The Fine Art of Cheese

I received an e-mail from Amazon.ca today letting me know that my MST3K Volumes 1 and 2 shipped today which brought something that has been kicking around in my head now for a couple weeks to the forefront. One of the more entertaining genres of entertainment is one that is not usually considered a genre of its own. That is the genre of the cheesy. Now a lot of times cheesy movies are lumped together into a wide variety of movies referred to a B movies. Most people do not see the distinction between a B movie and a cheesy movie. For a movie to be truly cheesy (and therefore optimize its entertainment value) certain criteria have to be met. What most people would classify as cheesy could fall into one of 3 categories.

For a movie to be truly cheesy there has to be a sense of earnestness about it. For example, look at Mortal Kombat: annihilation. The reason that the movie is hilarious is because it is not supposed to be. When Raiden flies across the room shouting, we are supposed to be impressed. When Scorpion yells, "Suckers!" to Lui Kang and Sub-Zero we are supposed to be angered by his actions. It is because a movie is dead-serious about incredibly contrived and stupid things the movie is funny.

As a counterpoint there are movies that are intentionally cheesy. The problem with intentional cheesiness is that it often goes out of its way to show the audience that it is supposed to be a joke. Intentionally cheesy things can be fun; just look at Batman with Adam West. But the reason that show/movie was so great is that the characters played it straight. While we may laugh, Batman and Robin were truly touched at the 'nobility of the almost human porpoise' when it sacrificed itself by swimming in front of a torpedo.

When a movie or show gets obsessed with letting us know that it is intentionally cheesy however, it just gets stupid. Scary Movie is a perfect example of this. The movie starts off somewhat funny but as the movie goes on the characters actions make little sense from an internal viewpoint; they are constantly doing things for no reason other than to amuse the audience. Having a character do something stupid and random for no reason other than the fact it is stupid and random gets old fast. The movie felt like it was worried we would think it was supposed to not be silly so it spend way too much energy on proverbially winking at the audience, thus ruining the comedy.

The last, and thankfully rarest, category is the awful. These are movies that are so bad that they are almost unwatchable. Like cheesy movies, they usually feel like something that was taken seriously. We generally do not see a lot of these as they have a hard time getting made in the first place and even a harder time getting any sort of actual release. A prime example of this would be Manos: The Hands of Fate. This movie was featured in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and even with lots of humorous jokes being made, this film was almost unbearable to watch. Movies in this category usually could have been cheese but for some reason or other, they are just SO bad that it stops being funny and starts being uncomfortable.

There are, naturally some grey areas, particularly with the first two categories. Some movies (like Jack Frost 2) are obviously played for laughs by the filmmakers and the characters but they still manage to work. And there are some movies that feel like they are trying to be serious but are so silly it is hard to imagine that anyone involved thought they were really making a serious movie (Ice Cream Man would be a prime example).

So remember kids, bad and cheesy are not necessarily the same thing.