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Everyone Is Jesus In Purgatory
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"Now they're trying to come up with meanings for Beatles songs. I never understood what any of them were about, myself..."
Suppose you are studying Moby-Dick. Anybody with any common sense would say Moby-Dick is a big white whale, since the characters in the book refer to it as a big white whale roughly eleven thousand times. So in your paper, you say Moby-Dick is actually the Republic of Ireland. Your professor, who is sick to death of reading papers and never liked Moby-Dick anyway, will think you are enormously creative.
— Dave Barry, "College Admissions"
"The idea is very simple, so simple that if you are not careful you will forget it. It is this--that everyone in the world is Christ and they are all crucified. That's what I want to say. Don't you forget that. Whatever happens, don't you dare let yourself forget."
— Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio
Memories of that overzealous English teacher who forced you to accept that every character, every scene, and every action had a deep inner meaning have led to widespread fear on the part of readers and viewers everywhere that every tale secretly contains some other story being told in subtext.
The end result of this is a state of mind that, for example, interprets every plot as an allegory for the afterlife and every protagonist as a stand-in for the Christ: Everyone Is Jesus In Purgatory!
Rampant paranoia results from this state; one cannot look at anything without being suspicious that this is some kind of allegory brainwashing you into learning An Aesop against your will. Is that box of Ding-Dongs one character is handing another a mere confection, or is it a blessing from On High, manna sent from a merciful God? Or wait... it could be a Deal With The Devil; short-term pleasure resulting in permanent bodily ruination! What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic?
The concept of " the Death of the Author" hasn't particularly helped this state of affairs, either, as it allows everyone to insist that their pet theories are entirely valid (with or without justification), regardless of how many times the author of the text states his or her intentions in writing the work, or, as in many cases, that the pet theory absolutely isn't the state of affairs at all.
The Mind Screw series loves this state of mind. It cultivates it intentionally, and takes advantage every chance it gets.
Epileptic Trees derived from this are more frequently Jossed than the Ass Pull kind. If Word Of God tries to Joss it, a particularly stubborn theorist will usually argue that the author was wrong, and that he has the correct interpretation that came out of the author's subconscious.
Of course, we all know this is a reach. Everything is really just about sex.
This trope name comes straight from the fan theories in the Wild Mass Guessing index: a surprising number of series are, according to our theorists, set in Purgatory and starring the Son of God. The Fancy Dan word for finding patterns where there are none is "apophenia", in case you don't want to type out all of " Everyone Is Jesus In Purgatory".
Oddly enough, being Merchandise Driven tends to act as a shield from this trope so long as you don't do anything to provoke it. The deeper meaning is obvious: it's all about selling toys. Unicron isn't Satan, he's fifty bucks of disposable income.
Almost anything that insists that True Art Is Incomprehensible is subject to this trope.
Can be used to make boring stories and shows entertaining by selectively choosing which things to take literally, which narrators are insane, and who's an allegory/personification/metaphor for what.
Please note that the examples below should be distinct from Wild Mass Guessing. Please.
Examples:
Live Action TV
- The Prisoner pushed the limits of this trope about as far as live-action TV can possibly go; you're never certain whether you're being told a straightforward, literal story or witnessing something allegorical -- except in the final episode, where the show ditches nearly all pretenses of literalism.
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer had many examples of subtext and allegory, which led naturally to some overanalysis by the fans. One theory involves each season representing one of the seven steps on the path to Buddhist Nirvana (originally posted between seasons 6 and 7, with an amendment after the finale).
- This editor can't even watch The Simpsons any more without commenting on the unintentional Warped Aesops she sees, as a result of her conviction that Homer represents America and all the other characters represent its political relationships with other nations and its people.
- The ending of Life On Mars: Did Sam commit suicide? Or did he never even wake up from his coma in the first place? Was he even in a coma to begin with? Or something else entirely? Although the writer himself has directly stated that the first one occurred, plenty (including the star of the series) go with the second interpretation -- and it has to be acknowledged that the series is ambiguous enough to make either possibility valid.
- Ask five Ashes To Ashes fans about the meaning of the scene in the S1 finale with Gene carrying young Alex away from the scene of her parents' death; expect about seven different interpretations.
- This Slate article, which explains that Jerry Seinfeld and his comedy routine represents conformity and lack of identity in a totalitarian government. Um . . . right.
- One thing about that article is true though. The main character of Bee Movie looks creepy as hell.
- Lost is a series with much deep meaning and symbolism, but many fans take it too far. This is, after all, the fandom where the name for Epileptic Trees came from. There are even theories that include this exact trope title, which have already been discredited by the Word Of God. And yet people still claim they are in Purgatory.
- Is the Doctor Who story "the Happiness Patrol" really about Feminism? Thatcherism? Homosexuality? Or is it just a fun, weird little story on a Planet Of Hats where one of the villains is made of candy? You decide.
- The Candyman resembles Bertie Bassett, a mascot of a British candy company. (The company actually complained and the BBC had to deny everything.)
- This troper will continue to insist with her last breath that the Deus Ex Machina ending to the Doctor Who episode "Last of the Timelords" was not an Ass Pull but the natural conclusion of the nihilism vs. humanism theme that was established back in "Utopia". What? I mean it!
- Actually, I sort of agree with you: There's some fascinating thematic stuff going on, and the good guys win using the same method as in The Shakespeare Code (the power of words shaping reality), so I think it's set up. I still think the execution was really shoddy, though.
- There are plenty of theories on Supernatural's "What Is and What Should Never Be". Some think Dean's wish was for rest (as suggested by continual use of "Get some rest") while others think that it was just getting his Mum back. And some think that it was just an Alternate Universe where he would have been a bastard if not for hunting (which, if true, might just be the most disheartening thing that they've ever done) while others think that the Djinn just took it from his wish and Dean's the one who hates himself enough to think that he's a slutty, worthless, borderline alcoholic jerkass (which would be more in keeping with his serious lack of self-worth throughout the entire series). Either way, it's still a massive tearjerker.
- A theory that became popular a while back is that the cast of Gilligans Island represent the seven deadly sins: Mary Ann is envy, the Professor is pride, Ginger is lust, Mr. Howell is greed, Mrs. Howell is sloth, the Skipper is both gluttony and wrath, and Gilligan himself is Satan.
Anime
- Neon Genesis Evangelion. Full stop. Although, that was really the point; see the bit about the Mind Screw above.
- Many Fullmetal Alchemist fans believe that the religion of Ishval was based off modern Islam, due to the Ishballans' dark skin and the Arabian Nights-esque setting they lived in. Hiromu Arakawa (the creator of the manga) has stated that she based it off of the Ainu, an ethnic group that were driven from Honshu and live on Hokkaido, where Arakawa was born. A similar theory is that Ishval was based off of Ishvara, a hindu concept of monotheism.
- On the other hand, the screenwriter for the anime has, according to this column, admitted that the war themes explored in the anime were meant as a commentary on America's participation in the Vietnam and Iraq wars. The Ishvalan civilians represented the natives of these countries, caught in the middle.
- And in the movie, it seems to be shown that the Ishbalans are Gypsies.
- Um, the Gypsies are in our world, but everyone in each world has a counterpart in the other, so maybe the Ishbalans and Gypsies are each others' counterparts.
- And for added flavour, Arakawa comments on the sleeve of volume 15 of the manga that she talked with plenty of Japanese WW 2 veterans for the Ishvalian flashbacks.
- Shortly after its release, many began suspecting that Code Geass's Britannian Empire and its resource-grubbing expansionism was meant to be a thinly-veiled potshot at America and the War on Terror, to the point where some began calling for a boycott of the show's eventual US release. In an interview near the end of the first season, director/co-creator Goro Taniguchi stated that this is not the case, insisting that the whole reason he made the show was to tell an entertaining story and not to make any kind of political message.
- One editor on this wiki has repeatedly insisted that Revolutionary Girl Utena is an "obvious" Mahayana Buddhist allegory "as everyone knows," and has edited the entry to imply that this is "common knowledge." At least one other editor disagrees vigorously, but doesn't feel like starting an Edit War over it.
- I don't know about Mahayana Buddhist allegories, but Revolutionary Girl Utena is, in fact, a heavily Jungian allegory about adolescence and eventual growing up. It's chock-full of symbolism, and it heavily references (sometimes even directly refers to, especially the movie) Herman Hesse's Demian.
- In fact, the repeated "chick breaking out of its shell" speech is a paraphrase of a passage from Demian. Compare:
Demian: The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born first must destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas.
versus
Utena: If it cannot hatch from its shell, the chick will die without ever truly being born. We are the chick; the world is our egg. If we don't break the world's shell, we will die without truly being born. Smash the world's shell, for the Revolution of the World.
- In fact, references to the name "Abraxas" are made repeatedly in the soundtrack titles, meaning this was in no way accidental.
- The general opinion is that Utena is informed by gnostic themes, not Buddhist.
- Before a flame war erupts, I'd like to remind everybody that nearly all these different symbolisms draw on each other (well Jung on Buddhism and gnosticism/the religions on vague religous things that Jung was trying to categorize). As the Chinese say: Many Paths, One Way.
- This troper wrote a paper in college explaining that Utena is, in fact, Jesus in Purgatory (though he does not refute any of the above). Suffice to say, there are many interpretations.
- Actually, Buddhism did directly influence Gnosticism. Around two hundred and fifty years BC there were Buddhist missionaries in Greece and the Middle East. They influenced the Stoics and some mystical groups, which later informed the Gnostic worldview.
- Tenchi Muyo: Anybody who was part of the (in)famous Tenchi FF mailing list at the proper time will remember one Mr. Grey, who argued that Tenchi Muyo was all an allegory for an obscure form of Zen Taoism. According to Grey, Ryoko and Ayeka were each half a universe, Ryoko represented the Altruist, and Tenchi represented the goat.
- Pretty Cure fans are usually kidding when they invoke this -- nobody really believes that Mika's introductory episode was intended as a condemnation of the tendency of news media to focus on celebrities at the expense of more important issues, or that the costume designs in Yes! Pretty Cure 5 symbolize the public school system draining children of their creativity and individuality.
- Lain. Just Lain. This troper has never seen anyone come up with the same interpretation of that anime twice. Even the creators can't agree on what all of it means. Pro-technology manifesto? Massive religious allegory? Treatise on the negative influences of Western culture on Japanese society? You decide; the Word Of God isn't going to help here.
- Haibane Renmei: Haibane Renmei was pretty much made to induce this kind of thing as near as I can tell. Though they take a lot of the fun out by making the 'purgatory' part so literal and obvious.
- Texhnolyze is set in the underground city of Lux/Lukuss, has episodes named "Heavenward" and "Hades", and eventually suggests that Lux was created as a sort of physical purgatory. The show also features a Mind Screw ending, though in general it's one of the more literal examples of this trope.
Comic Books
- Any story involving a Masquerade and Puberty Superpower can be interpreted as a metaphor for the awakening of a young homosexual if one looks close enough. Then again, some series deliberately play this up. More frequently, such series are often interpreted as allegories for puberty in general.
- This troper is convinced that Captain America's Death in the Civil War series represents Marvel's rejection of traditional American values. He's not too happy about that.
- Actually used in Civil War: Frontline 11 where Sally Floyd states that Captain America is out of touch, and should stop trying to fight for an ideal, and fight for Paris Hilton, and Myspace. Obviously, it's considered the worst issue in the entire crossover.
- Given Cap's usual role as a mirror of the American zeitgeist, if there's a symbolic level to that event (as opposed to simple Shock Value), then it may be intended to reflect what the Bullpen sees as America's rejection of traditional American values. You know, stuff like "torture is wrong" and "we aren't the aggressors" and "civil rights".
- The fact that Joe Quesada openly admitted that Cap "[was]n't living in the modern world" says otherwise.
- Yeah, but thats Joe Quesada.
Film
- The process by which Darth Sidious takes control of the Galactic Republic in the Star Wars prequel trilogy has been interpreted by some as a metaphor for the perceived centralization of power in the Bush administration -- a claim George Lucas denies, and which is pretty blatantly not the case, seeing as the principal details of the story were supposedly sketched out in the mid-'70s.
Huey Freeman: In Attack of the Clones, the president of the Republic uses the threat of a powerful foreign enemy, which he was secretly in league with, to start a war. He then uses that war to expand his own powers and create a massive military machine that will eventually oppress the galaxy as a fascist regime. I mean, do I have to SPELL IT OUT FOR YOU DUMMIES? THINK!
- Of course, the exact dialogue certainly wasn't written then. You can't pretend "If you're not with me, then you're my enemy" wasn't just a little intentional.
- Considering how "if you aren't with us, you're against us" is almost a traditional cliche (used, for instance, by Gaston) and far superior stylistically than "If you're not with me, then you're my enemy," Lucas may have deliberately avoided quoting Bush verbatim.
- And Sidious even pulls the Victor Yuschenko card in Episode III: "The Jedi assassination attempt upon me has left me mutilated and deformed," along with his almost-quote from Louis XIV: "I am the
State Senate."
- It gets better. In this editor's 20th Century American History class, the professor tried to convince us all that the original movie was an allegory for Nixon's fall from power and Carter's rise to the Presidency. Really.
- And people like to ignore the obvious parallels to Abraham Lincoln. Oo, touchy.
- This editor remembers a bunch of right wing pundits saying, "Well, I guess the Empire wasn't all that bad!" when Revenge of the Sith came out. Take that for what you will.
- This editor remembers one specific article which compared the Empire to the regime of General Pinochet. This was apparently meant as a compliment.
- Oddly enough my teacher has his own pet theory -- he thinks Lucas is mocking the fact that we always demonize our enemies, by having the villains be so over the top evil. The stromtroopers wear uniforms that look like skeletons, Vader is dressed in pure black and the Emperor is creepy as hell. Plus the Empire seems to commit evil for the sheer heck of it.
- This Editor always read it as a deliberate parallel to the Nazi party: everything from Palpatine being chancellor before assuming absolute power, to the name "stormtroopers" (the meaning of SturmAbteilung, Hitler's SA). Interestingly, this same idea could have been played with a different historical parallel: Augustus replacing acorrupt Roman Senate with himself, as (arguably) the right thing to do, at least in the short run.
- After reading lengthy comparisons of Palpatine to just about every major historical figure, including Russians comparing him to various Soviet and Russian leaders, this troper is now utterly convinced that Palpatine doesn't parallel a single politician, but is instead supposed to evoke timeless motifs that apply to politicians in general -- in particular, "dictator legally coming to power", which should be a trope. The Nazi parallels in A New Hope are too obvious to ignore, though.
- Intentional. Lucas was making his way with mythic themes, which have a timeless appeal, so he counterbalanced that with recent history allusions. That's been the formula for a great story ever since Greek epics -- mostly because they're all the exact same story.
- Come one, it's all hearkening back to the Roman Empire and the Caesars, consider a republic led by a senate, is taken over by one of those senators, who makes it into an empire, that happens to rule the civilized world.
- Similarly, the film 300 has been interpreted as an allegory for the war on terror. Notably, though, people who take this tack disagree on whether the Spartans are meant to represent the US and the Persians Islamic terrorism, or the other way around. At a March 2007 press conference, director Zack Snyder found himself nonplussed when asked by a reporter whether King Leonidas was meant to be George W. Bush or Osama bin Laden.
- Original author Frank Miller claims that his comic to a large degree was inspired by the 1962 film The 300 Spartans, which is often considered to be a metaphor for the Cold War. Whether such a message was intended or not is far from clear.
- It is generally accepted that Delios is telling the story of the Spartans in such a way to inspire the Spartans to go to war with the Persians; characters frequently repeat lines over the course of the movie, everything's ethereal and dreamlike, and Delios mentions explicit dialogue of scenes where it would be impossible for him to be present. Word Of God explicitly states that Delios wouldn't let the facts get in the way of a good story. This may inspire some to see it as a metaphor for media treatment of the recent Middle East war.
- Or maybe it's just a testosterone-soaked action movie with some unintentionally Fascist undertones.
- Of course, considering that 300 was based on a comic book series that was made in the late 90s, before 9/11 even happened, its kind of hard to take any parallels between it and the war on terror seriously, in this troper's opinion.
- Or, since the vast majority of the movie comes straight from nearly three thousand-year-old history (including the part where the darker-skinned Persians attempted to conquer the cradle of Western civilization), people will whine about anything.
- And of course the darker-skinned Persians were subhuman giant monsters, wearing samurai masks, and lead by a Brazilian.
- Some of the movie (that bit about a militarist slaving empire threatening a confederation of slaving city-states with various systems of government and varying degrees of militarism and cultural/technological sophistication) was from history. The silver-masked ninjas and fat guys with
rocket launchers and chainsawsknives for hands were from history as I choose to perceive it. The vast majority of the movie, however, was taken from an alternate universe in which up is down, brass is a vegetable, 1/3 women are prostitutes, and the Spartans fought for democracy, egalitarianism, and freedom for all. Contrast with our world, in which the 300 at Thermopylae were accompanied by, among others, the 900. Frank Miller shifts between these worlds against his will.◊
- Invasion Of The Body Snatchers is a famous example. Produced at the height of the 1950's anti-Communist paranoia, the movie has often been taken for an allegory for that, although nobody's clear about whether pod people represent Communists, or whether they represent McCarthyists who attack those who are different. The lead actor has stated on the DVD that the movie wasn't intended to be any kind of political commentary.
- Literature-to-film example: during pre-production for the movie Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Marilyn Manson expressed interest in playing the role of Willy Wonka, and outlined his theory that Wonka was actually Satan, tempting and leading the damned souls (the children) into Hell. Of course, to be fair to him, the original novel was written by Roald Dahl, so he might have had a point.
- The movie was much creepier than the book, though.
- Predator. The American military charges into the jungle guns blazing, only to find themselves hopelessly outclassed by a creature who uses stealth, camouflage and the environment, and finally must adapt to a more guerrilla form of combat; the parallels to Vietnam are suggestive. More than a decade later, this editor has still yet to see this concept put forward by anyone else.
- Dude. That's really obvious. It's like worrying about the racist themes in that one Anvilicious TNG episode.
- Predator also has a very similiar plot to the first third of Beowulf. Note that Arnold intentionally uses primitive weaponry for the final fight.
- This editor genuinely believed that The Incredibles was pro-conservative propaganda until someone kindly and gently pointed out the holes in his theory and brought him back to reality.
- David Lynch actually encourages people to come up with their own theories on Eraserhead. The Lady in the Radiator is frequently interpreted as Death, Henry is the everyman, and the Man in the Planet is either Satan or God. But nobody can agree what the Baby is.
- This editor once read a book claiming that Stargate was white supremacist propaganda. This editor then concluded that critics and "experts" have too much time on their hands.
- To be fair, they have a point, given how the movie is about the United States military liberating a (non-)developing faux-Middle East society from a tyrant... Although if anything, it's more about promoting American expansionism.
- See? You were right. Too much time on their hands. All it's "about" is the events that happened on the screen, neither promoting nor condemning.
- This editor BS'ed a 25-page paper on the subtext of Bubba Ho-tep for a college class on Elvis. In it, I claimed that the whole movie was about Elvis seeking to "twin" himself to others to compensate for his dead twin brother. My professor was big on the idea that Elvis "twinned" himself, seeing it in every song and movie by Elvis. My grade? A+.
- You are not the first. Several psychiatrists suggested Elvis' persona was mostly based on both his fondness of Comic Books as a child, and his obsession with his stillborn twin brother, thus showing what kind of stuff these people believe in.
- This theory is also discussed in the movie Coffee and Cigarettes, in which Steve Buscemi theorizes that Elvis' twin survived and stole his identity, as the only explanation for why he got fat and started wearing sequins.
- Donnie Darko is almost invariably never interpreted the same way by any two people, with interpretations going all over the allegorical scale.
- Pulp Fiction possesses several plot points that are subject to this; one revolves around the mysterious glowing contents of Marcellus Wallace's briefcase that are never explained (with one popular theory being that it is, in fact, Wallace's soul, which he bought back from Mr. S), and another being the reason for a band-aid that is prominently displayed on Wallace's bald head as it is filmed from the back. The first is merely a plot Mac Guffin that Tarantino never bothered to explain (although, granted, one which is open to some interpretation); the second is merely a result of actor Ving Rhames (who played Wallace) cutting the back of his head whilst shaving it and requiring a band-aid to stop the bleeding.
- A common interpretation of The Wizard Of Oz is that it's an allegory of the gold standard vs. the silver standard, with the yellow brick road representing the gold standard and the silver slippers (before they were changed to ruby in the Film Of The Book) represented the silver standard. The Scarecrow supposedly represented farmers and the Tin Man represented factory workers, the Cowardly Lion was William Jennings Bryant, and Dorothy was the "everyman". The Wicked Witch of the West, so dangerous to Scarecrow, was drought incarnate, a terrible, unpredicable evil that could be vanquished with just a little water.
- Really? This Troper read that Dorothy was supposed to represent President Roosevelt, based on the fact that "Dorothy" is a phonetic anagram for "Theodore".
- The bimetal standard, actually. Other elements include the Wizard as the President, the Good witches to the North and South saying the Civil War is ancient history, and the evil in East and West saying the next battle is between the rural west and the urban east. In this troper's opinion, this example would be Anvilicious if the story hadn't propagated so much that it's treated as just another story.
- Note that in the book, there was the unnamed Good Witch of the North (a short, motherly woman in blue whom Dorothy meets at the beginning of the book), Glinda the Good Witch of the South, the Wicked Witch of the East (whom Dorothy squishes), and Wicked West (whom Dorothy melts). The movie turned North and South into one character to save on the casting budget (Adaptation Decay), which made the better sense because the book's post-Emerald City journey to the Quadling country was deleted from the script.
- The book is that kind of allegory. The film, as far as this troper is concerned, is an allegory on how Hollywood isn't as fun as it looks.
- See here for discussion on how the book doesn't really have anything to do with politics, including how no one mentioned any interpretation like this until well over a half-century after the book was published.
- The best part about Wizard of Oz allegory theories is that no one ever, ever seems to realize that there were over a dozen sequels, each trippier than the last--and those were just the ones by Baum. Since they aren't as popular, there's apparently no one out there who thinks that Ozma of Oz is a scathing treatise on supply-side economics or what have you.
- This troper's friends have all come to a fairly unanimous consensus that I Am Legend is about racism. Apart from Neville's fairly Anvilicious explanation of Bob Marley's desire to "cure" racism serving as a parallel for Neville's own desire to cure the infected, you also have (black) Will Smith playing this lone survivor, struggling against the oppressive masses of the world (whose condition makes them all pale-skinned); and at one point he stumbles into their lair in a bank (often a symbol of the Establishment).
- This troper came to the consensus that the filmmakers did not read the book, which is a fairly straight forward take on the idea that monstrosity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
- The filmmakers did in fact film the ending as originally written in the book, but were forced by Executive Meddling and test audiences to scrap it in favor of what reached the screen.
- The alternate ending this troper is aware of is nothing like that of the book, except in that there is no cure. Moreover, in the book, some of the infected turn out to have fully regained human intelligence and are in fact building a new society. Also, they execute the protagonist. And the woman was an infiltrator.
- This troper once turned in a paper comparing Plato's Allegory of the Cave and The Matrix. For a Criminal Justice class, yet. I got an A, for "putting more thought into the work than anyone else".
- That movie might just as well have had big red all caps flashing letters at the bottom of the screen throughout the whole movie stating "For God's sake, this is The Allegory of the Cave, people!"
- And then there's the whole "Z 10 N IS 01" thing that made a brief splash between the first movie and the sequels. Any theory that assumes as a start that everything we've been told from the start is exactly opposite from the truth probably falls under this trope automatically.
- This troper read a few threads on imdb.com about Roy Andersons' "Sånger från andra våningen" (Songs from the second floor) both linking the title, and a certain bar scene late in the movie to Purgatory somehow. In reality Anderson wrote the script in an office on the second floor and in the commentary he states that the bar scene was a critique of the Religious and Political institutions in modern Sweden (Critique of modern Sweden). To be fair, the movie has so many weird scenes, characters and props (say a capitalist salesmen of Crucifixes with Jesus, cashing in on the millennium, who later ditching them in a landfill) that it is understandable.
- This troper once read an article that the movie Toy Story is a pro-atheism allegory. Buzz Lightyear represents religious faith, and he spends all his time working for and trying to communicate with "Star Command", a metaphor for God. Woody, the secularist, tries unsuccessfully to convince Buzz that Star Command is not real. When Buzz finally does learn that he is a toy, he falls into a deep depression, believing that there is no point to life if he isn't really a space ranger. However, Woody eventually convinces him that even if there is no Star Command, he can still find meaning and happiness from being a toy.
- You know, using nearly the same logic, one can make the argument for just the opposite interpretation, that this is a highly pro-religious movie. (If one is willing to look at the owners of the toys as gods of a sort, for instance; after all, they are the ones who control your whole life, and to be cast away from them by being lost or forgotten is one of the worst possible fates...) And if you buy either one of these interpretations, than this editor is eager to hear your interpretation of Toy Story 2.
- This editor has been told numerous times by many people various differing meanings of the statue of Paul Bunyan pictured in Fargo
- This contributor had a professor for a sophomore literature course who showed us a clip of a '50s film noir about a spy trying to recover a lost nuclear device, then explained it was all an allegory of the dangers of letting women have social and political power. This was "obvious," you see, because the greatly feared doomsday bomb was being kept in a box. Y'know... a box. Which is also a slang term - albeit not a popular one - for female external genitalia. And here I was, just a dumb sophomore, thinking that it was in a box because it's a simple and convenient means of storing and transporting something. I had to sit through ten weeks of this kind of shit, people.
- What, no Blade Runner?
Literature
Music
- Someone once tried to convince this contributor that "The Llama Song" was about blue-state conservatives.
- Some people claim that the song "Puff the Magic Dragon" is really about drug use, despite the song's writers having repeatedly stated that this was not their intent.
- Similarly, Subliminal Seduction author Wilson Bryan Key insisted that the Simon and Garfunkel song "Bridge Over Troubled Water" was really secretly promoting heroin use. He went so far as to claim several of the more poetic phrases in the lyrics were actually "common drug slang", although their use as such has never been seen anywhere outside of his fevered imagination.
- Freddie Mercury insisted unto his death that "Bohemian Rhapsody" had not only no hidden meaning, but no meaning at all. Due to this, most theories revolve around his bisexuality, which he also denied (well, refused to confirm) until his death. To be fair, though, the song definitely sounds like it might have some meaning deeper than "Mom, I just shot a guy and the police are after me, help..."
- This troper's mother was convinced that it was actually about Mercury's AIDS... until it was pointed out to her that Mercury would not be diagnosed with HIV until 12 years after the song's release.
- This editor decided that the folky "39" was not about WWII as the titular year would suggest, but about colonizing other planets in 2039. This was a just-for-fun 'wacky' theory...then turned out to be actually true.
- This troper and a friend of his passed a few hours on a bus trip trying to demonstrate that the song was about Gavrilo Princip and the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.
- There is a difference between "no deep meaning" and "no meaning at all." It's possible to piece a basic narrative from "Bohemian Rhapsody"; therefore, there is a meaning--the story it tells on the surface.
- There's a video of song "Quickening" by dj TAKA (from the Bemani franchise) on MySpace where someone changed the audio output of the song until the somewhat gibberish playing in the backround of the song said "I am satan, hear as the angels try," (need specific quote, since this troper's memory has been rememmbering English class stuff instead), I Am Not Making This Up.
- The Beatles get this a lot:
- Any of the various outlandish interpretations of the lyrics of "Come Together", such as what "toe-jam football" is.
- The most popular theory for "Come Together" is that it's about John Lennon, its primary author. Some of the clues for that theory fit better than others.
- "Helter Skelter" and the rest of the White Album, along with several other Beatles songs, are all a huge (and tragic) example of this. The song was written about nothing (or a playground slide, or maybe the Roman Empire), but Charles Manson built up this whole mythology around it about how it was prophecy and so on. Then he went around murdering people to fulfill the prophecy, or whatever. Whoops. Turns out it wasn't any of that at all...
- A helter-skelter is like a waterslide, only without the water.
- So that would just be a slide then?
- Helter-Skelters are tower-like constructions that appear at fairgrounds. You climb up the stairs inside, the slide is a spiral around the outside. A mat is generally used to make it faster. Otherwise, they're the same.
- A few
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