Toon Talk (WAS Who Framed Fred and George?)

[cindysphynx]

No: HPFGUIDX 43300

I'm re-arranging Dicentra's post a bit, because otherwise I found my 
own post becoming repetitive.  I don't think I did any real damage, 
though.  Apologies to Dicentra if I did.

***********************

Dicentra (about the distinction between which characters' injuries 
are funny and which are not):

> So you see, I'm not arguing that "it's OK because it's just a 
>story." I'm arguing that it's OK because the story is populated 
> with two kinds of characters, Toons and people, and the story 
>itself is defining who's who.  You don't laugh when the people get 
>hurt because they actually get hurt.  You do laugh at the Toons.

Hmmm.  This is a pretty novel theory – one I've never seen raised on 
the list before.  I'm not sure I fully understand it, but I'd like 
to try.  As best I can sort this out, it sounds like the Toon theory 
views certain characters as Toons based on three factors:

1.  Whether anyone gets hurt.
2.  Whether the character inflicting harm or pain is important or 
fleshed out as a character.
3.  Whether the victim of the act in question is important or 
fleshed out as a character.

You look to the story to separate the Toons from the non-Toons.  OK, 
I'm with you so far, Dicentra.  

Dicentra:  

> The point is that those who are aghast at the Twins' behavior are
> reading them as if they were real people instead of Toons, thinking
> that if the Twins did something like that to them or their kids, 
>they would be calling Molly and giving her a piece of their minds. 
> Granted, if many of these incidents happened in real life, they
> *would* be painful and tragic and harmful.  But you can't hurt 
>Dudley or Draco or Quirrell because they're Toons.  

This is a rather interesting idea.  If I understand, the idea is 
that we all know that these are just fictional characters anyway, 
not real life.  These fictional characters can't be hurt, so why not 
laugh at their plight or their misbehavior?  I mean, that's what 
Saturday morning cartoons are all about, right?

I have to admit to some confusion.  First, *all* of the characters 
in the books are fictional.  A great many of them have their comedic 
moments, and only a few are really important and get a lot 
of "screen time," if you will.  So when are we supposed to be 
aghast, horrified, bothered and disturbed, and when are we supposed 
to be highly amused?  

See, I don't think it is fair to say that the sole purpose of the 
twins is comedic.  At times, this is true and at times it is not 
true.  The twins figure prominently in GoF – were it not for the 
gambling sub-plot, the Bagman misdirection would not have worked.  
So the twins serve a serious and important plot purpose in GoF, yet 
that is the book in which they engage in the two most disturbing 
instances of alleged bullying behavior – the train stomp and the Ton 
Tongue Toffee episode.  Doesn't this undermine the idea that our 
willingness to forgive the twins for their transgressions is linked 
in some way to the importance of their role in the plot?

Moreover, if we identify these three different forms of "Danger 
Averted" comedy, don't almost all of the instances in which one 
character harms another fall into the category of Danger Averted?  
Neither Wormtail nor Voldemort is well-fleshed out, so does that 
mean it is amusing for Voldemort to torture Wormtail?  I'm having 
trouble seeing the link between whether a character is fleshed out 
and our willingness to look the other way when they do something 
wrong or mean-spirited or whether the pain they suffer ought to 
trouble us.

Take Professor Trelawney, for instance.

If I understand the Toon theory, Professor Trelawney is a Toon.  She 
is a caricature if I ever saw one, and it works brilliantly for me.  
I enjoy all of her scenes a great deal in the sense that I think 
they are well-written and she "works" as a character.  She is a bit 
player in two of four books.  Most of the time, she is written for 
laughs, just like the twins.  

Funny thing, though.  People don't *like* Professor Trelawney much.  
On the rare occasions I have tried to defend her, people say she is 
a fraud, a charlatan.  They don't like how she upsets Harry, how she 
wishes to treat him like a lab rat after his dream in GoF.  They 
don't embrace her.  I have never seen anyone cut her a break because 
she is a Toon.  No, Professor Trelawney is a Fraud, plain and 
simple, and that is the beginning and end of it for many people on 
this list – even though there are plenty of hints that she is not a 
total fraud.  And as Elkins mentioned, Lockhart  -- a major 
character in CoS -- is played almost entirely for laughs for most of 
that book, yet no one forgives him for his evil actions.

So then.  Fred and George are comedic Toons, but we shouldn't view 
them as bullies.  Professor Trelwney is a comedic Toon, but we 
should view her as an opportunistic fraud.  Lockhart is a comedic 
Toon, but we should view him as an evil phony.  Hmmm.

This suggests to me that a character's status as a Toon (a status 
that is not all that well-defined, IMO) excuses their bad behavior 
in one case (the twins) but not others (Trelawney and Lockhart).

I'm still noodling through this whole issue of slapstick and come-
uppance humor, but I think the bright line that separates whether 
something is potentially amusing or is sickening is the extent to 
which the victim is harmed, either on-screen or off-screen, 
including the extent to which the offending act itself is portrayed 
in a realistic light.  In assessing whether the extent of the off-
screen harm, it is quite reasonable for readers and viewers to rely 
on their own knowledge of the world and extrapolate what is hurtful 
and what is painful.

Finally, let me tweak the facts a bit to see how the Toon theory 
holds up in a context slightly different from bullying.  Let's say 
we have a work of fiction.  In it, one of the characters is a black 
servant.  Let's then assume that all of the characters except for 
our black servant are white, and the black servant works for all the 
white characters.  Some of the white characters are major characters 
and others are minor characters.  Some white characters are written 
as serious and some are written as comedic.  

OK.  Now let's assume that the white characters play practical jokes 
on our black servant.  They burn crosses in places where he can see 
them.  They turn up in Klan outfits.  They tell racist jokes to the 
black character.  Oh, the white characters don't mean any harm, 
though.  They never lay a hand on our black servant character, and 
they adore him like a member of the family, they really do.  It's 
not intended to be malicious, and it is not motivated by hatred.  
It's all in good fun, see?

Would anyone find this work of fiction funny?  Would it matter if 
the black character were a bit player rather than a major player?  
Would it matter if the black character had lots of punch lines 
himself?  Would it matter whether the white characters committing 
these acts were minor characters, were comedic figures or were less 
than 18 years old?  Would it matter if the black character were 
stoic such that we never learned how he felt about this treatment?  

I think not.  I would guess (and I would hope) that most people 
would squirm Big Time.  They wouldn't enjoy the harassment of a 
black character much at all, I'd hope, even if it were all intended 
to be in good fun in a work of fiction.  It just plain wouldn't be 
funny.  Not to me, anyway.  That is because most of us would start 
to feel for the black character.  Even if we weren't shown his pain, 
even if he were a Toon, even if his tormentors were Toons, we 
wouldn't stand for it. 

Would we?

Cindy