Indecisive Parody: Difference between revisions

In order for a parody to work, a work of fiction needs to also take on many of the traits of its target. For example, a parody of action films will, inevitably, have to have some action sequences of its own. If it didn't, it wouldn't be so much of a parody as it would be a public mocking of the genre. A parody of [[Magical Girl|Magical Girls]]s would be required to have at least one Magical Girl character or else it would just be mocking the character type. Most of the best parodies actually stand not only as comedy, but also as the particular genre they are a creation of.

How this happens can vary widely. Perhaps it is just too [[Affectionate Parody|affectionate]] of the genre it's a parody of. Perhaps it doesn't go far enough. Perhaps it's just too [[Truth in Television|close to its target]]. Perhaps it was actually meant to be serious, but took on too many comedic traits. But often, this happens because the writer(s) just couldn't decide what they wanted to do. In any case, an [['''Indecisive Parody]]''' is when something is confusing about its intent.

* ''[[Condorman]]'' is an extraordinarily [[Camp|campycamp]]y Disney live-action spy flick, but it's so absurd and occasionally self-aware at times that it's hard not to see parody.

* ''[[The Golden Child]]'' can't seem to decide if it's an [[Affectionate Parody]] of [[The Chosen One]] or a straight use -- anduse—and incidentally also stars Daniel Wong as a [[Trickster Mentor]].

* ''[[Snow Crash]]'' is an [[Indecisive Parody]] of [[Cyberpunk]]. In places it feels like a checklist of all the cyberpunk tropes ramped [[Up to Eleven]]: instead of the [[Mega Corp]] being as powerful as governments, corporations literally ''replace'' governments. The [[Hero Protagonist]] is ''named'' Hiro Protagonist, and is both the world's greatest hacker ''and'' the world's greatest [[Katanas Are Just Better|katana-duelist]]. [[Evil Counterpart|Raven]] is the epitome of [[Badass]], [[Invoked Trope|complete with a whole passage explaining in detail why]] he is the world's greatest badass. There are infodumps about various subjects, from toilet paper to Sumerian mythology, thrown in at random. From the [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|mock-epic]] first chapter to the insane climax, it oozes [[Rule of Cool]]. It's considered a landmark work of Cyberpunk, a parody of Cyberpunk, and a herald of [[Post Cyber Punk]].

* ''[[She Spies]]'' Nobody seemed to get that it was an action-comedy series bordering on parody, mainly because to the untrained eye, it looked like just another trashy syndicated action show. Which is probably why it got [[Retool|retooledretool]]ed into a straight action show for its second (and last) season.

* ''[[The Muppet Show]]'' always walked the line between being a full-blown parody of [[Variety Show|Variety Shows]]s and a unique example of one itself.

* [[Discordia|Discordianism]]nism. In this case it's largely the point.

* It's not always immediately clear whether ''[[Trenched]]'' is supposed to be [[Rated "M" for Manly]] or [[Testosterone Poisoning]]. Some aspects seem to be firmly mocking over-the-top manliness, while others seem to be playing it straight. The [[Word of God]] isn't very helpful either -- wheneither—when citing over-the-top men's magazines like ''Man's Life'' as a source, they both refer to how warped their values are, and how awesome they were.

* ''[[A Very Potter Musical]]'' and its sequel run on [[Rule of Funny]]--until—until they get to a particularly serious moment from the books and play it up as heartwrenchingly as possible before settling back into nonsense again.