# What's the big deal about "Sharknado"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 19, 2013, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948 "2013-07-19T16:05:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/21 "2013-07-19T18:47:40Z")
Hey, it’s all in the marketing. They even showed it at the Cannes Film Festival, as mentioned in [this thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=691912&highlight=cannes) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/22 "2013-07-19T18:48:00Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Sharknado proves Psychohistory dead! Wonderful conclusion. You should publish it. I’m serious. Obviously you would have to add a couple of thousand pointless words, but it’s the type of remarkably simple logic the world is missing. Thank you. All my logic is remarkably simple! (There’s a quote for all my haters to lift.) I don’t think we’ve said enough about **TroutMan** providing the definitive exegesis on _Sharknado_. And for **Gangster Octopus** chiming in. Heck with an academic article on Psychohistory. I’m penning _TroutMan Vs. Gangster Octopus_. Double the ratings! ---
**Author:** ![Tanbarkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@Tanbarkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tanbarkie)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/23 "2013-07-19T18:52:12Z")
[This article](http://badassdigest.com/2013/07/12/sharknado-the-hyper-ironic-face-of-modern-exploitation/) gets to the heart of the matter better than anything I’ve read. In short: ironic mockery of “so bad it’s ‘good’” B-level movies has become so ubiquitous that it now literally makes business sense for studios to design intentionally bad movies based around outrageously absurd - but readily Twitter-friendly - conceits. What Ed Wood once did by accident, SyFy now does on purpose as an easy revenue stream. ---
**Author:** ![deltasigma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e5b9ba/32.png) [@deltasigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deltasigma)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/24 "2013-07-19T19:16:28Z")
> [@Tanbarkie](#): > > [This article](http://badassdigest.com/2013/07/12/sharknado-the-hyper-ironic-face-of-modern-exploitation/) gets to the heart of the matter better than anything I’ve read. In short: ironic mockery of “so bad it’s ‘good’” B-level movies has become so ubiquitous that it now literally makes business sense for studios to design intentionally bad movies based around outrageously absurd - but readily Twitter-friendly - conceits. What Ed Wood once did by accident, SyFy now does on purpose as an easy revenue stream. OMG. So you honestly belief that this sums up what most people, even the people here find enjoyable about the movie? > [@](#): > > ``` > When that ironic enjoyment of bad things became a business, it made sense that the manufacture of bad things would soon follow. ***Sharknado*** is the pinnacle of that, an intentionally bad movie that is riffing on other intentionally bad movies. Imagine if someone made a parody movie of the Zucker Abrams Zucker parody movies and you’d be looking into the same hall of mirrors occupied by ***Sharknado***. But the exploitation majesty of ***Sharknado*** is that for some reason the target audience doesn’t seem to quite get that the movie is bad completely and totally on purpose. There’s no charming accident of incompetence on display - it is rather coldly competent, in fact. > > Or maybe the audience does know that. I’m beginning to be convinced that people don’t even know where their irony ends and their sincerity begins anymore. But as long as they get to make knowing jokes about it on the AV Club comments before meeting their friends for drinks at a bar that has taken great pains to resemble a dive bar without actually being a dive bar, they don’t care. > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![Roadfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/25 "2013-07-19T19:39:51Z")
I think you’re all making this more complicated than it is. The reason that “Sharknado” caught so much attention while the other movies mentioned in the OP did not is simple: The title. I mean, you hear “Mansquito”, and you think cheap remake of “The Fly”. You hear “Sharktopus”, and you think another monster variation. You hear “Sharknado” and you go, “Wait, what? How can they combine a shark and a tornado?” It just grabs you and makes you think or wonder about it in ways that none of the other titles do. ---
**Author:** ![deltasigma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e5b9ba/32.png) [@deltasigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deltasigma)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/26 "2013-07-19T19:58:11Z")
> [@Roadfood](#): > > I think you’re all making this more complicated than it is. The reason that “Sharknado” caught so much attention while the other movies mentioned in the OP did not is simple: The title. Oh sure, there’s definitely that, but even as someone who generally can’t sit through a SyFy movie, I really enjoyed this. I had to reflect for a while to understand why and I’m not sure really understand - not completely certainly - but I’m pretty sure that a big part of it is the fact that it was artfully awful. I’ve seen a couple of parody movies like a couple of the Scream parodies, Scary Movie. These had some funny scenes, but they weren’t artful. They were just cut and pastes of SNL skits basically. This was funny first because it was so obviously self mocking while often in the very same moment being dead pan serious, but also because it was so well nuanced. They didn’t beat you over the head with any of the allusions or references with a ‘wink, wink, point, did you see what I just did there?’ Now I don’t mean to say that it was fine art or anything by describing it that way but it clearly did demonstrate a level of trade craft and humor that you simply don’t see in the vast majority of bad movies - whether they’re that way intentionally or not. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/27 "2013-07-19T20:07:19Z")
To be honest, I preferred[Mega Python vs. Gatoroid](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1680138/)but Sharknado was enough of a hoot to make it worth watching on a summer night when everything else stunk. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/28 "2013-07-19T20:24:50Z")
> [@deltasigma](#): > > Now I don’t mean to say that it was fine art or anything by describing it that way but it clearly did demonstrate a level of trade craft and humor that you simply don’t see in the vast majority of bad movies - whether they’re that way intentionally or not. Yup, I think the creators approached it with humor but without being over the top like the Scary Movies you mentioned. Check out an [interview with the writer](http://io9.com/we-asked-the-writer-of-sharknado-some-very-serious-ques-736131336) - they were having fun, not only employing some cold calculus on how to appeal to hipsters. > [@](#): > > **How are the sharks cognizant enough to keep biting people while they’re flying through the air?** > > If you were a shark and you found yourself flying through the air, wouldn’t you keep biting? I think you’d be pretty pissed about being plucked out of your nice familiar ocean where you’re king of the predators, and you’d probably take it out on whoever got in your way. Honestly, I don’t understand why people are so perplexed by this concept. The logic is undeniable. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/29 "2013-07-19T21:13:01Z")
Writer: “Just a thought here, but can we have him chainsaw his way out of a shark?” Producer: “How would he get into he shark?” Writer: “Well he would leap into it.” Producer; “OH yeah, we can do that, but should we? does it make sense?” EVERYONE IN THE ROOM STARTS LAUGHING Writer: “Oh my,” wipes away tear, “I’ll get right on that.” Producer: “And have him pull that chick out of there too, the one that got swallowed mid-air.” Writer: “Well of course, I pretty much figured that you’d want that already.” Producer: “Just checking.” ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/30 "2013-07-19T22:02:52Z")
There is this odd quirk in modern pop culture, for people it’s summed up by: “A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.” —Daniel J. Boorstin So you have Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian. It seems something similar that happens with movies and such. So _Sharknado_ and _Snakes on a Plane_ get a huge amount of pop culture references, far out of proportion to the number of people who have actually seen them, etc. It is inexplicable. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/31 "2013-07-19T22:23:52Z")
I can see **Gangster Octopus** as a SyFy movie. ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/32 "2013-07-19T22:41:39Z")
> [@deltasigma](#): > > OMG. So you honestly belief that this sums up what most people, even the people here find enjoyable about the movie? That’s precisely why I’m going to watch it. What other reason is there? ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/33 "2013-07-19T23:12:21Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > I can see **Gangster Octopus** as a SyFy movie. I concede, it does sound a little more frightening than “Attack of Troutman”. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/34 "2013-07-20T00:39:41Z")
While I don’t think this was a major factor in the _Sharknado_ buzz, the movie did get a little unintended publicity from the late _Glee_ star Cory Monteith. He [tweeted](https://twitter.com/CoryMonteith) about it last week…just before he died. His last words to the public were “what the crap is Sharknado[?] oh. IT’S A SHARK TORNADO.” ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/35 "2013-07-20T00:43:32Z")
That article about “look at those crazy movies for sale at Cannes” was reposted and quoted dozens of times, and even made its way onto “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!” It was just a meme with some product behind it. ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/36 "2013-07-20T00:54:01Z")
> [@bump](#): > > SyFy has come out with dozens of these stupid horror and/or sci-fi B-movies for the better part of a decade, with each more absurd than the last. > > What’s so special about “Sharknado”? IOW, _Sharknado_ is the Rebecca Sealfon of B-movies. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/37 "2013-07-20T01:06:43Z")
This seems like a huge marketing opportunity for Air Swimmer, the guys who make the [remote controlled flying shark](http://www.x-zylo.com/images/stories/airswimmers/shark-lg.jpg). ---
**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 20, 2013, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/38 "2013-07-20T01:44:01Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The phenomenon of events breaking into the national cultural consciousness has been studied for a long time. > > Here’s what we know about it: nothing. > > It kills any notion of psychohistory dead, though. Cultural events are all “mules” and yet have enormous effects on society. Asimov didn’t understand this because Asimov understood nothing about any of the social sciences. It’s a remarkable omission. > > Other than that, “stuff happens” is the only comprehensive answer we have. “Come here, Gaal” said the psychohistorian Hari “Raven” Seldon, pulling out his pocket calculator. “I start with the matrix for Popular Entertainments…” his fingers flew over the keys of the device, rendering the factors in glowing red numbers. “Now I add the coefficient for sharks… and for tornados. And we process to find the result of combining these.” Gaal Dornick’s eyes widened when he saw the result. “Why, that’s many times greater than the result for Abraham Lincoln’s Doctor’s Dog!” he exclaimed. “Many times,” agreed Seldon. “Can there be any doubt that, if anyone were to produce such an entertainment, many foolish people would be drawn into watching it? That is why I have decided to set up the Foundation, Dornick, and I want you to be part of it – to prevent things like these … “Sharknados”. Because can there be any dopubt that, knowing of these fantastic ratings, once the entertainment executives know about it, it will be produced? In fact, there wi;ll be entire series of such monstrosities, unless we work now to prevent it…” ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/39 "2013-07-20T02:02:36Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Heck with an academic article on Psychohistory. I’m penning _TroutMan Vs. Gangster Octopus_. Double the ratings! Tricky. **TroutMan** would be seriously outgunned. I hear **Gangster Octopus** is heavily armed. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948/40 "2013-07-20T03:36:52Z")
Remember that song “Friday”? And the whole Charlie Sheen thing? Same thing but with more sharks and tornadoes. The Internet makes dumb things fun but then everyone remembers they are dumb. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-sharknado/663948.md?page=3)