Tolkien and Parody

[Falagar]

I have never read Bored of the Rings, but the very name alone seems to be twisting what Tolkien wrote. To me, Tolkien's works has its faults, but it's noble and good, and there's not much to be made fun of...it's not stupid, is what I'm trying to say. And that's usually how I see parodies: twisting something that is good.

I'll use Monty Python and the Holy Grail as an example:

To me, it's making fun of the nobility of knights, twisting it into a caricature that is, in a word, stupid.

And I just don't see how that is good...

Here I, at least, disagree heavily. It does not twist the words Tolkien wrote, it is trying to make some light fun out of his work. It is not, in any way, changing anything Tolkien wrote - merely making fun of his style. Though I haven't read the whole thing, yes, it seems pretty stupid. But it isn't trying to make Tolkien's work look stupid. Nor is it taking stupid things from Tolkien's works and making fun of them, it is putting Tolkien's work into a stupid setting. (Mostly, at any rate.)

On Monty Python, that is a wholly different story. For one thing, knights weren't always nice. The knights in the various Arthur-legends are perhaps, but in reality I doubt many of them had as high ideals as they are made out to have.

For another thing, the point of their movie isn't to make knights look stupid - that had been pretty stupid. (At least that isn't their sole purpose. ) They take a character (in this case a knight) and try to surprise the watcher by making this character do something that is untypical for him/her (see Brave Brave Sir Robin ) thus creating a surrealistic/funny situation - or they go the other way: making a character do something that is arch-typical for him/her but putting it into a setting where his/her actions don't fit or are misplaced because the character misjudges the situation (for example Sir Lancelot going to save the fair maiden locked up in a tower forced to marry by her father - only to find that it is a guy, and a rather ugly one at that) which gives the same effect.

It's late up her and I'm pretty tired, so if there's much non-sense/many inconsistences/big spleling mistaks in the above please point it out.