View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by OTHES 1 DIPLOMARBEIT Titel der Diplomarbeit “The Meta Boosh: Forms and functions of metareference in the British comedy series The Mighty Boosh” Verfasserin Michaela Pasterk, Bakk.phil. angestrebter akademischer Grad Magistra der Philosophie (Mag.phil.) Wien, 2012 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 343 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: Anglistik und Amerikanistik Betreuerin: Ao. Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Eva Zettelmann 2 Declaration of Authenticity I confirm to have conceived and written this thesis in English all by myself. Quotations from sources are all clearly marked and acknowledged in the bibliographical references either in the footnotes or within the text. Any ideas borrowed and/or passages paraphrased from the works of other authors are truthfully acknowledged and identified in the footnotes. Signature: ___________________________ Hinweis Diese Diplomarbeit hat nachgewiesen, dass die betreffende Kandidatin befähigt ist, wissenschaftliche Themen selbständig sowie inhaltlich und methodisch vertretbar zu bearbeiten. Da die Korrekturen der Beurteilenden nicht eingetragen sind und das Gutachten nicht beiliegt, ist daher nicht erkenntlich, mit welcher Note diese Arbeit abgeschlossen wurde. Das Spektrum reicht von sehr gut bis genügend. Es wird gebeten, diesen Hinweis bei der Lektüre zu beachten. 3 Hello, Mr Paper; where have you been? I'd like to meet your family, and see what you've seen, Now gather all your friends and stand up straight, I'm gonna bind you up now. Squash it up, squash it down, YES! Crush it down, crush it down, NO! Shower time ink splash colourful soap Flick through my pages and have a little grope. -The Flighty Zeus The Mighty Book of Boosh, p.19 My thanks go to my supervisor, Prof. Eva Zettelmann, for reviving my enthusiasm for literature in a crowded lecture hall many years ago, as well as for her unwavering support and encouragement, without which this thesis would most certainly have a different title and topic. I would also like to thank my parents for having my back and keeping the faith throughout the years – your unconditional love and support made this possible. Thanks goes to my friends across the world for cheering me on all the way to the finishing line and beyond, and to Kathi, who has now been the Vince to my Howard for roughly three quarters of our lives. 4 Table of Contents I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 7 1.1 “Hi. Welcome to the show.” ....................................................................... 7 1.2 What is The Mighty Boosh? .................................................................... 10 II. THEORY ...................................................................................................... 16 2.1 Outline and terminology .......................................................................... 16 2.2 Developments of metareferential film and television - a brief overview .. 18 2.3 The ‘metareferential turn’ ........................................................................ 23 3.4 The Mighty Boosh as a metatext ............................................................ 25 3.5 An intermedial approach - remarks ......................................................... 27 III. ANALYSIS ................................................................................................... 29 3.1 Textual worlds and borders ..................................................................... 29 3.1.1 The look of The Mighty Boosh .......................................................... 34 3.1.2 Metalepses and transgressions ........................................................ 36 3.1.3 From beyond the curtain .................................................................. 40 3.1.4 Ontology and textual structure – a brief recapitulation ..................... 42 3.2 On the aesthetics of acting, writing and storytelling ................................ 44 3.2.1 “That’s not a story!” .......................................................................... 45 3.2.2 “What’s your novel about?” .............................................................. 48 3.2.3 “I’m a man in a monkey suit!” ........................................................... 49 3.3 Plotlines .................................................................................................. 54 3.4 The Zooniverse – a metareferential space? ............................................ 61 3.5 The characters – rules of convention ...................................................... 63 3.6 The Mighty Boosh as an audiovisual text................................................ 70 3.6.1 The ‘Meta Boosh’ way of television .................................................. 72 3.6.2 Audio and video separated ............................................................... 77 5 IV. FUNCTIONS ............................................................................................... 80 4.1 Pause and recap ..................................................................................... 80 4.2 Characters, magic, comedy .................................................................... 83 4.3 The charm of discourse .......................................................................... 86 4.4 Where do we go from here? ................................................................... 88 4.5 A return to the comfort of the fictional...................................................... 91 V. CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................... 94 VI. LIST OF REFERENCES ............................................................................. 98 6.1 Primary source ........................................................................................ 98 6.2 Secondary sources ................................................................................. 98 6.3 Cited interviews .................................................................................... 100 VII. INDEX ...................................................................................................... 102 VIII. APPENDIX .............................................................................................. 103 7.1 Abstract ................................................................................................. 103 7.2 Deutsche Zusammenfassung ............................................................... 104 7.3 Curriculum Vitae ................................................................................... 105 6 At the beginning of this thesis there is a red curtain in front of which I stand to tell you what is in store for you, and to invite you to join me on a journey through story and discourse. 7 I. INTRODUCTION 1.1 “Hi. Welcome to the show.” When the comedy act The Mighty Boosh won the Perrier Award for Best Newcomer at the Fringe Festival 1998 in Edinburgh, their style was both old- fashioned and entirely outlandish at once compared to the primarily observational comedy popular at the time. When the third series of The Mighty Boosh television series aired on BBC2 in 2006, people had slowly started to catch up and begun to understand what the creators Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding might be about with their psychedelic comedy universe, the world of The Mighty Boosh, in which the grim reaper drives a taxi and speaks with a cockney accent, a green, hitch-hiking mass-murderer traps people in a box and “Cheese is a kind of meat” (as character Tommy Nookah will be quick to confirm). Of the broad range of elements the show has to offer – magical, fantastical, musical, scary and funny – one thing in particular stands out: the show is strikingly metareferential throughout, constantly drawing attention towards itself or its medium. Amidst its emphasis on stories and narratives, on magic and fairy tale-like wonder and imagination, there is always an element of self- consciousness that points towards the show’s status as an artefact and the context in which it is embedded in terms of mediality. As thrilling and hilarious as the adventures of the characters might be, the fourth wall is repeatedly knocked down, to a point where one could say it is never even fully established. What is fascinating to observe, however, is the fact that The Mighty Boosh’s high degree of illusion-breaking metareferentiality has not alienated its audience – on the contrary. The Mighty Boosh enjoys a vast popularity with audiences of all ages that has only been growing over the years. The Mighty Boosh is mighty fascinating. It is this fascination and intriguing metareferential nature that this paper started out to investigate – how does metareference in The Mighty Boosh work and what does it achieve? What shapes do meta-elements take, what patterns do 8 8 they form and how can they function to keep an audience entertained? What persuades the audience to keep watching instead of declaring the show ‘too weird’ and giving up? In light of what has recently been officially termed ‘the metareferential turn’ (cf. Wolf, 2011:1), the question poses itself whether the popularity of a metareferential show like The Mighty Boosh could be an indicator or example of a wider phenomenon in the media: have television audiences become meta-tolerant? Or perhaps more competent? Or is it a sign that the media are running themselves dry and entirely heteroreferential television can no longer be successful, or