Object of Comedy
Although the original portrayals of chainsaw violence worked on its capacity to inflict gory damage upon a human body or sadistically produce pain, its prominence in low budget B-movies has since produced a separate image of the chainsaw as a comedic, often campy expression of over the top terror.
This image is often drawn upon in cartoons, comedy series and comedy films. It has appeared occasionally as part of the post-Scream wave of self-referential horror, for instance David Arquette's The Tripper.
One of the most famous stereotypes of comedic chainsaw portrayal is that of the chainsaw wielding lunatic in a hockey mask (seen for example in the Simpsons episode "Cape Feare"). Ironically, horror cinema’s archetypal hockey mask killer Jason Voorhees has never actually been portrayed wielding a chainsaw in a film, though chainsaws have been used against him in some films.
The band Arrogant Worms have a song called "Malcolm", in which the title character "solves his problems with a chainsaw and he never has the same problem twice".
Read more about this topic: Chainsaws In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words object of, object and/or comedy:
“Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear,
Some flying from the thing they feared, and some
Seeking the object of another’s fear;”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“I often used to think myself in the case of the fox-hunter, who, when he had toiled and sweated all day in the chase as if some unheard-of blessing was to crown his success, finds at last all he has got by his labor is a stinking nauseous animal. But my condition was yet worse than his; for he leaves the loathsome wretch to be torn by his hounds, whilst I was obliged to fondle mine, and meanly pretend him to be the object of my love.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.”
—Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977)