Parody and Satire
Last Thursday I went to a sketch comedy show written and performed by some of my friends. It was the Old Dirty Conservatories show featuring Randall Park, Dwayne Perkins, Rick Lee, Johnny Skourtis, Ray Lai, and Matt Hill. Afterwards I was reading a blog entry about the show by a friend and playwright Michael Golamco. He was talking about the difference between parody and satire, and I really like what he said here:
You’ve gotta have a special sort of intelligence to write sketch. Like I’ve said here before, it’s the difference between parody and satire. Anybody can do parody — dress a man up like Hillary Clinton and have him/her clap to Hillary4U&Me. Easy. Brainless. It is to comedy as Hot Pockets are to food.
But what is the moral of the story? What does this mean for me, sitting there in the audience? Where is the truth in your comedy? What new thing have you shined a light on? If the answer is nothing, then give me back my ten fucking dollars.
I think he’s so right. To make story good, you’ve got to have an interesting series of events and a good message/reflection at the end. Good satires are good because they do a good job poking fun at something, and then they give you a message to take home with. Now, don’t get me wrong. I still love parodies that’s just downright pointless. Some of them are really entertaining although there’s absolutely no point. I value good satires as well as good parodies. But what distinguish them apart? The answer is, when they are not very good.
When a satire is not entertaining, you might not be laughing, but you will still get the message. Maybe the jokes are really lame, or maybe you are offended by it, but it should still be very clear what’s being satirized. You might not have been entertained, but you still have the message so you didn’t just waste your time hearing that story. Now what if a pointless parody falls short? Then you get nothing. If it was pointless to begin with, you do not take a message away from it. You are just there to be entertained. And when it’s not even entertaining, then you’ve just wasted your time watching it, pretty much.
I admire people that can write good satirical short sketches. It’s often not easy to write something that’s entertaining and totally to the point at the same time. I admire people that have the knack to do it.