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  | Ones and Zeros |
| An irregularly updated journal of my Fair and Balanced thoughts, reactions, opinions, biases, outrages, strategies, victories, and commentary. Whatever it is, it's much too subtle to be considered a parody... |
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| More Fun with Elf Only Inn |
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April 13, 2003
| Gaming |
Wendesday's edition of Josh Sortelli's Elf Only Inn didn't tickle everyone's funny-bone. This is my reply to someone's question on the forum. And people think an English degree is good for nothing. Feh! People...
Well, if you think it's so good then perhaps you could explain it to me so that I can understand and enjoy it as well. Because as it stands now I still don't get it.
Sure, I'd be glad to.
Sortelli is clearly expressing his disappointment and rage with the Zeffirelli/Mel Gibson/Glenn Close Hamlet of 1990.
An update of his own black and white classic, Sortelli streamlines his deconstruction by eliminating most of the text, dropping Megan and M'lady, and replacing !Duke Commando! with the Lord of Dorkness. The replacement of the controversial Megan/M'lady chocolate temptation scene, which was fundamental as background material for Sortelli's follow up I Feel Violated, will surely distract some viewers from the starker and harsher condemnation.
There are subtle differences in performance that should also be noted, just as there are between Olivier's Hamlet and Gibson's take on the role. In the earlier work, Sortelli stays closer to Shakespeare's original intent and Woot is in tears as he declares King Claudius/Lord Elf to be a jerk. The later Woot is angry, or at least pissy. While the Shakespearean purists will frown on the departure, it serves Sortelli's subtext well by illuminating the theme of anger as the motivating force of Hamlet and Woot.
But it is as a response to Zefarelli's minimizing the importance of the play-within-a-play that this strip shows true genius. Sortelli is not content to tell us the horror that can happen if you let just anyone direct a Mel Gibson historical film that is not about slaughtering the English. Gibson's well-known opinions on slaughtering the English led to a contract rider that allows him to kill at least one individual Englishman in every film. Sortelli delivers in 8 panels a complete 5 act version of Hamlet as it should have been, reduced to the absolute minimum (and minimalist) required story elements.
The first 5 panels, Acts One and Two, establish both the universality and banality of Evil, as well as the heterodyning influence of evil upon evil. In the second set of panels, we have fire and lighting, representing Elemental Evil (T2). By the end of Act Two, we have merged the previously apparently disparate Evils into a single pool of demonic laughter in a way reminiscent of most episodes of "Beavis and Butthead" or even "Mork and Mindy."
The building conflict is abruptly burst by the arrival of Lord Elf in his guise as Deity, with control over the chat room by his power to ban. The fear shown by these rampaging agents of evil ends the play-within-a-play at the same time that it establishes that it existed at all. The play ends on a seemingly positive note, with Evil put in its place and the fear of God being made manifest to all.
Act Four shows the external consequences of the resolution to the play, with the Lord of Dorkness and Lord Woot retreating from Lord Elf, disgruntled with his disruption of their play, but as impotent out of character as they are omnipotent in character. Sortelli wisely keeps Woot's "jerk" observation from his original version, which echoes Hamlet's immortal dissing of Laetres in Act IV, scene iii. It is key to any interpretation of this that Lord Elf is exactly the same within the play as without it. The ambiguity and yet implicit hierarchy amongst these three 'Lords' can be interpreted either as a reference to the medieval/renaissance theories of the Great Chain of Being and Fortune's Wheel, or a post-modern reference to the fractal nature of reality.
Act Five is where Sortelli makes his strongest statement on the nature of evil. While King Claudius kneels in his chamber and prays forgiveness for his transgression, Lord Elf, alone, allows the viewer to see the true nature of his Manichean Chatroom host. The Creator God, the God of Reality, is the God of Evil. Mwa ha ha hah. Lord Elf is the mirror image of the Lord of Dorkness from Act One.
If Zefirelli had been so bold, Mel Gibson and Glenn Close could have replaced Olivier as the standard reference Hamlet.
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| .:Posted by Michael on April 13, 2003 10:28 PM:.
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