Saturday, November 7, 2009

Parody? Satire? Lord of the Rings? You Decide.

Parody and Satire have long been imbibed into American humor. TV shows like Mad TV and Saturday Night Live, Colbert and The Daily Show, all parody different aspects of life or show them in a Satirical light. I'm sure you're all wondering: What does Parody and Satire have to do with the quintessential fantasy novel, surely a book so flawless is free from the tethers of parody or satire. However; much like American celebrities, the more popular the book; the more it is parodied. Sometimes; Lord of the Rings is even Remixed.
Parody is poking fun at something; while only changing one critical aspect between the parody and the parodied. Lord of the Rings is blasted with all sorts of parody, some aimed at readers, some aimed at movie audiences. The following link contains 3 or 4 examples of strong Language, but still illustrate the role of parody and LOTR. Before viewing it is imperative to know that Dolanmin is Sam I believe.
Parody isn't always spoken or put into funny videos, sometimes its sung.Flight of the Conchords is a
band which specializes in Parody and Satire. in the following video they take the basic plot of LOTR
and put it into song. This is another form of parody, parody almost in its most pure form; performed live
Sometimes parody starts with one topic; and then uses that topic to effictively, and sometimes brutally
parody another topic. George Lucas, who may have potentially more worldwide renown the JRR
is parodied by use of LOTR.

Now that there are several examples of parody out there I hope that the readers of this blog will continue
to look for parody, and hopefully take it in for what it truly is; a joke. Parody is an intellectual joke that
sometimes people don't get; sometimes people look too far into it. Parody should be taken at face value.

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