All works are connected, to varying degrees, or build upon, in various ways, other works and various ideas and notions from the past. (Berger, 2005, p. 76)
For my final project I’ve chosen to analyze the intertextual representations in Joss Whedon’s forty minute, musical web-series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.
If you’ve grown up in the United States, you probably have a general knowledge superhero stories. I’m sure this knowledge is equally easy to acquire in plenty of other countries as well. I only use the example of the United States since that is where I’ve lived for over half of my life, and having never read a single superhero comic or attended comic con, I still seem to know an awful lot of superhero-y things. This knowledge can be referred to as embodied cultural capital. I wouldn’t know the things I do about superheroes if I hadn’t taken the time to learn them. According to Dr. Whitney Anspach: “Embodied cultural capital implies that the person with this type of cultural capital has spent time learning to be competent in a certain topic pertaining to culture.” (Week #5 Lecture p. 5)
Granted, I may not have always intentionally acquired this knowledge, and certainly not with the goal of being well versed in superhero lore.
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is positively bursting with intertextual interactions with the superhero genre of film and comics. While the superhero genre may be the first one to come to mind, it is certainly not the only genre represented within the film. It is also a musical, and has elements of romantic comedy and slapstick.
Because Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog works with many different genres, we end up seeing a lot of mimicking. Intertextual mimicking is described in Dr. Whitney Anspach’s lecture as when a text will “…use language and forms that seem to echo certain ways of communicating or other types of documents.” She goes on to say, “We expect certain lighting, certain types of music, and certain formulaic story lines from films within a single genre. We expect these things because we are unconsciously aware of the intertextuality inherent in filmmaking.” (Week #5 Lecture, p. 4)
Through mimicking, Whedon uses the embodied cultural capital we have about these popular genres in two ways. If you’ve seen several of Joss Whedon’s works you’ll know that he likes to not only parody the genre, but subvert its conventions.
According to Berger (2005): “Textual parody involves a comical and ridiculous imitation of a well known work. But there are other kinds of parodies as well. One may make a parody of a genre, such as the sitcom or the western, and parodies a well-known style.” (p. 77)
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog parodies the superhero genre on many occasions.
While video blogging about his plans to use his newly functional freeze ray, Dr. Horrible/Billy proclaims: “I hold a PHD in horribleness!”
Figure 1: phd-in-horribleness2.jpg (Source: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, 2008)
We later see him say it again while talking to his evil moisture buddy Moist.
Figure 2: phd-in-horribleness.jpg (Source: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, 2008)
If you have embodied cultural capital of superhero movies and comics, you’ll recognize this as a comically lame imitation of superhero catchphrases. Tvtropes.org defines a catchphrase as: “An expression used by a character in numerous episodes of a show” (“Catchphrase,” n.d.).
In the case of superheroes it often references their name or abilities. Lumerman.com provides several examples of superhero catchphrases:
Hulk: “Don’t make me angry… You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry”
Superman: “Look, up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman”
Green Lantern: “In brightest day… in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight! Let those who worship evil’s might beware my power—Green Lantern’s light!”
Human Torch: “FLAME ON!”
(“Superhero Catchphrases,” n.d.)
Whedon goes on to call attention to the somewhat pathetic nature of the joke by having Moist echo thoughts many of the audience may be having:
Figure 3: new-catchprase.jpg (Source: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, 2008)
The second way Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog appropriates our embodied cultural capital is by dodging the conventions of a genre or character type and thus surprising the audience. While doing this does reference a certain genre or style for part of the narrative, it isn’t necessarily mocking it, and thus, in the case of this film, isn’t parodying. Dr. Whitney Anspach reminds us that: “All parodies are intertextual representations. But not all intertextual representations are parodies” (Week #5 Lecture, p. 4)
We’ve all probably seen plenty of romantic comedies and romantic dramas, and thus are familiar with the repetitive route often taken in these films. A very succinct example of this was given in our week three lecture on semiotics.
(Week #3 Lecture, p. 6)
The portion of interest to us here is the narratives and myths associated with the word “passion,” Which are: “Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl”
That sounds to me like an accurate description of most films in the romantic comedy genre.
In Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog we are introduced to Dr. Horrible/Billy and his passion for Penny through the song “My Freeze Ray.” We then see him go on to “lose” her to his arch-nemesis Captain Hammer. He can’t exactly lose her since he never had her, but the point stands he ends up much farther away from his goal of being with Penny since she is now dating someone else.
Since I know how romantic comedies tend to play out, I’m much more likely to think that this will happen:
Not this:
Of course the second one is what actually happens, effectively sidestepping the ending we expect based on the similarities we see between the beginning narrative in DHSAG and that of romantic comedies. This technique is intertextual because it follows a typical narrative found in other films, and then uses our expectations to surprise us.
This ties into M. M. Bakhtin’s theory of dialogic conversation. Here is Berger’s (2005) description of this theory:
When we speak with others, and this takes the form of dialogue, we always keep in mind what has been said earlier in conversation and we try to anticipate, as best we can, what might be said later in the conversation.
In dialogue, our speech is always oriented towards a listener or a group of listeners. We can say the same about texts in general—works of art such as novels, plays paintings, sitcoms, police dramas, and soap operas. (p. 76)
Films keep in mind the information they have already given us and try to anticipate how our thought processes will be working, so that they can pull off surprise endings.
However, this is not always very effective, especially if you are familiar with a filmmaker’s style, like many people are with Whedon’s style. The unexpected becomes the new expected. In this way, Whedon’s films become intertextual with each other as they often share very similar narrative devices.
I am going to be examining some of the characters, songs and scenes in DHSAB more closely, with the aim of pinpointing intertextual references to other works, and the common devices used to create the genre mimicking that is present.
Horrible Intertextual Representations 