PG Porn Meta! A must-read!
My BFF, ladydreamer, wrote an amazing meta and I just had to share it all with you! With her permission!
PEANUS ENHANCEMENT
Please do not take the contents of this post personally. I'm expressing what I think about the short films.
What I liked about this premise, and what it does for the overall theme of PG Porn, is that it is the porno that rips off its plot from a movie or another source, gives it a silly sounding name (ex. Saving Ryan's Privates), and uses the premise to have people have sex (as opposed to "How will I pay for all these pizzas?" or "I'll help you with your plumbing, m'am!"), only as JG points out, this is PG porn, and you can get away with violence with a lower rating than you can sexual content. We are a very sexually weird country.
So you do have to have a working knowledge of Peanuts to get all the jokes in Peanus, which can be a flaw but it's just the way parody works. I wouldn't go as far to call this a satire, because there's no identifiable target other than the porn industry and it isn't direct enough to make a point that is clear to everyone (obviously). It's just having a larf. What I think it does well, over the course of both parts is this: Peanus takes the bizarre and somewhat questionable traits of the children in the source material and turns them into perverse adults. If you thought that it was strange for eight-year-olds to all have absent parent figures and romantic interests with one another (I mean, it's to a degree that's truly stupid), then Peanus is for you.
Charlie Braun's mother:
We never see her before this, and she's voiced by a trumpet with a harmon mute (or a trombone, not sure). Charlie and his sister are basically without a father figure or a mother figure, and finding out that she's a drunk... Well, if you were wondering about her absence then this is funny in the context of how both of the kids turned out.
Charlie Braun's little sister, Sally:
Sally has a big brother complex. She refers to him by his full name, but mostly by "Big Brother," and I think that she idealizes him a bit. Why wouldn't she with absent parents? He was likely left to do most of the caring for her himself. So is it surprising when she finds "Big Brother" getting it on and is aroused? Linus shows up to be a substitute for her big brother so they can have sex. Sally has always been romantic about Linus, and this brings the two concepts together.
Charlie's bff/hetero-lifemate, Linus:
Arrested development to the extreme. He was too old at eight to suck his thumb and hold a blanket. He's tormented by his big sister and probably molested by her (since she said she had sex with him). One of my few disappointments was that he and Charlie didn't have any hoyay moments.
Charlie's "friend," Lucy:
In the source, Lucy is a demanding, selfish, bossy, temperamental shrew, and this is carried over with the way that Belladonna delivers her lines. It's really dead on. (Except the 'I swear to god, I'm not!' During the football scene, but she's trying to get him to believe her.) She's completely tactless, and in the second part, she wheedles Charlie only to yell at him that she doesn't want AIDS. She's also been with most of their circle of friends, because Lucy gets what Lucy wants. Dammit.
The football kick: I would have felt cheated if I didn't get to see Lucy and Charlie doing that football thing. She's such a little asshole. I believe with all my soul that if Charlie hadn't killed her, she would have stopped in the middle, frustrating Charlie yet again.
Peppermint Patty and Marcie:
They're in a powerplay S&M lesbian relationship in which Marcie is required to call Patty "sir." Their relationship has been the most often commented on in parody as homosexual, but this aspect with Marcie as the willing submissive is new, and honestly, amusing, because who calls their girlfriend 'sir' all the time? Marcie has always been submissive and polite with everyone (Calls Charlie "Charles, whereas the informal Patty calls him "Chuck"). Patty is more boyish and aggressive. Patty is butch. Deal with it.
This guy, Schroeder:
I always thought he had a big pimpin' thing going on, when he's not completely focused on music. This caries over with his threesome. The funny visual of him playing the piano on his toy piano is enhanced by the fact that the toy piano has a limited range, and somehow he's always able to play whatever he wants from it.
Charlie Braun's dog, Snoopy:
Okay, I know some people were upset about Snoopy not looking like Snoopy, but I think it's hilarious, and as JG commented, it's very much like a porn to just throw in someone's dog. They don't have the time or the money to cast the perfect beagle. It's nice of them to put on the aviator helmet, though. I loved that during the sex scene in the second one he's just humping... something.
Pig-Pen:
Ew. I never liked his character, and I don't like 'potty' jokes, so all I can say is, his parents should have bathed him as a child. I'm sure, since the girl was turned on, this has to do with scat fetish porn, which is also gross. If I put my head to it, I think the message is that scat is gross. It stops the porn music and disrupts the rhythm of the scene, instead of letting the sexual tension rise.
Charlie Braun: Why's everybody always pickin' on me?
The main guy, the master dude. He doesn't get the bulk of the lines, but everyone is connected to him. The key to his portrayal is all of his reactions. Charlie Braun is a lonely, depressed, virginal (not in a vagina or in a butt!) and frustrated character, whose major flaw is continuing to trust people despite the fact that EVERYONE in his life is an asshole. As he's walking down the street in the first scene, Charlie Braun waves at the car and from Michael's body language, you can tell they don't wave back! There's our first sign that the whole world hates Charlie. You see him hugging Lucy like he's starved for human contact (well, he doesn't get it from his mom, and he really shouldn't indulge his sister), and then when he falls and hits his head on a ROCK (you had to wonder if he ever hurt himself, falling all those times), EVERYONE crowds around to laugh at him. They don't even stop when he says he can't feel his legs.
Charlie Braun is a schmuck. He's a "lovable loser," except the audience members are the only ones to love him. In the cartoon and the comic, he can't hit a ball. He can't kick a football. He can't even get a damn xmas tree right (And in this case, it's because of his good nature that he feels sorry for the tree, and everyone kicks him for that one, too). Trees eat his kites! In the parody, he's a virgin in his thirties, everything in his house "looks exactly the same" and he still lives with his drunk mother and his weird little sister, presumably taking care of them, since he's the guy getting the groceries and a drunk woman covered in her own barf is probably not going to put up a Christmas tree. He KNOWS everyone hates him, and nothing is ever changing for him. It's perpetual hell.
No one helps him in this situation, despite a huge circle of friends, and Lucy just won't leave him alone. He obviously wants her, while she just gets off on dicking him around. He has an obsession with her in his closet filled with pictures of her with the eyes scratched out (with baby oil nearby. What do you imagine he does with that?). One of the most hilarious things in part two (aside from the massacre) was how frightened Charlie looked when Lucy was grinding on him. I also found his description of his penis funny, since in porn they're trying so make it sound all sexy, but his description of "Woodstock" is actually quite clinical. They go out of their way to make it unsexy.
So, for JG, watching that frustration all those years? I imagine seeing Charlie get some damn revenge on everyone was a release and the proper end to seeing the real Charlie Brown get kicked in the teeth for years.
Conclusion:
I wanted him to say "Good Grief!" at some point, and was sad that Charlie didn't. However, I like this one better than "Nailing Your Wife" because the jokes are more complex. NYW was funny, don't get me wrong, but it's a one note joke. Porn is badly produced, and oops! She died! I think it's just because Peanus was referencing something from my childhood, that then when you think about it is supremely bizarre and through pointing out those oddities they also were able to continue their exploration of porn's weirdness.
Your mileage my vary.
...
I couldn't agree more! Growing up with Peanuts as I did, I have to say that I really related to James Gunn when he declared to hate Lucy. I felt vindicated with PG-Porn: Peanus Series!
I thought the non-beagle Snoopy was hilarious and a hint of what a porn movie crew really would do, and, of course, the outstanding performances of Michael Rosenbaum, James Gunn and Belladona were the best!
Thanks for letting me repost this, babe! You rock!!
:D
PEANUS ENHANCEMENT
Please do not take the contents of this post personally. I'm expressing what I think about the short films.
What I liked about this premise, and what it does for the overall theme of PG Porn, is that it is the porno that rips off its plot from a movie or another source, gives it a silly sounding name (ex. Saving Ryan's Privates), and uses the premise to have people have sex (as opposed to "How will I pay for all these pizzas?" or "I'll help you with your plumbing, m'am!"), only as JG points out, this is PG porn, and you can get away with violence with a lower rating than you can sexual content. We are a very sexually weird country.
So you do have to have a working knowledge of Peanuts to get all the jokes in Peanus, which can be a flaw but it's just the way parody works. I wouldn't go as far to call this a satire, because there's no identifiable target other than the porn industry and it isn't direct enough to make a point that is clear to everyone (obviously). It's just having a larf. What I think it does well, over the course of both parts is this: Peanus takes the bizarre and somewhat questionable traits of the children in the source material and turns them into perverse adults. If you thought that it was strange for eight-year-olds to all have absent parent figures and romantic interests with one another (I mean, it's to a degree that's truly stupid), then Peanus is for you.
Charlie Braun's mother:
We never see her before this, and she's voiced by a trumpet with a harmon mute (or a trombone, not sure). Charlie and his sister are basically without a father figure or a mother figure, and finding out that she's a drunk... Well, if you were wondering about her absence then this is funny in the context of how both of the kids turned out.
Charlie Braun's little sister, Sally:
Sally has a big brother complex. She refers to him by his full name, but mostly by "Big Brother," and I think that she idealizes him a bit. Why wouldn't she with absent parents? He was likely left to do most of the caring for her himself. So is it surprising when she finds "Big Brother" getting it on and is aroused? Linus shows up to be a substitute for her big brother so they can have sex. Sally has always been romantic about Linus, and this brings the two concepts together.
Charlie's bff/hetero-lifemate, Linus:
Arrested development to the extreme. He was too old at eight to suck his thumb and hold a blanket. He's tormented by his big sister and probably molested by her (since she said she had sex with him). One of my few disappointments was that he and Charlie didn't have any hoyay moments.
Charlie's "friend," Lucy:
In the source, Lucy is a demanding, selfish, bossy, temperamental shrew, and this is carried over with the way that Belladonna delivers her lines. It's really dead on. (Except the 'I swear to god, I'm not!' During the football scene, but she's trying to get him to believe her.) She's completely tactless, and in the second part, she wheedles Charlie only to yell at him that she doesn't want AIDS. She's also been with most of their circle of friends, because Lucy gets what Lucy wants. Dammit.
The football kick: I would have felt cheated if I didn't get to see Lucy and Charlie doing that football thing. She's such a little asshole. I believe with all my soul that if Charlie hadn't killed her, she would have stopped in the middle, frustrating Charlie yet again.
Peppermint Patty and Marcie:
They're in a powerplay S&M lesbian relationship in which Marcie is required to call Patty "sir." Their relationship has been the most often commented on in parody as homosexual, but this aspect with Marcie as the willing submissive is new, and honestly, amusing, because who calls their girlfriend 'sir' all the time? Marcie has always been submissive and polite with everyone (Calls Charlie "Charles, whereas the informal Patty calls him "Chuck"). Patty is more boyish and aggressive. Patty is butch. Deal with it.
This guy, Schroeder:
I always thought he had a big pimpin' thing going on, when he's not completely focused on music. This caries over with his threesome. The funny visual of him playing the piano on his toy piano is enhanced by the fact that the toy piano has a limited range, and somehow he's always able to play whatever he wants from it.
Charlie Braun's dog, Snoopy:
Okay, I know some people were upset about Snoopy not looking like Snoopy, but I think it's hilarious, and as JG commented, it's very much like a porn to just throw in someone's dog. They don't have the time or the money to cast the perfect beagle. It's nice of them to put on the aviator helmet, though. I loved that during the sex scene in the second one he's just humping... something.
Pig-Pen:
Ew. I never liked his character, and I don't like 'potty' jokes, so all I can say is, his parents should have bathed him as a child. I'm sure, since the girl was turned on, this has to do with scat fetish porn, which is also gross. If I put my head to it, I think the message is that scat is gross. It stops the porn music and disrupts the rhythm of the scene, instead of letting the sexual tension rise.
Charlie Braun: Why's everybody always pickin' on me?
The main guy, the master dude. He doesn't get the bulk of the lines, but everyone is connected to him. The key to his portrayal is all of his reactions. Charlie Braun is a lonely, depressed, virginal (not in a vagina or in a butt!) and frustrated character, whose major flaw is continuing to trust people despite the fact that EVERYONE in his life is an asshole. As he's walking down the street in the first scene, Charlie Braun waves at the car and from Michael's body language, you can tell they don't wave back! There's our first sign that the whole world hates Charlie. You see him hugging Lucy like he's starved for human contact (well, he doesn't get it from his mom, and he really shouldn't indulge his sister), and then when he falls and hits his head on a ROCK (you had to wonder if he ever hurt himself, falling all those times), EVERYONE crowds around to laugh at him. They don't even stop when he says he can't feel his legs.
Charlie Braun is a schmuck. He's a "lovable loser," except the audience members are the only ones to love him. In the cartoon and the comic, he can't hit a ball. He can't kick a football. He can't even get a damn xmas tree right (And in this case, it's because of his good nature that he feels sorry for the tree, and everyone kicks him for that one, too). Trees eat his kites! In the parody, he's a virgin in his thirties, everything in his house "looks exactly the same" and he still lives with his drunk mother and his weird little sister, presumably taking care of them, since he's the guy getting the groceries and a drunk woman covered in her own barf is probably not going to put up a Christmas tree. He KNOWS everyone hates him, and nothing is ever changing for him. It's perpetual hell.
No one helps him in this situation, despite a huge circle of friends, and Lucy just won't leave him alone. He obviously wants her, while she just gets off on dicking him around. He has an obsession with her in his closet filled with pictures of her with the eyes scratched out (with baby oil nearby. What do you imagine he does with that?). One of the most hilarious things in part two (aside from the massacre) was how frightened Charlie looked when Lucy was grinding on him. I also found his description of his penis funny, since in porn they're trying so make it sound all sexy, but his description of "Woodstock" is actually quite clinical. They go out of their way to make it unsexy.
So, for JG, watching that frustration all those years? I imagine seeing Charlie get some damn revenge on everyone was a release and the proper end to seeing the real Charlie Brown get kicked in the teeth for years.
Conclusion:
I wanted him to say "Good Grief!" at some point, and was sad that Charlie didn't. However, I like this one better than "Nailing Your Wife" because the jokes are more complex. NYW was funny, don't get me wrong, but it's a one note joke. Porn is badly produced, and oops! She died! I think it's just because Peanus was referencing something from my childhood, that then when you think about it is supremely bizarre and through pointing out those oddities they also were able to continue their exploration of porn's weirdness.
Your mileage my vary.
...
I couldn't agree more! Growing up with Peanuts as I did, I have to say that I really related to James Gunn when he declared to hate Lucy. I felt vindicated with PG-Porn: Peanus Series!
I thought the non-beagle Snoopy was hilarious and a hint of what a porn movie crew really would do, and, of course, the outstanding performances of Michael Rosenbaum, James Gunn and Belladona were the best!
Thanks for letting me repost this, babe! You rock!!
:D