Subject: My question is...
Author:
Posted on: 2011-04-13 22:35:00 UTC
Are you planning to do something with it? If not, then making changes is pretty pointless and will just confuse anyone looking for the thing under its former name. Using the metaphor of a shared sandbox, it's not really fair to make decisions about the shovel if you're not the one who's going to use it.
~Neshomeh
I've been considering doing a few missions within the perview of this department, but the trouble is that it feels a little too limited. Parody is a very specific genre, which limits the overall usefulness of the DBP. Yes, the DBP wiki page says that it also covers trollfics, but that still doesn't give potential agents a great deal to do.
I would like to propose that the department be renamed as the Department of Bad Comedy. It would cover not only bad parody and trollfics but also more conventional humor-based stories and crackfic.
Thoughts? Questions? Criticisms? Cake?
In all seriousness though, it may help to do this. There are some Parody Fics out there that make Setzerberg look intelligent. I'm with this 115%.
Are you planning to do something with it? If not, then making changes is pretty pointless and will just confuse anyone looking for the thing under its former name. Using the metaphor of a shared sandbox, it's not really fair to make decisions about the shovel if you're not the one who's going to use it.
~Neshomeh
My intention was to do something with the DBP. A few experimental missions to see if I can wrap my head around writing about bad humorfics.
Honestly, I don't see the point of this new department. Humor is incredibly subjective, after all. Some people love puns, some people hate them. One person's funny may not be funny to someone else.
The problem is what makes Bad Comedy bad? Is it the spelling, punctuation and grammar? There is a Department of Technical Errors for that. There is probably a department for anything else you can list for why the comedic fic is bad. So, I don't see that we need this department.
Also, the Department of WTF covers Crackfic already, so that is an unnecessary move, as well.
Stale comedy cliches, overreliance on a single joke, mishandled gallows humor or dead baby comedy, sacrificing of plotline and characterization for jokes, abusing non sequiturs... does that cover a few possibilities or what might be considered bad comedy?
Also, it should be noted that nothing on the Department of WTF's wiki page says anything about crackfic. It just says 'stories that make agents flamethrower-crazy.' If that is indeed the case, then the page should be altered.
Everything you said about bad comedy in your post perfectly describes Family Guy. And Family Guy is a hugely popular show. As I said, subjective.
For example, we see a lot of recognized (by us, at least) badfics with positive reviews. However, as the term "badfic" says, they're actually not good.
I'd assume a similar thing for Family Guy, I've seen it and... well... I can only assume that people like it because it's like watching a trainwreck. I actually find it really, really disgusting. But it is only my personal opinion.
The best thing is to examine case by case, because all things can be done right or wrong.
I feel that it's not just the presence of those thing, but it has to do with execution and timing. While something might be funny in Invader Zim or South Park, is it funny when a 12 year old screams it over and over again because she thinks it's funny?
Bad humor is bad not because it contains something, but because that something is misused. Dead baby comedy can be funny, but in the right context and not for the sake of itself. When humor is not funny, when it is annoying. Like when somebody explains the joke. Or when somebody jokes about something tragic that just happened.
It's stupid, boring, inane, mindless, repetitive, etc.
The only thing that I think makes for bad comedy just by subject alone is a VAST IGNORANCE of a subject. Those who think blood and gore are wacky and funny (How about I CUT OFF HIS HEAD AND KILL HIM LOL) or those who think self harm is funny (LOL THAT EMO IS SO FAT I BET SHE HAS TO SLIT HER WRISTS WITH A CHAINSAW LOL)... and other offenses. Those things aren't funny, but show that if the person is making the joke thinks it's funny there might be something wrong with them... ._.;
Technically ALL badfic could be considered subjectively bad. If that weren't the case, then every writer of a Mary Sue or of Bad Slash would have been jeered off of the internet as soon as they appeared. If quality were simply a matter of the facts, then there wouldn't be any need for the PPC.
There are people out there who think that Mary Sue is a shining exemplar of feminism. There are people out there who think bad slash is both acceptable and 'hawt.' There are people out there who think that trollfics are the greatest exercise in comedy since one primitive man hit another with a primitive pie.
Just saying.
We can demonstrate why Mary Sues and bad slash are bad. There are rules of characterization and language usage. It is far less subjective than bad comedy. That was my other point in my first post. The comedy is subjective, the SPaG is not. It is better to focus on that.
I will also point out that being a Mary Sue is not enough of a charge to warrant a mission. Just being not funny, in one person's opinion, isn't enough. There has to be something more.
And on a different note, your argument seems to be an attempt to make all arguments, on both sides, invalid. If everything is subjective, then what are we even doing here? That argument shuts down the entire debate by leaving no solid ground to base any argument on. Tell me why your case is valid, not why all cases aren't.
You know, that might be an interesting idea. DBP could become the Bad Parody Division, and a humor department could take over.
We are generally slow to change departmental structure, though. If it's decided that this isn't too good an idea, it's entirely possible to create a new Department of Bad Comedy and have it be a sister department to DBP, with agents often being passed back and forth between them.
If anything, I'd think it would be the other way around, with the DBP becoming part of the Bad Comedy Division.