears' shaving her head or their recall of particular scenes and characters in recent box-office hits. That's not to say that these kinds of jokes can't be funny -- the problem with Friedberg and Seltzer, as others have pointed out, is that they think throwing something current on the screen ("Look, Paris Hilton!") constitutes humor. But they do limit comedies' universal appeal and staying power.
I can't emphasize enough that Superhero Movie is light-years beyond Date Movie, etc., in every possible way. Still, it winds up doing much the same thing. In a decade, how many people are going to understand a reference to "2 Girls, 1 Cup?" How many will remember the Tom Cruise scientology video that gets an extended parody treatment? Nearly every scene is taken directly from a recent comic-book film -- mostly Spider-Man, but also Batman Begins and X-Men -- but will viewers be able to recall those movies in that level of detail a few years from now?
This sort of ultra-referential humor can work -- and does a couple of times in Mazin's film -- but ultimately isn't (I don't think) as funny as a more general lampooning of movie conventions. Think about it: what are the funniest jokes in the entire Scary Movie franchise? My picks would be: a) the part when Carmen Electra, on the run from a psychotic slasher, grabs a banana from a table that also held a gun and a knife, and b) the weird moment in Scary Movie 3 when the Shyamalan-style spinning camera makes Charlie Sheen dizzy (a gag that's reused, by the way, in Superhero Movie). Neither required you to remember a specific scene or character, or, worse, some piece of celebrity gossip. You just had to know your movies.
These days, you can pop in Top Secret! or High Anxiety and watch them without missing a beat. Sure, there are some specific references, but they're either so famous that they can be considered general knowledge (e.g. Mel Brooks's skewering of the Vertigo dolly zoom in High Anxiety, 19 years later) or not dependent on your recognition of the source (e.g. all the elements that Airplane! borrows from Airport, Airport 1975 and Zero Hour!). Of course it's theoretically possible that there are tons of jokes in these movies that fly over my head every time and I simply don't notice, but somehow I doubt it. I watched Airplane! for the first time when I was about 14, not having seen the movies it references and with no knowledge of 1980 pop culture, and I laughed my ass off. If a 14-year old watches Superhero Movie in 2020, I suspect it will be mostly a dead zone.
The timeless comedy may not be dead, but the timeless parody seems to be. [EDIT: Or it would be if it weren't for Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg and Judd Apatow/Jake Kasdan, as commenters rightly point out.]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
3-29-2008 @ 8:28PM
lechmat said...
Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead?
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3-29-2008 @ 8:32PM
Ryan said...
Exactly. The trouble people have with spoofs is that they aren't watching the right ones. In my opinion, the genre spoofs done by Edgar Wright are the definitive comedies of our generation.
3-29-2008 @ 8:37PM
Eugene Novikov said...
Interesting. I guess I didn't see those as falling in quite the same genre (I think there's a stronger argument for Walk Hard, which I probably should have mentioned). But yeah, maybe the Wright/Pegg films have reinvented the parody. Good call.
3-29-2008 @ 8:37PM
Ben G said...
Walk Hard was a fantastic spoof that i'm sure will become a cult-classic once it hits DVD next month. it and the Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg/Nick Frost movies are the best of the genre in years.
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3-29-2008 @ 10:19PM
Mr. R said...
The best spoof in cinema history is Mel Brooks´ Young Frankenstein. If you watch it today, it's still subtle and classy, great laughs and you don't need to connect every darn joke to some reference, it's just amazing director, actors and cinematography. I would rather re watch it over and over before standing one more contemporary garbage like this.
Blazing Saddles is also up there as best western spoof too, they don't make 'em like they used to.
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3-30-2008 @ 6:47AM
Chris Nixon said...
I watched "Walk Hard" over the weekend. I didn't expect much but was really taken by it. Funny, silly and quality.
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3-30-2008 @ 11:04AM
bevo said...
Movies like Super Hero appeal to the same people who prefer Family Guy. These forms of entertainment are cut from the same cloth, created by people who have zero idea what constitute parody.
For parody to be effective, the creator must be literate. The creator has to understand the conventions and structures of the genre. The creators of Airplane and Young Frankenstein understood this concept.
The writers of National Lampoon magazine, which included the sensational P.J. O'Rouke and John Hughes, were terrific at parody. The House at Pooh represents one of the best parody pieces because to understand why Pooh wanted to get into Kanga's honey pot, you had to have read Milne's original to find the humor in the parody. Otherwise, you had a ribald piece.
Soapdish is a good movie, but it is tough to make good parody of a genre (television soaps) that is a parody of itself. I fear Dewey Cox falls in the same problem because bio pics have become parodies. Every sports movie made since the Bad News Bears, Raging Bull, and Rocky has been a parody of itself.
Parody done correctly is subversive at its core because it uses the narrative to destroy the genre. Shaun of the Dead represents parody done correctly because it uses the conventions of the zombie film to make fun of the genre.
Movies like Meet the Spartans and Family Guy are lazy. They are crated for a consumer that is illiterate. and cannot be bothered with parody.
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3-31-2008 @ 10:13AM
Eric H said...
I have to disagree with the Family Guy portion of your comment, Family Guy is a 30 minute cartoon for quick laughs not comparable to the crap you mention.
3-30-2008 @ 7:38PM
Gerardo Flores Torres said...
I believe that in great part, what's wrong about these new comedies is their overwhelming use of slapstick humour. I guy getting hit in the head or a kid banging himself against a fan on the ceiling (scary movie 3) are examples of this. Or how about the small man in Epic movie struck by lightning again and again.... they just do this TOO MUCH! I've never laughed at these "bang on head" skits... it's just stupid, don't you agree?
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3-31-2008 @ 1:46PM
rex said...
Wet Hot Summer deserves a mention. I thiink it did a great job of hitting all of the cliches that grew out of the "Summer Camp" movies from the 80's.
I also think that Hot Fuzz/Shawn of the Dead are successful due to the fact that they are more than a simple parody. They strive to be more then the films that they reference and while they skewer some of the genre cliches they also work as a film on their own.
I don't think we will need to worry about kids in the future not getting the pop culture references in these crappy movies, I don't think anybody will even watch these movies in 15 years let alone remember them.
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4-02-2008 @ 3:59AM
Organs said...
I fully agree. When I watch Johnny Dangerously, I laugh hysterically every time I see it. And the only joke I can't really appreciate is when Keaton's character offs Danny Devito's character in what apparently mocked a malt liquor commercial at the time.
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4-02-2008 @ 7:20AM
The Major said...
Another thing I would add is that a lot of the new 'spoofs' seem to be by people who generally hate the things they are spoofing. Whereas Mel Brooks was laughing affectionately at westerns and the Frankenstein story with 'Blazing Saddles' and 'Young Frankenstein' respectively, we now have jokes that insinuate 'Lord of the Rings' is merely a story of two homosexuals etc. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost do not do this. They love the genres they are spoofing, so you get that sense of affection.
It's easy to point and laugh at someone for being creative. It's much harder to be the one being creative. It's a schoolkid atmosphere and that's why I despise these 'spoofs'.
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4-02-2008 @ 9:23AM
rlpniew said...
I agree with the thrust of the article, but I don't rank the current spate of parodies with the classics like "Airplane" or "Blazing Saddles." I look at them more as an outgrowth of the "Beach" movies of the Sixties, with their topical references and walk on cameos (come on -- I hate to say it, but most of today's audience would not understand a walk-on by Peter Lorre.) The beach movies have their charm, and I still enjoy watching them, but that is because I can still remember the references. The currrent parodies are not meant to stand the test of time. I am not a big fan -- the humor is forced, and there is very little charm to them, but they pass the time when nothing else is on TV and "Epic Movie" is on HBO.
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4-02-2008 @ 11:56AM
AirDave817 said...
My Favorites have always been Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, High Anxiety and Airplane. Some of Mel Brooks' later spoofs and parodies were kind of flat. History of the World, Part I just felt lame and forced. So did Spaceballs and Robin Hood: Men in Tights. It would have been fun if Spaceballs were more of a science fiction spoof and less of a Star Wars spoof. Maybe more Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and Star Trek references than "Drewish Princess" jokes.
I saw all three of the Scream movies - and I thought those were a parody of the genre - and very well done. Scary Movie just looked like a parody of Scream - hu-bu-wha-? I've seen some of the previews, and they look like Saturday Night Live or MadTV sketches. Or maybe I should say Studio 60 sketches.
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4-02-2008 @ 4:17PM
Sean said...
Are you really citing 'High Anxiety' as an example of a movie which *doesn't* have tons of movie-specific references and parodying strung together? Because it seriously undercuts your argument if you are.
Mel Brooks in general is an exception to the rules you are citing, since he made one of the best parodies of all times out of a movie which limits itself to largely spoofing two movies ('Frankenstein' and 'Bride of Frankenstein').
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4-02-2008 @ 5:12PM
extremesplash said...
I believe the reason most of the "new spoofs" fail is that they are really just an endless barage of pop culture references and fart jokes, the producers think if they throw enough crap at the audience some of it will stick. What made the old spoofs great was that the gags were situational and in some way moved the story along, they were not just throwaway gags.
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4-02-2008 @ 8:09PM
Michael Williams said...
The first items in the press to which all men turn are the ones about which they already know. If we have witnessed some event, whether a ball game or a stock crash or a snowstorm, we turn to the report of that happening, first. Why? The answer is central to any understanding of media. Why does a child like to chatter about the events of its day, however jerkily? Why do we prefer novels and movies about familiar scenes and characters? Because for rational beings to see or recognize their experience in a new material form is an unbought grace of life. Experience translated into a new medium literally bestows a delightful playback of earlier awareness. The press repeats the excitement we have in using our wits, and by using our wits we can translate the outer world into the fabric of our own beings. This excitement of translation explains why people quite naturally wish to use their senses all the time. Those external extensions of sense and faculty that we call media we use as constantly as we do our eyes and ears, and from the same motives. On the other hand, the book-oriented man considers this nonstop use of media as debased; it is unfamiliar to him in the book-world.
-Marshall McLuhan
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4-03-2008 @ 1:09PM
boxofficepsychics said...
I think that you might have to agree with this:
http://www.boxofficepsychics.com/2008/04/02/friedberg-and-seltzer-must-be-stopped-and-you-can-help/
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4-03-2008 @ 7:22PM
Oscar said...
He may have been kidding, but somewhere I read that Seth Rogen wants to do a spoof movie about the current crop of spoof movies.
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4-03-2008 @ 7:24PM
Jen said...
I doubt that any of the current spoofs will stand the test of time, but they do make for a quick laugh if you are familiar with the movies they're spoofing. True, most of the time, they are crude humor, and certainly not something you'd want to watch with your mom, but they're mostly targeting a younger, more naive audience who crack similar jokes on a day to day basis.
What I find interesting is how many people still laugh at and enjoy fart jokes. I mean, the first thing that happens in Scary Movie is Carmen Electra cutting one in the kitchen. And no joke, I'm sitting there with three of my friends, not even comfortable in our seats yet, and they're already rolling.
So while the spoofy movies probably won't stand the test of time, perhaps the classic fart joke will.
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