# Indistinguishable from parody **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 29, 2019, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787 "2019-07-29T02:02:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ecks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bcef8e/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ecks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ecks)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/1 "2019-07-29T02:02:36Z")
So I’m reading “Ever Since Carrie”, about Broadway flops. It’s interesting, because some of the productions while taken seriously by the creators, are pretty much indistinguishable from deadpan parodies of the genre. Something like Chu Chem, a musical about Jews set in China just seems too off kilter not to be a parody. Any suggestions of works that are parodies without intending to be? ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/2 "2019-07-29T02:54:05Z")
The **Battlefield Earth** movie almost looks like it is making fun of the source material and cheesy scifi movies in general. It turns out they were serious and it is just that bad of a movie. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/3 "2019-07-29T04:08:41Z")
I’ve heard it argued that Heinlein’s _Number of the Beast_ was intentionally and self-referentially bad, written for the exact purpose of providing other authors with examples of what not to do. But for me to evaluate those arguments would require re-reading it, and that’s really hard to justify. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/4 "2019-07-29T04:36:55Z")
My father’s been ill and I’ve been spending a lot of time with him lately. As a result, I’ve been watching a lot more daytime TV than I normally do. It’s not all bad. I find I actually enjoy old episodes of _Gunsmoke_ and _The Andy Griffith Show_. But my father was flicking through the channels yesterday and he decided to watch a show called _Worst Bakers in America_. And I refuse to believe these people are real. They must be actors portraying a collection of idiots. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/5 "2019-07-29T04:37:50Z")
Apparently, [bananas are designed by God](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXLqDGL1FSg) for the benefit of humans. First time I saw it I thought it was a comedy sketch mocking creationists. No, it’s real. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/6 "2019-07-29T11:35:41Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’ve heard it argued that Heinlein’s _Number of the Beast_ was intentionally and self-referentially bad, written for the exact purpose of providing other authors with examples of what not to do. But for me to evaluate those arguments would require re-reading it, and that’s really hard to justify. I find this really hard to believe. But then again, I find just about all the theories I’ve read about Number of the Beast to be hard to believe. NotB was the first Heinlein that I read when it was brand new, and I felt seriously annoyed that it turned out to be such an awful book. I did re-read it a few years ago, and I still feel that way. I think people keep trying to make excuses for it because they can’t believe Heinlein would turn out something so bad. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/7 "2019-07-29T14:49:04Z")
Yeah, I’m inclined to agree with that. It’d be one thing if Heinlein’s second-worst book were only as bad as, say, _Time for the Stars_. In that case, _Number of the Beast_ would be an aberration, in need of explanation. But he actually had a whole lot of books covering a wide span of quality, with some others nearly as bad as _Number of the Beast_, or arguably even worse. And furthermore, the bad ones (including _Number_) are mostly clustered together in time, and bookended by a traumatic brain affliction. The simplest explanation is just that, yes, it really is that bad. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/8 "2019-07-29T15:14:44Z")
I have heard that Neil Young’s album Rust Never Sleeps was one side of material that Neil liked, and one side of deliberately bad songs that he expected people to like. Then he could laugh at his audience’s stupidity. I guess. Neil never really did like his fans, after all. While I don’t know if that’s true, there is a difference in tone between the two sides. And for what it’s worth, I like the “bad” side better. So either I’m stupid, or Neil isn’t very good at making deliberately bad songs. ---
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/9 "2019-07-29T15:22:56Z")
A few years back I wrote movie/DVD reviews for an Asian movie fan website. One of the films I reviewed was **A Chinese Tall Story**. On the face of it, it’s a retelling of the Chinese mythological epic adventure “Journey to the West,” written about 500 years ago. There have been several well-known film adaptations. But I could not believe this jumbled mess. My review was about 6,000 words of dismay, but I’ll only cut a couple of pertinent passages. > [@](#): > > So how does it all go wrong? In the first 30 minutes, we are introduced to [four derring-do protagonists], kidnapped children, a “millennium bug demon” (which shoots laser beams), an underground Tree God, a lizard imp tribe, an angelic girl in an intergalactic egg, the Lord Chancellor Tortoise, a Sea Dragon King, a ever-morphing magic golden staff, a chatterbox imp girl, wormholes in space, and the Four Heavenly Knights. > > At one point I was debating with myself if **A Chinese Tall Story** was a spoof. I was almost able to convince myself that it was when the intergalactic egg girl got out and lit up a Marlboro (!) while talking with the monk who was practicing martial arts dressed in a Spider-Man costume (!!). But the movie takes itself seriously enough for the most part, with quite a few serious scenes of romance and pathos. So I honestly believe it was supposed to present as a straight-up fantastical, epic, rousing action/adventure comedy. But it sure came across to me as bad parody. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/10 "2019-07-29T15:35:17Z")
_Starship Troopers_. The movie. Afterwards, people involved claimed it was a parody, but it’s clear they didn’t know what the word meant when they made it. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/11 "2019-07-29T15:41:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’ve heard it argued that Heinlein’s _Number of the Beast_ was intentionally and self-referentially bad, written for the exact purpose of providing other authors with examples of what not to do. But for me to evaluate those arguments would require re-reading it, and that’s really hard to justify. Note that a different version of NotB will be released late this year [https://www.arcmanorbooks.com/heinlein](https://www.arcmanorbooks.com/heinlein) ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/12 "2019-07-29T16:07:17Z")
Going the other direction, _Scream_ was (to me, transparently) a parody-and-tribute to a zillion teenage horror flicks. But apparently some people didn’t get it as such and composed _Scary Movie_ which tries to be a parody of _Scream_. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/13 "2019-07-29T16:36:06Z")
This thread reminds me of one time in probably the early to mid 1990s, long enough ago that MTV was still primarily focused on showing music videos. I was channel surfing one weekend morning and stumbled upon a show on MTV hosted by Weird Al, in which he would show a music video and then his parody of that video. When he played the video for “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” by the Crash Test Dummies I honestly wasn’t sure if that wasn’t the parody video. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/14 "2019-07-29T18:08:45Z")
Back when Mad Magazine first started running paid ads in their magazine some of the time I couldn’t tell what was a Mad parody and what was an actual product because this was the early 00’s and all the ads were for xtreme kids stuff like green ketchup and spicy fruit juice. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/15 "2019-07-29T18:42:55Z")
“This Is Spinal Tap” has the same problem, but from the other direction. It’s a parody that’s so spot-on that many thought it was a real documentary. This is exacerbated by the fact that much of the heavy metal world is so over the top that you sometimes think they’re a parody. ---
**Author:** ![moojja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@moojja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moojja)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/16 "2019-07-29T19:03:17Z")
> [@divemaster](#): > > A few years back I wrote movie/DVD reviews for an Asian movie fan website. One of the films I reviewed was **A Chinese Tall Story**. On the face of it, it’s a retelling of the Chinese mythological epic adventure “Journey to the West,” written about 500 years ago. There have been several well-known film adaptations. > > But I could not believe this jumbled mess. My review was about 6,000 words of dismay, but I’ll only cut a couple of pertinent passages. > > So I honestly believe it was supposed to present as a straight-up fantastical, epic, rousing action/adventure comedy. But it sure came across to me as bad parody. Are you familiar with Chinese culture or mythology? Because Journey to the West is just old popular story, most, if not everyone in China knows the character and the plot already. Some of their stories have turn into idioms in the Chinese language. So in a lot of these adaptations, you can just drop the characters in without needing any explanation. I haven’t seen your movie, but I can already tell you the the backstory behind the ever-morphing magic golden staff (a major weapon of the Monkey King, you rarely see him depicted without it). All the other characters that mystify you are also part of the Chinese folktale/mythos: The Four Heavenly Knights, you’ll see them at the entrance in the majority of Buddhist temples in China. No explanation needed, we know who they are, and their powers are. An underground Tree God? There are Chinese love stories featuring man falling in love with various Tree/flower gods. In Chinese folklore, fox demon, spider demon, snake demon, Moon goddess, water spirits are commonly featured. Since Journey to the West is based on Chinese folklore, a lot of these characters are not that weird in context. The wormhole in space though, I’ll admit is just weird. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/17 "2019-07-29T19:11:54Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > “This Is Spinal Tap” has the same problem, but from the other direction. It’s a parody that’s so spot-on that many thought it was a real documentary. If I hadn’t already known who Rob Reiner, Patrick McNee, Billy Crystal and Howard Hessman were, I could have believed it was real, too. Some of my friends thought it was real. The album did fool me. I saw the album in the college bookstore before I’d heard of the movie, and marveled at the cover. I loved the usage of the heavy metal umlaut in the band name. Of the cover, I thought, “this is the logical end of evolution of heavy metal album covers. Just solid black. Where else can you go after that?” I did NOT add “none more black”, I admit. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/18 "2019-07-29T19:40:09Z")
> [@moojja](#): > > Are you familiar with Chinese culture or mythology? Because Journey to the West is just old popular story, most, if not everyone in China knows the character and the plot already. Some of their stories have turn into idioms in the Chinese language. So in a lot of these adaptations, you can just drop the characters in without needing any explanation. > I haven’t seen your movie, but I can already tell you the the backstory behind the ever-morphing magic golden staff (a major weapon of the Monkey King, you rarely see him depicted without it). > > All the other characters that mystify you are also part of the Chinese folktale/mythos: > > The Four Heavenly Knights, you’ll see them at the entrance in the majority of Buddhist temples in China. No explanation needed, we know who they are, and their powers are. > > An underground Tree God? There are Chinese love stories featuring man falling in love with various Tree/flower gods. > > In Chinese folklore, fox demon, spider demon, snake demon, Moon goddess, water spirits are commonly featured. Since Journey to the West is based on Chinese folklore, a lot of these characters are not that weird in context. > > The wormhole in space though, I’ll admit is just weird. Well, yes. That’s what I get for cutting like 5 sentences out of a 6,000 word review. My first paragraph is, word-for-word: > [@](#): > > One of the film’s characters is the “Monkey King” (aka Sun Wukong), an extremely well-known character in Chinese mythology, first told in the stories of the “Journey to the West,” the epic adventure written about 500 years ago. (The story of the Monkey King and his disciples is also the focus of the **Chinese Odyssey** films, amongst many others). Other familiar characters that appear in the film are Zhu Wuneng (the pig character) and Sha Wujing. It just seemed too much in the weeds for the point I was trying to make, so I didn’t go all into that. This movie has robots and lasers and spaceships. And Spider-man. That’s what mystifies me. NOT the traditional characters. My point was not that the traditional Chinese mythology and folklore was weird, _but that what this movie did to it was so weird it seemed to be bordering on parody_. I would invite you to see the movie to get where I’m coming from, but I’m not that sadistic. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/19 "2019-07-29T21:15:38Z")
I think this is a related phenomenon. [Hank Wangford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Wangford) was kinda betwixt and between. Those guys really were big Country Music fans, but at the time (1970’s) you just couldn’t be English and be a country band. So the whole thing was undercut with parody (songs: [Cowboys Stay On Longer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8UvC5sAnHI); Jogging For Jesus; Never Wear Mascara If You Love A Married Man etc). But they played it properly. I mean, if you weren’t listening too closely you would never know. [The Darkness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darkness_(band))were more puzzling. In the beginning they were trailed as parody. The idea of a “real life” parody heavy metal band appealed to me, but they just seemed “real” (rather than parody) and bad. I never really knew if they were parody or not, and in the end never liked them enough to care. j ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2019, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787/20 "2019-07-30T01:22:02Z")
I love Monster Magnet, but I’ve never figured out if they’re for real or a parody. I mean, listen to (and look at) that: [Spacelord](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dscfeQOMuGw) [Negasonic Teenage Warhead](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKj5cJ9_KSg) Or the charmingly named [Pill Shovel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGRUKUM1Nw0) In fact, you could pick everything by them to make the point (their straightest songs maybe is their cover of Howlin’ Wolf’s [Evil](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3GTwlVP5tQ), but the original isn’t a picnic either). But they ROCK! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indistinguishable-from-parody/837787.md?page=2)