this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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I wrote a paper analyzing the movie Caddyshack in college, in terms of the principles of Greek comedy we were studying.
What was your main idea?
Does the chorus show up in comedies or just the tragedies? I had one Greek drama course in college but it was forever ago (and we focused more on tragedies) so I don't remember much.
I can't remember any of the names in Greek, but basically all of the major archetypes and the central thrust of the story were there.
Danny Noonan is obviously the protagonist, the maturing hero. Judge Smails is the central antagonist with money and power. Rodney Dangerfield is the agrokyoy (or something similar), the lovable buffoon who stands in opposition to the antagonist, slowly setting up the central climax of the story by undoing his evil machinations at every turn. Lacey is the beguiling love interest who catches the eye of the hero. Spaulding Smails is the wretched and conniving antagonist who is ultimately powerless to impact the story in any way, mostly just serving as comic relief. Ty Webb is the wise figure who takes the protagonist under his wing and guides him throughout the story.
As the agrokyoy and the antagonist come increasingly into conflict, the protagonist, previously a trivial figure, must step in at the climax of the story and make a fateful choice that represents his coming of age and his own moral victory. Everyone defeats the antagonist, victory is at hand, and everyone leaves leaving only the chorus. Or, in this case, the gopher.
Yep, Greek af
I wrote the whole paper because it really did fit perfectly. It wasn't just that Judge Smails was the antagonist; there was a specific type of pompous antagonist that plays a very specific role in the story, and he fit it to a T. But it was legitimately clear to me that Caddyshack was, on purpose or not, following in the exact footsteps of a very well-established tradition for how to make a well-functioning comedy.
I honestly don't remember whether the paper was well received. This was quite a while ago.
That sounds awesome. I really like the Greek myths, (I was even into them as a kid) but the course I took was kinda boring because it was a huge lecture course instead of a seminar. I mean, I'm glad a got a look at a large swath of material but it would've been more enjoyable digging deeper into a subset. And maybe the themes would've stuck better in my brain a little better too.
It really sucks that schools and universities take something as amazing and entertaining as Greek mythology and makes it as boring as possible.
They teach it at the grade school level and remove all the sex... and Greek myths are like 90% sex.
One of my middle-school English classes handed out a list of Shakespearean insults and paired us off to stand up in front of the class and have, essentially, a rap battle trading insults appropriate to the person. I was paired off with a girl I legitimately didn't like very much and I got a little bit personal with her and she fired back with absolute venom. I'm not gonna lie, she fucked me up. I remember she called me "hind-bred."
My courses weren't censoring anything-- all the sex and murder was included. It was just that we were plowing through 1500 pages of material instead of say, doing close analysis on like half of that.
That was a pretty awesome analysis, I never would have thought to look at Caddyshack like that. Thanks for sharing!