A Most Unlikely, Very Grounded Comedy Film Comparison
As Frank J. D’Angelo articulates in his essay “The Rhetoric of Intertextuality,” there are many ways to define parody. According to him, the American Heritage Dictionary defines it as “a literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule.”1. But where the intention of parody becomes debatable is in its intention. Parody, to writer Chris Baldick, acts as “a mocking imitation of the style of a literary work or works,” while a passage in Linda Hutchson’s A Theory of Parody states the form as “imitation characterized by ironic inversion, not always at the expense of the parodied text”.
The most difficult part of defining a parody is to figure out what its goal should be. Is it to simply play with the text it is referencing, functioning as a fun recreation of said text? Or is it a more critical examination of the faults of the original text, inspiring a larger point to be made at the text’s expense?
The function remains interchangeable, but in both definitions, the method remains the same. A type of intertextuality, parody recreates a text of any form (literature, film, radio, painting, etc) and applies an absurdist style to it. And within the form of film, parody remains a popular genre, lampooning both genres and the ideas they entail. Two examples of this, Airplane! (1980) and Freddy Got Fingered (2001) present the two goals that parody often serves as an objective: A light-hearted imitation and critique.
Airplane! (1980)
In Airplane!, the film acts as a parody of the disaster movie genre. The plot recreates the premise of Zero Hour! (1957), a thriller about veteran war pilot Ted Stryker who must land a commercial airline after both pilots are rendered unconscious due to spoiled fish that was served during the flight. Regarding the stakes, with Stryker inexperienced with flying a plane larger than the one he flew during WWII, the trauma the pilot endured from an operation he led killing most of his men, and the fact that the sick passengers are likely to die if they don’t get immediate medical attention (including Stryker’s young son), Airplane! parodies all of these factors. Not only does Airplane!’s protagonist Ted Striker have trauma related from a war operation gone wrong, but also a harrowing drinking problem (in which whenever he tries to drink something, the liquid splashes on his face and never goes into his mouth). The plane he has to fly is not only an updated aircraft fitting with then-contemporary technology, but also has a built-in auto-pilot that’s an inflatable dummy named “Otto” (referencing Zero Hour!’s reliance on using auto-pilot). And the illness that causes people in Zero Hour! to become immobile is now a mysterious stomach ache that makes people pop eggs out of their mouth and causes excessive flatulence and spasms. Even when compared to the amount of patients in either film, the number of sick passengers in Airplane! is far less than the ones in Zero Hour!, allowing for more gags involving panicking, active passengers.
The film’s directors, Jim Abrahams and Jerry and David Zucker (known together as ZAZ) clearly bring a more absurdist take on the film they’re parodying, but what they also end up doing is parody other films, including the Airport series (1970-79). A disaster film franchise, the first film being an adaptation of a book of the same name by Arthur Hailey, one of the three writers for Zero Hour!, elements of the series are thrown into the hijinks of Airplane! There’s a gag involving a terminally ill child and a guitar-playing nun (both references to Airport 1975), that ends with a flight attendant borrowing the guitar singing a folk song to the other passengers, unintentionally disconnecting the child’s tubes. This leads to the child flailing and dying as the attendant and passengers ignore her, too caught up in the emotional song. Even the premise of Airplane! harkens back to the similar premise of a stewardess having to land a plane in 1975.
What remains interesting in Airplane!’s style of comedy is how it recreates these plotlines. While the jokes in of themselves are absurd (and downright surreal), ZAZ makes sure to have the film play them straight. Airplane! presents itself as a serious movie, with the cast, most of whom are established dramatic actors, all playing their roles straight, a dramatic score from acclaimed composer Elmer Bernstein driving the tension of the plot, and the filmmaking never winking at the fact that it’s a comedy. This deadpan style allows for the intended jokes to land harder; when Striker doubts Dr. Rumack, one of the film’s sources of authority, by saying “Surely, you can’t be serious,” the serious character responds, “I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.”
During the ending’s landing, the tension is there. Striker almost loses control of the plane, pilot Rex Kramer yells orders over the radio, and Berstein’s dramatic score plays over all of this, but it is interspersed with a shot of Striker doused in fake sweat and Rumack nonchalantly walking into the cockpit and repeatedly saying “I just want to say good luck. We’re all counting on you,” even when the plane has successfully landed.
Yet what remains the most effective of these types of gags is when the film recreates a line or shot without any changes. Lifting a line from Zero Hour!, Dr. Rumack says “The life of everyone on board depends upon just one thing: finding someone back there who can not only fly this plane, but who didn’t have fish for dinner.” Spoken with the same sincerity as the original film, the fact that there were no changes at all speaks to the inherent absurdity of Zero Hour!’s premise. The same goes for a shot during the climatic landing, where the wheels of the plane give out and disconnect from the aircraft. Not only does the exact moment happen in the film it’s parodying, recreating the same shot, but it recontextualizes it; as the wheels break in Zero Hour!, signifying an increase in tension over if the plane will crash, in Airplane! it is used to signify the zaniness of the landing sequence.
As a parody, Airplane! clearly pokes fun at the drama and stakes inherent with the films it is referencing, with the last Airport film releasing a year prior. Janet Maslin’s New York Times review2 comments on this, noting its relevance “as a remedy for the bloated self-importance of too many other current efforts.”
Freddy Got Fingered (2001)
With Freddy Got Fingered, it’s more unclear what the film parodies. It doesn’t recreate the same plot as another established film, nor include many references to other films. Instead, the movie seems to be a combination of trends that were current in comedy films in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The film’s protagonist, Gord, represents the man-child archetype seen in films such as Billy Madison (1995) while the style of humor fits with the trend of gross-out comedies like There’s Something About Mary (1998). But what’s interesting is that Freddy Got Fingered’s director Tom Green, who also plays Gord, takes both factors to such an extreme that it becomes a parody.
The film follows Gord’s journey into becoming an animator, spending the first twenty minutes with him in Hollywood trying to get his career off the ground until he suddenly goes back home to live with his parents. But among that section, there are elements that feel off. When he arrives at a bus station, saying goodbye to his family, it turns out that his parents bought him a LeBaron to drive to Los Angeles, despite the fact that he also has a bus ticket and this could’ve been done at their home. When mentioning who he wants to be like as an animator, he mentions Charles Schulz, even though his inspiration was a cartoonist. And as he says goodbye, he and his father Jim simply say the word “proud” to each other over and over again.
These jokes create a weird rhythm in the scene; the sequence of Gord at the bus station is presented to the audience as a normal scene, but then these moments happen without any acknowledgement; Gord doesn’t say anything about the fact that they could’ve given him the car at home instead of wasting money on a bus ticket, no one corrects Gord on how Schulz wasn’t an animator, and the “proud” exchange is presented with ironic sincerity. The scene is presented as absurdist, like an imitation of a man leaving his parents.
When the film is under the lens of parody, it starts to make sense. In a scene that satirizes both the gross-out genre and the man-child archetype, Gord drives back from Hollywood and comes across a dead deer. Taking potential employer Mr. Davidson’s advice to “get inside the animal” literally, despite it being a remark given towards Gord to better develop his cartoon characters, he skins the deer and wears its fur on the road. It’s extreme in two ways: In the realm of gross-out comedy, the film is allowed to be gross if there is a barrier that keeps it from being too realistic (ex: the cum hair gag in There’s Something About Mary, or the cartoony violence in South Park (1997-present). With the man-child, the character’s innocence and heart of gold must shine through to create likability underneath their dumb and potentially obnoxious exterior (ex: Dumb and Dumber [1994]).
In this scene, Tom Green breaks both rules; he disembowels the deer by cutting its stomach with a knife, keeping the logic of the scene realistic (hearing the gas hiss out of the open wound, seeing blood and intestines spill out of its body) to a point where it becomes unnerving to watch instead of humorous. And as his character, he keeps mumbling to himself “Stinky” over seeing the deer’s guts, and then the film cuts to a bloodied Gord screaming and wailing, wearing the deer’s carcass like clothing and writhing in it while laid down on the road. This moment is also set to The Hillside Singers’ “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony),” where not only the peaceful song is juxtaposed to such a disgusting scene, but also brings out the horror of such a sight. Green turns a gag that could’ve worked in another comedy into something disturbing to watch. The only solace given to the madness is seeing a truck hit him and making it stop.
There are several moments like this in Freddy Got Fingered, where Gord is placed in a comedic set up that quickly becomes horrific to watch, both due to relying on realistic logic and portraying Gord as a deranged psychopath. But what’s strange about it is that it always feels ironic. During a scene where Gord helps a woman give birth (which includes him pulling the newborn out of the mother’s vagina, biting into its umbilical cord, and swinging it around with the cord, spraying blood all over the room while screaming “Wakey, Wakey!”), the tone suddenly shifts from comedic to sincere. Quiet piano plays, the woman stops being angry at Gord and is handed the living baby, mouthing “Thank you” to him with a smile as she is covered in blood, and the scene ends with Gord remarking that he “saved the day.” It is like Green is commenting on the scene, pointing out its hollow genuineness and having that be the punchline instead of the disgust.
It carries a similar attitude as that of a parody, imitating a certain genre and poking fun at the tropes of it, which in this case is the comedy form’s reliance on shock humor and a story revolving around the man-child. From there, it presents its parody of these factors as mean-spirited.
When Freddy Got Fingered was released, it was notoriously panned by critics, but was also interpreted as potentially surrealist. In Roger Ebert’s review3, he remarks “The day may come when ‘Freddy Got Fingered’ is seen as a milestone of neo-surrealism. The day may never come when it is seen as funny.” In Benjamin’s Aspray’s essay on gross-out humor, he has a section dedicated to analyzing Freddy Got Fingered, where he states that the film: “thus takes up gross-out comedy as a kind of vulgar modernism, intertwining shock value and deconstructive self-reflexivity. In the context of cinematic storytelling that frequently sabotages itself and calls attention to its own shambolic crudeness, Green’s gross-out gags function as much on the ‘lizard brain’ level of lowbrow comic transgression as they do the more cerebral level of genre deconstruction, on which they are gross-out gags about gross-out gags”.4
The film feels less like an attempt at making a comedy and more a mocking imitation of one. The premise constantly changes, with it going from Gord being an animator to having to fight his authoritative dad in a battle of wits, any moment of sincerity is highlighted by some element that brings out its artificiality, and the film itself has a subversive nature. It is a tendency for comedies to be about the status quo being disrupted and then put back together, going back as early as Shakespeare. In Freddy Got Fingered, several disruptions happen: Jim is accused by Gord of being a pedophile that sexually abused his younger brother Freddy (hence the title of the film); Freddy, despite being a fully grown adult, is sent to an institution for sexually abused children; and Jim’s wife (who is played by Julie Hagerty, who played love interest/stewardess Elaine in Airplane!) leaves him. All of this is because of Gord’s disruption, and these plotlines are never resolved. As a part of the film’s seemingly self-aware nature, Green subverts the notion of reinstating the status quo. The director not only parodies comedic trends, but also satirizes the comedic structure.
Parody of Melodrama, contrasted
Which is where these two examples start to differ. Airplane!, while a parody of a genre implied by critics like Maslin to be so tired that it becomes refreshing to make fun of them, plays into the conventions of the disaster film. It creates likability within its characters, who never do anything offensive and get to have arcs, such as Striker’s goal to win back Elaine, and follows through with the structure of Zero Hour!; no one dies, the plane lands safely, and the protagonist wins back his lover and is deemed a hero. Even if they are making fun of the self-serious nature of the film, ZAZ still borrows the structure to make Airplane! an engaging story and not subverting or criticising anything within it beyond the presentation and cartoony humor. Freddy Got Fingered, however, works to alienate. Its ever-shifting story and unlikeable nature leaves the viewer too disengaged to become truly invested, showing the emptiness seen in the films it takes its aesthetic from. The film aims to be more critical of what it’s representing, never allowing itself to indulge in being genuine unless it’s out of complete irony.
The best example of this is in two scenes that both films have, the protagonist reuniting with their love interest. In Airplane!, it finishes with resolving Striker’s personal conflict, allowing him and Elaine to embrace and kiss. The main joke in this sequence is how it’s presented; the scene is shown as an orbital shot as the camera dollies around Striker and Elaine, with Bernstein’s score swelling over the establishment of their love. Of course, ZAZ makes fun of the melodrama in this scene, where the couple kiss for a long while as the camera continues to spin around them, the soundtrack having a choir sing a higher and higher note until it turns into shrill screeching. The film allows the viewer to be swept into the emotion of the two getting back together, only joking about it becoming a bit much.
In Freddy Got Fingered, a scene occurs where Gord wins back his love, the paraplegic nurse/rocket scientist Betty. As a romantic gesture, and a way to flaunt his wealth after earning a million dollar check for creating an animated show, he rides a helicopter to Betty’s apartment building, having her come to the roof where he lands. As he begins to tell how he was inspired by her to continue his career, the sounds of the whirring helicopter blades drown him out, leaving Betty unsure of what he is saying. Soon this monologue turns into Gord screaming at her that he accomplished his dream. He then hands her a random bag of jewels (saying to her, “I have a bag of jewels for you. They’re jewels, Betty. They’re jewels”), to which she rejects his gift. Instead, all that she wants from him is to “suck [his] cock.” She then says this line again with tears in her eyes.
At this moment, Tom Green is more critical about their relationship. Noting the role of the love interest to be supportive and submissive towards the protagonist, the fact that she wants nothing more than to please him sexually becomes a joke about the simplistic role that her archetype plays. The artificiality of her character comes out in this moment, despite the fact that the film subverts this earlier by giving her an independent plotline of crafting a rocket-powered wheelchair and being assertive by forcing Gord to engage with her fetish of him hitting her paralyzed legs with a bamboo stick, even when he becomes uncomfortable with it. In comparison to Elaine, who becomes a literal mouthpiece for Striker as she repeats his lines to a radio for Air Traffic Control, Green appears to be more hostile towards the genre he’s parodying.
Both Airplane! and Freddy Got Fingered serve as the prime example of the two types of parody D’Angelo states. The former satirizes the pretension that comes out of a serious genre film, while the latter mocks a genre for its conventional structures and archetypes. One is deadpan in its critique of the disaster genre; the other takes its criticisms and exaggerates them to a point of sacrificing its quality. One became a beloved, Golden Globe-nominated comedy (D’Angelo even names it as one of the best examples of a film parody), and the other is a Razzie-winning film that was quickly regarded by critics like Ebert as one of the worst films ever made. While they reached different conclusions, they both serve as good examples of what a parody should do.
- D’Angelo, Frank J. “The Rhetoric of Intertextuality.” Rhetoric Review, vol. 29, no. 1, 2010, pp. 31-47. ↩︎
- Maslin, Janet. “Airplane! Disaster Film Spoof.” The New York Times, 1980. ↩︎
- Ebert, Roger. “Freddy Got Fingered.” RogerEbert.com (2001). ↩︎
- Aspray, Benjamin Kole. “Gag Reflexes: Disgust, Spectacle, and Irony in Film and TV Comedy, 1992-2012.” Northwestern University, 2022. ↩︎
Airplane! Directed by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker, Paramount Pictures, 1980.
Freddy Got Fingered. Directed by Tom Green, 20th Century Fox, 2001.
Zero Hour! Directed by Hal Bartlett, Paramount Pictures, 1957.