God, I love this board.
aw, c’mon. The joke was debatably funny, someone was wooshed and tried to argument his way out of it. I may be being affected by my inability to remember who is who, but if anything, it would be Rigamarole’s rep who stands to suffer for not being a good sport. The fact that the board has decided not to like Autolycus doesn’t give people a free pass against him. Posts still have to stand on their own.
/agree.
I mean, I really don’t know Auto’s posting history, or why people seem to have taken him to task recently (I have noticed that in a few other threads), but there was nothing here to take offense at. I mean, I laughed at the joke. Am I to be shunned now?
The intentional humor, the unintentional humor, or the sticks up asses?
I know what I signed up for when I found this board, and they’re pretty good at finding sticks around here. 
The fact that there’s all three. . . in the same thread. . . that originated with a lame OP.
Ya gotta love that.
Just speaking for myself, I haven’t decided not to like Autolycus. . . I thought we were just joking around.
Richard Parker, it’s more a case of “this depiction of random, mindless destruction does not constitute a parody of so-called ‘x-treme’ ads, and would not even if such constituted a genre that was susceptible to parody, and even if it did and they were, it would still be permissible to criticize these images on various grounds, including if they’re ugly and stupid, not just whether they’re effective and clearly communicate the originator’s intent.” The mattresses are pretty clearly not headstones, but why that fact should demonstrate that the ad is a parody escapes me.
I was reluctant to click on pizzabrat’s link because I really have no use for a citation that says parody and hyperbole are the same thing, as pizzabrat implied. Fortunately, it doesn’t. It’s less rigorous than my definition, for sure, because it admits the possibility that the comic effect desired can be other than ridicule of the thing parodied, and that beyond mere imitation and a stab at humor there are no other required components. I disagree with that, but for purposes of discussion let’s pass it and see what happens.
What happens first is that a parody must still be a parody of something specific, a work or author or style. A good clue that this isn’t going on is when the purported target of the parody suddenly changes into something completely different real early in the argument. A while ago it was “x-treme” type ads (whatever they are), but now it’s “the idea of junk food giving you the drive to do crazy, destructive things” which is about exactly as “x-treme” as my mother, circa 1977, denying me a second Coke in an afternoon. The shift was probably necessary, but I think this was a bad direction for it. Given that the product category, “energy drinks,” often seriously purport to increase energy, endurance and alertness, parody is too high a horse to climb onto: it’s tough to claim parody even as your product continues to rely on the claims you’re exaggerating. Still, let’s hoist it up there and see what’s next.
What happens next is that you have an ad for a drink parodying the old saw that too much sugar leads to destruction. It attempts this by portraying ludicrous feats of strength. That’s another way it fails as parody: the original made no claims as to strength, so the exaggeration is off-target. It’s also, in a way that good parodies aren’t, pointless. Mocking the conventions of “too much sugar and caffeine have bad side effects” is only apt if they don’t have bad side effects, which is not a proposition I’d care to defend. They may not have the bad side effects the ad hyperbolizes, but if the point of the ad is that we should buy a product because it would be dumb to think we’d end up shredding appliances with our bare hands, than it’s succeeded in conveying a message even stupider and less valid than the one it attempts to parody. Oops.
Meanwhile, if I think cartoonish acts of destruction are an unappealing way to advertise this product, because the images themselves, at whetever level of text or subtext you take them, pander to whatever impulses respond positively to ugliness and violence, then I do. Shouting the word “parody” at me (especially with such a shaky grasp on what, exactly, is being parodied), doesn’t make the judgment invalid. At best, it offers an alternative interpretation of the message, or at least suggests a countervailing value to it that justifies the ugliness. Having considered both possibilities well beyond what the topic really deserves, I still don’t like the ad, and all the exercise accomplishes is to make me realize how badly it fails as parody as well.
I don’t mind that others like the ad, for good or bad or no reason. I just dislike the lazy use of conjuring with the incantation Parody! Irony! Subtext! as if it automatically excused sloppy, ugly or inane communication of any kind.
Maybe, but Autolycus’s habit of throwing around every SDMB “in-joke” he can get his hands on, like when my dad tries to use the word “hip” to relate to me, and his inability to let one of his own jokes stand until someone else finishes it off reeks of desperation for acceptance. So while posts need to standon their own, considering the source is very important.
You don’t jump up and down and go, “I whooshed you!!” And you especially don’t stick the gratuitous “gotcha ya!!” on the end. You read the board, Auto, we get that. Now stop acting like the new kid in third grade whose mama buys him a joke book to help him fit in.
Ah, a quote from “The Call of Cthu”
(Lovecraft is really, really, really uncomfortable on only half a mattress! :p)
I cannot blame you for not enjoying being at the bottom of a low-grade pile-on – not that it was that bad a one, by typical Pit standards. But, friend to friend, I’d advise you to mellow out and not be too stiff and unbending about the situation – not only is it usually the better course from a long-term board-relations standpoint, but you in particular have already set yourself up for some truly terrible puns if you do cop an attitude.
That wasn’t a shift at all, that was a definition. You don’t seem to be pop-culturally educated enough to even know what we’re talking about here. I’m guessing you probably just didn’t get the joke, and that’s that. But anyway, do you remember the 90’s Mountain Dew ads? They were the beginning and became the archetype of “x-treme” type ads. In them, after the subjects “Did the Dew”, they did crazy and (potentially, at least) destructive things. To catchy hard rock music. That’s the subject we’re starting from. Furthermore, the same person who told you that a parody had to be executed by placing the source in inappropriate contexts is still wrong about a parody having to be based on one specific work, rather than a genre or convention. Don’t listen to him anymore. As for the rest of your post, I’m not sure why you’ve wasted so many words just trying to say that you both completely missed the mark and you have some chip on your shoulder about the use of the word “parody”. It doesn’t matter - I was merely stating the fact that it was a parody, I wasn’t trying to excuse anything. Whether the commercial ultimately worked for you is completely irrelevant.
Hey, Autolycus said in the past that he wanted feedback when his behavior wasn’t particularly constructive, to help him stick out less like a sore thumb (and lightning rod) around here. Said feedback was provided by me, and without rancor on my part.
However, his response in this thread seems to indicate he no longer wishes such feedback, so I will refrain from giving such in the future. I’ve got lots of other stuff to do anyway.
I value the feedback; I merely didn’t want to turn this thread into a discussion about me. I’m just listening.
Pizzabrat, I still like my definition of parody – it provides some standards to distinguish between what’s parody and what isn’t, at least compared to the one cribbed off TheFreeDictionary.com. But since I accepted the looser definition for the sake of discussion, I don’t know why you’re complaining. Heck, I don’t even mind that you can’t keep a consistent description of this “parody’s” target material going for two consecutive posts. I know, I know: it’s not a shift, it’s a definition. The definition, however, used to be some undefined and probably undefineable genre of “x-treme-style ads.” I suggested some problems with this approach. More rapidly almost than the eye could follow, the target of parody then was “the idea of junk food giving you the drive to do crazy, destructive things,” which itself is about as “x-treme” as all the suburban housewives who have promoted it for the last fifty years. Assuming this to be the source material, though, came with its own problems, which I pointed out. Now the fodder for parody turns out to be old Mountain Dew commercials. Were those the ones that had, among other things, parking valets jumping cars from one parking garage to another and a guy reaching down a leopard’s throat to retrieve his beverage? You know, pizzabrat, I always thought those were jokes, not meant to be taken seriously. Do you think otherwise? Assuming for the moment that I’m right, how exactly is the DD commercial a parody of them, rather than just a retelling of the same joke years later with different props and destruction rather than danger as its punch line, and what message is that artistic choice (other than a certain creative poverty) meant to convey? Or are you already on to your next claim as to what’s being parodied?
It’s frustrating, I’m sure: invoking parody is often a sure-fire way to shut up critics (as is claiming they’re just not smart or hip enough to "get it’) without having to actually do any of the heavy lifting required to analyze and defend a message. In response to my dislike of the commercial, you said it was parody. You have three (and counting) different ideas as to what it’s a parody of, zero ideas as to how the parody is being achieved and the same amount as to how or why it should matter to my assessment. You think it’s a parody. Fabulous. As I perhaps should have said to begin with, but was too polite: So what? As for the words wasted, maybe you’re right, but that too is a personal assessment – they need not be wasted on everyone who might encounter them.
The reason that it being a parody is significant is because it isn’t designed to appeal to ignorance or brutish impulses or anything like that; it’s designed to appeal to tongue-in-cheek mockery of brutish impulses (and/or tongue-in-cheek mockery of appeals to brutish impulses). If you think the humor misses its mark, very well then, carry on. But if you think it strikes a base chord in viewers, genuinely, sincerely celebrating in destructive impulse, then your sense of irony is out of whack; you need a remedial lesson in how to interpret modern humor.
I’ll try to do this with some brevity.
I am not saying that you cannot criticize parody (and I don’t think **pizzabrat **is either). I am saying that you cannot persuasively criticize parody for promoting that which it is mocking simply because it portrays it. Nor can you persuasively criticize it for appealing to violent instincts when it is playfully mocking that violence.
On the mattress issue, my mistake on the ambiguity of the word “as.” I meant it in the sense of simile, not in the sense of “because.”
What do you guys think of this commercial? I think my mother would have killed me with that soda bottle, not squirted me with the sink hose, then cheerfully wiped it all up. Imagine the child homicides this commercial could cause by giving kids the wrong idea of what they can get away with if their mom has a fresh roll of Viva towels.
This thread has been hijacked! Can we please start being angry about tombstone vandalism again! Cheeseincrust!
Hah! I just watched that ad and was thinking about it. I can easily see myself doing that to my kid. What I wouldn’t do is say “this works better”. It would probably be more like “Take this, you sonofa”
I’ll try to be brief too. (1) To be “so stupid that no one could take it seriously” does not by itself qualify a work as parody, even by the most lenient definitions. (2) Parody is a form of humor, which like pathos or logic or narrative or verse or a hundred other forms, is a means to a communicative end, not an end in itself. Calling something parody merely classifies it, it doesn’t describe nor defend it. (3) Construct a reading of the commercial that identifies what’s being parodied, how the parody undercuts or denies or mocks the message of the source, and what the actual message of the commercial is and how it relates to the originators’ purpose, and then you’ve earned the right to argue why that message outweighs the disadvantages carried within the text and images used to convey it. (4) If the ad presents images that I find ugly and stupid, the assertion that they are merely parodying what I find ugly and stupid is worthless to me without an explanation as to why the parody actually presents a more acceptable message. (5) I don’t buy the assertion that hyperbolic exaggeration automatically constitutes parody or irony or satire, especially in advertising – it’s too often used to (humorously or not) convey exactly the message it exaggerates.
As I said, I don’t mind if other people like the ad. I get the idea of parody and humor – as a matter of fact, I’m fairly good at both. But there’s such a thing as a bad, stupid joke, too, and I think it would be good if more people recognized that.
And, Rubystreak, when I saw that commercial I was thankful that my kids were smart enough not to reproduce something they saw on TV, and too honest to do it and claim that it was some sort of parody.