I was searching for the correct spelling of the word/phrase “Righto” the other day (don’t ask) when I stumbled across a Forbes article called Why do you keep saying ‘Righto’? all about the British obsession with panto. I love panto, but I couldn’t help but see some similarities while watching the trailer for Superman Returns.
The audience had heard these ancient gags many times before and would have been irate if they hadn’t heard them again that afternoon.
“Good, we’ve got that one out of the way,” Caterina said and then explained: “That’s one of the traditional shouts you have to do.”
As the Wikipedia article on panto notes:
The form has a number of conventions.
- The leading male character (the “principal boy”) is played by a young woman.
- An older woman (the pantomime dame) is played by a man in drag.
- Risqué double entendre, often wringing innuendo out of perfectly innocent phrases.
- Audience participation, including calls of “he’s behind you!”, and “oh yes it is!” or “oh no it isn’t!”
- The pantomime horse or cow, played by two actors in a single costume, one as the head and front legs, the other as the body and back legs.
That’s half the fun: the bits you can predict are going to be there, the audience waits in anticipation for them and are disappointed if they’re missed.
So, there I am, watching the new trailer for Superman Returns and I’m thinking: “Cape, check. Red and blue suit, check. Underpants on the outside, check. Flying, check. Lois, check. Luther, check.” Then, right at the end, they manage to squeeze in the phrase “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no it’s…” I, like most of the audience I’d guess, almost found myself saying Superman without any further prompting. (Incidentally, Kevin Smith has some hilarious tales about when he was hired to write Superman Lives back in the lates 90s, the video I saw has been taken down, but some of what he said is summed up here). What would a Superman movie be if you didn’t get all those elements we love and define a Superman film?
If you start to think about it there are some other examples: in the Lethal Weapon series, for example, they turned the phrase “I’m too old for this shit,” into a running gag. Not to mention having Riggs dislocate his shoulder. In the Back to the Future trilogy they turned it into a plot point with Biff getting covered in manure or generally humilated in all three films and Doc Brown saying “Great Scott” left, right and centre. In the Bond films it’s phrase like “Bond, James Bond,” the gadgets and the constant innuendoes. In the Terminator films it’s “I’ll be back.”
It’s strange how, as an audience, we want to have those moments we know are coming, which we can revel in and enjoy. One of my film instructors once told us that audiences want films which are both new and familiar, looks like she was right.
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