copyright 2014 by Gary L. Pullman
The
way that Mad magazine
develops a parody is to use a set of conventions that is common to
all their satires of motion pictures, television series, and programs
associated with similar audiovisual media. Each of these conventions
include the absurd, so that object of the parody is ridiculed at
every opportunity and in a variety of ways. In the process, through
text and imagery, the parody makes frequent allusions to other
television shows or artifacts of popular culture, which, ironically,
has the paradoxical effect of grounding the parodied program in
reality while, at the same time, emphasizing its fictional nature.
Finally, the parody also often purposely confuses the lives of the
fictional characters with those of the actors who portray them,
further maintaining, while simultaneously differentiating, fact and
fiction.
The
parody begins with an introduction to the program that is being
parodied. This introduction typically identifies the program's basic
theme, or concept, and relates it to an ostensible purpose that is
implied by the effect that the program has had on its medium,
audience, or some other objective element. Often, the program's basic
storyline is ridiculed, and the main actor—or the character whom he
or she plays—is misrepresented in some manner—for example, his or
her intentions may be misstated. These conventions are discernible in
the following introduction to the magazine's parody of Buffy
the Vampire Slayer television
series:
Every
generation there is a Chosen One [concept]. A girl with three names
whose destiny it is to revive a notorious box-office flop as a
successful TV series [ostensible purpose]. For seven years she has
rescued her supporting cast from melodramatic perils and lame plot
twists [basic storyline]. But, now, in their time of greatest need,
she will abandon them to pursue a feature film career of nauseating
romantic comedies and abhorrent big-budget sequels [misrepresentation
of main character's intent]. This girl is. . .
Using
absurd surrogate names, the characters, lined up vertically, one
after another, as if standing in a police line-up, then introduce
themselves, speaking directly to the reader, as if each were
soliloquizing before a camera; typically, their address identifies
ironies or absurdities in their characters, their roles, or the
series' conventions.
I'm
Busty Bummers, and even though I'm 35, I'm still in my first year of
college. I suffer from a rare aging disorder called “90210
syndrome!” [Buffy Summer's introduction pokes fun at the
incongruity of a woman playing a character who is over twenty years
younger than she, a convention common to television shows that
feature supposedly teenage or young adult characters, such as 90210.]
I'm
Pillow. I used to be a mousy computer nerd, but now I'm a mousy
witch. [This quip ridicules the stereotypical nature of Willow
Rosenberg as “mousy” and suggests that the show's assignment of a
new persona to her, that of witch, has not made the character any
less stereotypical: she remains as “mousy” as ever.]
I'm
Busty's little sister YAWN. I get blamed for this show jumping the
shark. But it's not my FAULT! Give me my own SPIN-OFF and I'll prove
I'm a GREAT character! [This introduction includes fan criticism of
the Dawn Summers character's ruination of the series—many fans
considered her character not only unnecessary and unrealistic, even
in a fantasy series, but supremely annoying as well; the introduction
also alludes to the Buffy
spinoff Angel,
starring David Boreanaz. The words in capital letters imitate the character's tendency to whine.]
I'm
Xanadu and I used to be the comic relief. Now I just sit around and
get fatter every episode. [The character, Xander Harris, did provide
much of the show's “comic relief” before writers sidelined him
much of the time, as the show took on a darker tone, and the actor,
Nicholas Brendon, who played him did gain some weight, a fact that
the parody also addresses, suggesting that the character's relative
idleness and the actor's weight gain are related to one another, the
former causing the latter. The parody's rechristening of Xander as "Xanadu" incorporates an allusion to the fantastic world of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan," thus juxtaposing the popular culture of the television series to the classic culture of which Coleridge's poetry is part, which has the effect of further highlighting the absurdity of the television show.]
I'm
Spoke—I'm an edgy vampire [again, a cliché is savaged] who has a
love/hate relationship with BUSTY [a trite, melodramatic situation,
involving a May-December, Romeo-and-Juliet relationship, is
ridiculed]. After this show ends, at least I have a future in Vegas
as a BILLY IDOL impersonator! [The character of Spike is modeled, in physical appearance, on the singer whom “Spoke”
references. Las Vegas has been called the place where performers go
to earn a living after their careers have died—an implicit allusion
that is particularly apt for one of the living dead.]
I'm
Busty's Watcher, Gello. In the time I've been WATCHING her, Busty has
shrunk from a size 4 to buying all her clothes at Kids “R” Us!
Now she makes ALLY MCBEAL look fat! [This statement alludes to Sarah
Michelle Gellar's noticeable weight loss during the series'
seven-year tenure—and to another televisions series that stars an
all-but-anorexic actress, Calista Flockhart.]
Usually,
amusing images are included in this panel, as if they were props or
the actions of character actors who were included among the regular
cast to provide comic relief. For example, both Busty and Yawn hold
wooden stakes, and Pillow, who becomes a lesbian as well as a witch,
has her hand around Buffy's waist. In the background, a cemetery
headstone, complete with cross, is visible between Busty's legs.
Xanadu, as much a nerd as Pillow, wears a Star Trek
T-shirt. As he speaks of his love affair with Busty, Spoke makes the
sign for “I love you.” Gello holds the thick volume that the
actual series has associated with vampire lore, as a vampire, holding
a Martha Stewart Cooking
book, sprinkles salt on his shoulder, seasoning him to taste.
Following
the opening panel, which runs across the top of both pages of the
two-page spread, a series of smaller panels continues to poke fun at
the program that is being parodied, often by capitalizing upon the
conventions that the parody has made explicit.
For
example, Busty, with wooden stakes strapped along the side of the
suitcase she grips, is pursued by Gello, as, in the background, a
terrified young woman flees from a bat that chases her. “Busty,”
Gello calls, “where are you going? We need you!” [Obviously, to
survive, a television series needs its protagonist.] “Forget it,
Gello,” Busty replied. “I've been poking VAMPIRES with STAKES for
seven years, and I'm SICK of it. I'm ready to stretch as an actress.”
[the “poking” of “VAMPIRES with STAKES” alludes to Buffy's
rather promiscuous sexual liaisons with the undead, including both
Angel and Spike, or “Spoke.” Allegedly, the show's creator, Joss
Whedon, and the other actors wanted to produce the series for one
more season, but Gellar insisted upon leaving, saying she was tired
of the series and wanted to try other roles in motion pictures, so
her explanation, although appropriate to the fictional situation that
the parody has created, once again, echoes reality, a characteristic
of any parody.] Gello asks, “So, where are you going?” His
question, a transition, sets up her ironic response, “I'm going to
do SCOOBY DOO 2, so I can hurt MONSTERS with TORCHES.” [The change
of roles, the parody, suggests will not “stretch” Gellar's acting
ability in any way, because it is essentially the same sort of role
as that which she has played, as Buffy, or “Busty,” for the past
seven years.]
Gello's
plea to Busty, in the next panel, uses absurdity to exemplify what he
calls “reason,” an ironic parallel that is possible only in the
fantastic (and absurd) world of the series that the Mad
strip parodies: “Please listen to reason! This town is a gateway to
HELL known as the SMELLMOUTH! Whatever shall we do if you LEAVE us?”
Busty's reply, while not particularly amusing, reinforces the
absurdity of the series' concept: “Oh, Gello, if you want to shut
that stinking SMELLMOUTH, just call a PLUMBER! Or a good DENTIST!”
In
the next panel, a vampire rides piggyback aboard a victim while
Xanadu, having unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a flabby, hairy chest
and belly, seeks a romantic encounter with his one-time fiancee, Anya
Jenkins (“Anyawn,” in the parody. Like Buffy and Willow, Xander
also availed himself of several sexual partners during the show's
seven seasons, a plot device that was itself both stereotypical of
youth and melodramatic in terms of drama. “Hey, Anyawn, I know we
broke up last season and all, but whenever things look grim, I like
to sneak off and make out. Whadda ya say?” Anyawn, aghast,
exclaims, “Ugh! Sorry, Xanadu, but it looks like you put on FIVE
POUNDS for every ONE that Busty's lost! Now, for God's sake, button
your shirt!” Again, the parody addresses (and reinforces) an
element—Brendon's weight gain—in the introductory panel; in the
process, it alludes to the melodramatic episode in which Xander
abandons Anya at the altar on the day of their intended marriage.
Busty
addresses Yawn, advising her that, “As my long-lost little SISTER,
you may be required to carry out my LEGACY!” One of the points of
frustration among the show's viewers was the abrupt appearance, after
three seasons, of Dawn, as Buffy's sister, a “lame plot twist”
that was too much for them, even in a series as melodramatic as
Buffy. Alluding not to
the television show itself, but to Gellar's actual personal life,
Yawn asks, “Does that mean I'll have to marry a bad actor [Freddie
Prinze, Jr.], drop down to 80 pounds [a reference to Gellar's
dramatic weight loss, to which Gello has already alluded], and such
movies as Scooby Doobie Doo 2,
Simply Irresistible,
and The Grudge, Grudge
2, The Return,
and Southland Tales,
to name but a few such stinkers. “All that,” Busty agrees, “and
SHAMPOO COMMERCIALS, too!” [Gellar “starred” in commercials not
for shampoo, but for Mabelline cosmetics.] Obviously, Yawn fears
fulfilling such a prophecy; she does not want to follow in her
“sister's” career footsteps.
Next,
a histrionic Busty, holding her hand above her head and waving it in
a circle as she addresses Pillow and Gello, states, “And I suppose
Pillow is off somewhere performing a spell to keep me from leaving
the show.”
The
last panel identifies another complaint, among both the series'
viewers and critics (the addition of the lesbian subplot involving
Willow, or “Pillow”) and pokes fun at another series, Sabrina
the Teenage Witch, and at a role
that the actor Alyson Hannigan, who plays Willow, undertakes, as
“band geek,” Michelle Flaherty, in the film American
Pie 2, which includes faux
lesbian activity similar to the gratuitous lesbianism in Buffy.
Busty, a silhouette standing in the open doorway to Pillow's bedroom,
where the witch lies with her girlfriend, declares, “You know, that
whole plot” (or “lame plot twist,” of which the parody's
introduction warns readers is typical of the Buffy
series) “about you turning gay is a desperate bid for ratings!”
As she cuddles with her lover, Pillow replies, “And it worked! Now
I'll cast a new spell to get SABRINA THE TEEN-AGE WITCH to make out
with me!” Pillow then begins to cast her spell, the wording of the
incantation suggesting the absurdity of the spells that Willow
frequently casts on Buffy while
alluding to Hannigan's role in American Pie 2:
“Incartus Fake-latinus Make-outus One Time At Band Camp.”
By
definition, a parody is an imitation of a work, the purpose of which
is to mock the original by trivializing its content, tone, style, and
other attributes. Therefore, a parody identifies the elements of a
work that seem to be absurd, and, often by exaggeration, underscore
the absurdity of these elements. The first task, then, that a
parodist has is to identify the absurd elements in the work that is
to be parodied. In the case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
the Mad parody focuses
upon the series' fantastic concept, its “lame plot twists,” its
melodramatic situations, its stereotypical characters, the ironic
parallels between the fictional lives of the characters and the
actual lives of the actors who portray them, the affinities between
Buffy and other teen
or young adult television series, and the reliance of sexual
subplots, both covert and overt, heterosexual and homosexual alike,
of the show to maintain its appeal among teen and young adult
viewers. The appearance of the characters, as drawn by the Mad
artists, are, as caricatures of the actors who portray these
characters, itself parodic and complements, at times underscores, the
text's verbal assaults upon the spoofed show's absurd excesses. The
comic strip is, as Mad
demonstrates, repeatedly in this and other parodies of movies and
television series, particularly well-suited, as a linguistic-visual
medium, for lampooning popular art forms.
