What movies, books or tv shows are meant to spoof/parody a particular genre while actually being a great example of the genre?
The 3 that come to mind for me are Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The Princess Bride. All three are poking fun at their respective genres but also are great examples of the genre. I'm curious if Lemmy has other such examples.
Galaxy Quest
There is a curse in the Star Trek movies where every other movie in the franchise is terrible. The first one is bad, the second is good, the third is bad, and so on. This almost fits perfectly, but it inverts from the 10th movie onwards. The 9th is bad, the 10th is bad, the 11th is decent, the 12th is bad...
However, if you add Galaxy Quest into the line up, then it's the good Star Trek movie between the 9th and 10th, and the pattern holds.
TMP and Insurrection are great Star Trek films! Insurrection is arguably the most TNG of the TNG movies.
I prefer the explanation that the bad movies are those which are odd if you add up their digits. It would mean 19 and 20 should be both good.
It's legitimately one of the best Star Trek movies.
I still say "Never give up! Never surrender!" occasionally to this day
Scream was incredibly meta. It references plenty of slasher films and even has one character talking about the rules of slasher films.
While it's not exactly a parody, it does poke fun at its own genre a lot.
Scream is the perfect answer. It was a response to the waning 80s slasher boom, making it all more real, more visceral, and more of a threat to the savvy audience, while still being funny as hell. Comedy and horror go beautifully together. There's a shared tension with the unknown.
Scream is the perfect answer because Scary Movie didn't get the joke and assumed it was a normal slasher, so they tried to make a parody of it.
The Scream and Saw franchises were pretty groundbreaking at the time. They single-handedly redefined the entire horror movie genre.
While it’s not exactly a parody
It is. It is exactly a parody.
The Orville. Homage more than parody I'd say.
Tucker and Dale vs Evil. Criminally underrated
That's a great call. I forgot about that movie. That is a good take on a slasher while also making fun of the genre.
Totally different but the same description would work for it: Cabin in the Woods
The Incredibles
Watchmen too
Austin Powers was such a good spoof of the genre that it killed the genre it was spoofing (for a little while). It was also a great movie in its own right!
To this day I'll say "There you are!" And if someone asks if they know me, or if I was looking for them, or any number of things, I'll say, "No, but there you are! You're there!"
So a deconstruction / reconstruction shuffle. A work picking apart the tropes of a genre, making you question them... and then putting them back together in ways suited to a self-aware audience.
One Punch Man looks like a decent example. The premise is a rebuke of who-is-stronger anime, like the endless power-level treadmill of Dragonball Z. The main dude is stronger. Next question. And the next question is, well, what does a setting with assorted superheroes and supervillains look like, if there's some guy who is unbeatable 1v1, but is otherwise just some guy? Does society support him, after he's basically relegated to an occasional "come save our asses" phone call? How do other supers proceed with their equally-cliche motivations, when SSJ4 Goku showed up in episode one?
Shaun Of The Dead is definitely a reconstruction of zombie tropes - timed right at the crest of the 2000s zombie-movie revival. But Hot Fuzz is a little odd to mention here because it's actually three distinct genres. It goes from screwball comedy to murder mystery to blockbuster action without missing a beat. Ironically I'd say the weakest part is the screwball comedy at the beginning. It's very sedate compared to what it almost was: there's a deleted scene where Angel did Word-art banners for each department, ending on rainbow lettering reading "sexual assault." The opening we got is held-back to ease the later shifts in theme. And while each of these shifts is truly masterful, I'm not sure I'd call the movie as a whole a great example of anything it riffed on.
Really - does it fit any movie marathon that would unironically include Point Break?
I like the way you've explained the concept! I never could find the right word for it, I always thought of it as "meta" media, though that never seemed 100% right. "Reconstruction" is much better, it implies a more thorough understanding (and appreciation!) of the source material than mere meta-jokes. My concept of meta would lump Shaun of the Dead in with shit like Disaster Movie, which are obviously leagues apart.
90s parody movies lean way too hard into deconstruction, and aren't very good at it. They're trying to say "here's how that would really go" but lack the patience to be clever. E.g. Scary Movie 3 having a character square off against the scary girl from The Ring. That's not a fully-formed joke. That's a three-second cutaway gag in Family Guy.
The clearest line between deconstruction and reconstruction might be Neon Genesis Evangelion versus Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
Eva takes the cynicism and plausible physics of real-robot shows like Mobile Suit Gundam, and applies them to children piloting skyscraper-sized combat vehicles in monster-of-the-week battles. It doesn't kill off characters left and right, and the action is rarely gory or played for shock value, but there's a level of emotional violence that is unmatched outside of surrealism. It has an audience-insert protagonist specifically to go "this is you, and that is bad." The last few episodes are infamously a sharp left turn into abstract philosophy and, like... giving characters therapy. On some level Neon Genesis Evangelion is a mecha anime series that actively despises its audience for enjoying mecha anime.
Gurren went "yeah that's nice" and wrote a love letter to joyously stupid mecha anime. The universe literally runs on whatever sounds awesome. It is unselfconsciously goofy in a way that wraps back around to being cool as fuck. Now: it's not unaware of criticism. It was made by the same studio as Evangelion. But the key figures would eventually split off into Studio Trigger, whose output is primarily reconstructions - shows rooted in asking "how would this insane premise really work?" and then building a fun story within that universe.
AYEEEEE fellow Otaku spotted 🎉. Well explained. Well done.
A bit older than the Orville, Red Dwarf was the original satire of Star Trek turned into a legitimate Sci-Fi show a la Star Trek.
I enjoyed it a lot, at least the original seasons. Never watched the later ones they added thirty or so years later.
I've seen season 10 and 11 and they weren't half bad! IMO better than 7 or 8 which felt a little forced and definitely better than the Unspeakable Season.
My advice is to watch it up until they conclude the Ouroborous / OurRobOrRoss thing, and consider that the end (S7E3 I think).
Everybody is talking about movies so here's some books: Discworld by Terry Pratchett started as a parody of the fantasy genre but evolves into one of the richest fantasy worlds you'll even have the pleasure to read.
I've been considering reading these books. This might just be the thing that pushes me to start.
Just to let you know, Pratchett's writing improves massively over the series. This means, if you read it in chronological order, you start with the least good books (Colour of magic, and light fantastic).
There are multiple story arcs, however, that can be read semi-independently. The "Witches" arc, or "City guards" arc are an easier in point for many people.
I personally read them in chronological order. I knew the earliest books wouldn't be as good, so got to watch his writing improve, and the world crystallise. I knew about the slow start however, and so wasn't put off by the "average" level writing, at the start.
The first thing I thought when reading this question! Discworld is amazing
For sure, it's one of the greatest fantasy series ever written.
Glee. It started out as a parody of musicals and high school dramas in Season 1. Then went on to be a musical high school drama for the rest of the show.
The Simpsons started out as a parody of sitcoms and has since become the longest running sitcom.
The 1960s Batman was a campy satire of comics and itself influenced comic adaptations for decades after.
Pretty much every Mel Brooks movie
I love Mel Brooks movies, but I think they're just straight spoofs. For example Blazing Saddles while great and did such a great job skewering Westerns that it has been argued it killed the genre, it just isn't a Western in it's own right.
It's been a while since I watched it, but I think Kingsman fits that description.
It's way weaker than the first, but.. I still liked it.
I'll add Kick Ass and Starship Troopers. Although very different movies I feel like they both satirize their respective genres to great dramatic effect and stand out as some of my favorites.
Starship Troopers is weird because the book went full on in embracing the military-industrial complex and was kind of shit because of it. The movie made it a parody instead and it worked great!
...then they made a few sequels that yeah were more in line with the original book but in this case is that really a good thing?
Starship Troopers is peak sci-fi in that it holds up a mirror for society to see the ugly bits.
Thats just the curse of Paul Verhoeven, same thing happened with robocop
Can't believe I had to get this far down in the thread to find Starship Troopers...I'm doing my part!
James Bond. Ian Fleming wrote a series of novels parodying spy novels, and they've turned into one of the best spy movie franchises, with no hint of parody left.
Though when I go back and watch the Pierce Brosnan movies, it’s obvious they’re a parody.
What’s weird is how serious they seemed in the 90s when they came out. But they’re so silly.
Discworld
I came here to comment Sir Terry Pratchett's works as well! They're all really good while also poking fun at fantasy tropes
Hot Fuzz is what I came here to suggest - it's the best ACWATNOBI (A Cop With A Theory No One Believes In) spoof/film ever.
I also think Cabin in the Woods did a great job balancing spoof (or at least meta) with actual horror.
This Is Spinal Tap.
The Cabin in the Woods is pretty good. It tells an interesting story while still hitting its marks to be a "college kids getting picked off by the supernatural far from civilization" horror movie parody.
It's unironically my favorite horror movie, there's so many references to other horror films for those familiar it's insane. Such a fun watch every time!
I love the SCP movie!
The unbearable weight of massive talent, with Nic Cage.
Night & Day, with Tom Cruise.
Upvoted for Nick Cage.
Get Smart
Tucker and Dale Vs Evil. Starts fine and eventually becomes a horror. It's great.
Not Another Teen Movie
Inny Minny miny...?
The Venture Bros is the only superhero adjacent anything I give a shit about. Greatest adult animation show ever. Making fun of comic books and old Hannah Barbara cartoons but better and more rich and consistent than any of them.
Starship Troopers
DO YOU APES WANNA LIVE FOREVER!?
I'm surprised The Big Lebowski hasn't been mentioned at all.
Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
What genre is this spoofing though? Crime/detective?
The plot of TBL is a parody of pulp detective novels particularly Raymond Chandler, which are set in LA.
JFC in this thread: People who don't know what a parody is.
While it's not a direct parody I think The Nice Guys used and subverts a lot of 70s buddy cop tropes.
And after rewatching that trailer I found it refreshing to see it didn't spoil the story and didn't have any BWAAAAAAAAAH
One Punch Man
After many seasons, it turned out that Joss Whedon was secretly the Big Bad.
This is such a quality question. But a lot of people are just naming their favorite movies in the comments.
What you want is Moore's Watchmen. It is a deconstruction and reconstruction of the Superhero as an American trope.
What I loved about HBO's continuation is that they focused on how white supremacy is intertwined with heroism, just as Moore wrote in his original IP.
Then you got the Zack Snyder movie which was mostly, "ooh, look at these people with powers fight crime". None of the impending doom of the fall of society from nuclear war and/or fascism, and how the heroes were pointless because they were the ones pushing forward this doom. "Who watches the Watchmen?" etc.
Cool supplementary article: https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/books/watchmen-creator-alan-moore-says-superhero-genre-remains-a-white-supremacist-dream-of-the-master-race
'The 3 Musketeers' with Raquel Welch and Oliver Reed. Completely aware of how ridiculous all this nonsense is, and loving it.
The more I watch of 'Succession' the more I think it is close to perfect in terms of family/executive drama. It started almost as cringe inducingly funny as say 'The Office' but it has just become amazingly accurate and dramatic. Recommended.
"Cabin in the Woods" kind of fits.
The anime Knosuba.
Meant to be a parody of the whole "stuck in a fantasy world" genre, while being a great example of it.
Not a movie, book, or TV show, but Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" was supposed to be satirizing progressive rock, and turned into one of the best prog songs/albums ever made.
Walk Hard The Dewey Cox Story
Not a funny watch but I'd consider Neo Genesis Evangelion a great deconstruction of the Gundam genre.
Genre satire is different than political satire in that most people who make it often do so out of love for the genre not hated. In fact these works of media aren't nearly as funny if you aren't familiar with the tropes and story beats within a genre, so the audience also ends up being fans. The people who watch slasher parodies are the same people who enjoy slashers.
I like Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, a farcical noir film that is like a quilt made from the footage of a bunch of other films with original fabric connecting the pieces.
Konosuba. It's a parody of the Isekai Anime genre. And holy shit is it funny 🤌🏼.
Isekai refers to the trope in many popular anime where the main character or MC (majorly a male, also majorly either socially awkward, inept or both) either dies in the real world and somehow gets reincarnated/transported, or plays a VR game or reads a book that sucks them into that world.
These shows tend to have many recurring cliches; a harem of attractive women that all want the attention of the MC, MC being essentially OP at whatever fantasy world skill structure exists, shitloads of fan service (mostly overly sexual portrayal of the women in those worlds, but also random and long action sequences), overly complicated rules that they will somehow obey and many many more. I'll be here all year listing each trope.
But Konosuba mocks the concept of the Isekai genre, and actively makes sure to do something that wouldn't occur in a typical show.
What ended up happening was that in their quest to make the perfect parody, they ended up striking gold, and created one of the best Isekai shows. All because they wanted to make fun of that exact genre.
It's not even like they "became the very thing they swore to destroy", since the show doesn't at all take itself too seriously...
There's 2 seasons, a movie and a spin-off prequel that follows one of the main characters and leads upto the first episode of the main story. All of which is amazing and insanely hilarious.
100% recommended.
Hate to break it to you, but Konosuba isn't a parody, it's just a comedy isekai.
Hate to break it to you, but Konosuba isn't a parody, it's just a comedy isekai.
My initial reaction to this response.
But then I checked on Anilist:
(Idk how to add images or gifs to a comment response so I'm just gonna tell you what it says)
Tags for Konosuba: Isekai - 97% Satire - 94% Parody - 90% Primarily Female Cast - 86% Male Protagonist - 84%
Idk man. Anilist seems to think it is 94% Satire and 90% Parody.
Heathers. it was made to parody adolecent movies and its considered the mother of all adolecent movies (like, the mother of netflix-like movies.)
Star Wreck was a cool parody of Trek/B5 space sci-fi stuff while also holding up against them. (And being a 100% indie production to boot.)
The Orville had some genuinely good episodes that told a great message.
Deadloch for sure
The Fifth Element. Still in my top ten list, and always will be.
Fifth Element is supposed to be a parody???
How is it a parody?
I don't see that as a parody. Comedy, sure... Parody, idk.
