Thursday 25 October 2012

Parody and parable

There are some "spiritual" stories that are so cheesy that they richly deserve to be parodied... and sometimes the parody itself achieves greatness - well beyond what might have been expected.

Two examples spring to mind. Footprints and The Giving Tree. Both of these stories express a passive and quietist view of life which I find deeply disturbing.

There is a wonderful Discordian parody of the footprints story which expresses a Pagan ethic of independence and laughing at life.

And Victoria Weinstein has done a brilliant parody called The Demanding Tree, which expresses feminist and ecological concerns beautifully.