Mark Fisher Quotes

Basic Instinct 2' is an uneasy experience because, although it is hyper-reflexive to the point where it is hard to think of one character, one scene, one plot twist that isn't a reference or an echo, there is nothing knowing about it. No matter how absurd the film gets, it refuses to raise its eyebrows.

The original 'Scream' is one of those classic things, but it totally pokes fun at itself too. It's never taking itself too seriously, which is why I think it's such a cult classic.

The whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious. More precisely, Camp involves a new, more complex relation to "the serious." One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious.

Mystery Science Theater is really a postmodern show, it's really derived of many influences.

I always believe that funny is serious and serious is funny. You don't really need a distinction between them.

When you take a character seriously, there's more room for comedy because you're not aware of how absurd you are.

Films with a message just make me laugh.

To me, 'Scream' is a masterpiece on every level - the performances, the humor, the tone - it's just flawless.

It's a fine line we walk on 'Warehouse 13.' We really earn our dramatic moments, but our tongues are always firmly in our cheeks. If we take ourselves too seriously, we get into trouble.

With Portlandia, I don't think our intention is always to find something funny. Sometimes the humor comes from taking something really seriously. We're okay with making somebody feel uncomfortable or uneasy.

'Discworld' is taking something that you know is ridiculous and treating it as if it is serious, to see if something interesting happens when you do so.

I think I have never seen a humorless movie that was any good to me.

There's always something at least a little smug about self-reference - magazine articles about idealistic journalists, TV shows about TV actors, ironic films within ironic-er films: all this meta-media populated by thinly disguised characters making oblique inside jokes.

There's a lot of movies, and I've made some of them that could be categorized this way, but there's definitely been a trend in animated features of all types to be a little bit cynical, if you will, to have a little bit of 'knowing' humor to them, kind of a wink to the audience.

Here's my take on Andy Kaufman... For Kaufman, comedy was a skill that was open for examination. He didn't just do comedy, he deconstructed it like it was a transistor set. He pulled out all the wires and switched them around, often in front of our very eyes.

I think 'Deadpool' worked because of what it was. I think 'Deadpool' worked because it was funny. I think 'Deadpool' worked because it didn't take itself seriously. That's why it worked as an R-rated film.

A lot of people call horror movies 'campy,' and I can certainly see why they think that they are, but being a product of the 80s, I didn't notice that they were campy - I came from a campy generation. I mean, Ronald Reagan is campy. But I don't think they're campy.

I think the tone of mockery Heller finds is a part of Mann's irony, but only a part - a brilliant further touch consists in juxtaposing perspectives so that we're led to wonder whether the mockery itself is the last word.

Today I realize that many recent exercises in "deconstructive reading" read as if inspired by my parody. This is parody's mission: it must never be afraid of going too far. If its aim is true, it simply heralds what others will later produce, unblushing, with impassive and assertive gravity.

Vampires pretending to be humans pretending to be vampires ... How avant-garde!

We all need to be mocked from time to time, lest we take ourselves too seriously.

We, the comics that we like, we're all, like, post-humor.

The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently. I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows he cannot say to her, I love you madly, because he knows that she knows (and that she knows that he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still, there is a solution. He can say, As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly.

I think it's hilarious when middle-aged white men try to take themselves seriously. It makes me laugh.

I love an act that makes fun of the situation, and of course makes fun of yourself. That's important, you can't take yourself too seriously.