Instant Dramatica
Musings from Armando Saldaņa
Mora
Dramatica Visits South Park
Going to South Park (a shortcut through 1920s Germany) Do you like 20th century
theater? have you seen or read any of the Bertold Brecht plays ("The three penny
opera", "The resistible rise of Arturo Ui")? Have you read any of his
theory books?
Bretold Brecht has this very dense theory about what he called a "detachment from
the play in order to create a critic conscience in the viewer." In short and in
Dramatica terms in reads like this: "When the viewer gets emotionally involved in the
play, she looses perspective and is target of manipulations by the author. The only way to
release the viewer from this manipulations and allow her a conscience of her own is to
only present her the Objective Story of the play; and then the viewer can judge by herself
what she really feels about it."
Pretty dense, huh? and opposed to every Dramatica concept too.
Now, at first that could seem like a Propaganda Technique to mess with the viewers'
heads, but if you read one of his plays you'll find the following:
In every one of his plays he has a character that acts as a Master of Ceremonies (The
Presenter he calls it). He doesn't interact in the play, but merely presents it to the
public like a circus ring master (Brecht used to work for cabarets in 1920s Germany and
all of them had a master of ceremonies. Remember Joel Gray's character in the movie
"Cabaret"?), and then, the whole play develops.
Now, what Brecht is really doing is: he's making the Presenter his Main Character:
before the play, he tells us what he thinks of all the objective characters and how will
the plot develop. He seems to be smarter and in a higher position that the other
characters, so we tend to identify with him. And the obstacle character would be the Whole
Play!
That's right, the Presenter gives us a perspective, a way of thinking, and the play
presents us with another perspective altogether, but in the end we can tell if the
Presenter was right (steadfast) or if he was wrong (change).
When I see South Park I think of a Brecht play. My vision on it is not the last word,
but this is how I see it:
It was a genial idea to put a famous and recognizable figure such as Les Claypool (at
least recognizable for Generation-X-South-Park-viewers) singing the opening tune. He acts
like a complete Presenter, we identify with him and he has a genuinely sarcastic but
sympathetic view of the South Park town. He gives us an emotional perspective on the
series and then the episode starts and gives us another; but we're still on the Detached
Main Character emotional view, so we could laugh our head off every single time they kill
Kenny. At the end of the show, the closing titles music reminds us of the Les Claypool
perspective and the subjective view of the show comes to a complete circle.
The problem with this approach is that is a dangerous one. Is closed to people who can
identify with a figure such as Les Claypool and his sarcastic perspective. Any other could
(and will) find the show a horrible monstrosity where they kill an eight year boy every
single chapter... the same eight year boy every time! But I guess South Park producers are
deep into danger.
So, as I said, my view on the show isn't the only one. I'd love to hear another one.
By the way, real Generation X-ers (like those on the famous Douglas Coupland novel) are
now in our mid 30s, not that teenagers the Pepsi ads wants us to think.
