Advanced Dungeons and Dragons

I'm wondering if the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons episode of Community counts as genre parody. Is it fantasy parody? Or is D&D parody almost its own genre? I've been thinking about this since Thad shared the Dragonstrike D&D tutorial they posted on io9.



But really, this question has been lurking in the back of my mind since we discovered the heresy that is AFI's top ten fantasy films. What really constitutes fantasy as a genre? Does fantasy mean something loose and undefined? Am I the only one who thinks that fantasy must have the essential elements of a D&D campaign?

This list is just as inscrutable as AFI's list. Ghostbusters and Superman? Is it just me or are these something else entirely? Is this another case of me overspecifying genres for the sake of especially satisfying classification? You should see my mp3 and e-reader libraries. I have a separate category for unnecessarily sad contemporary British pop.

D&D has a surprisingly developed television history. It ran as a cartoon in the early 1980s, and its role in the finale of Freaks and Geeks was then (and continues to be I think) really popular.
I think the Freaks and Geeks episode, in fact, has a lot in common with D&D on Community. The premise evolves around getting an otherwise cool person to play, and even love, a campaign. In F/G there's one popular guy--James Franco. In Community it seems like there are two regular players and everyone else is the odd man out. Both episodes actually play a bit of the campaign, I'd go so far as to say Community gives you a whole campaign, albeit abbreviated. I want to say it's a bold move, but I guess when the entire premise of your show is that it follows a band of lovable outcasts, well, I guess you're already playing for the D&D crowd.



Freaks and Geeks used D&D to give the series a sense of closure, and it worked. It was a believable way to tell viewers that people who are really different in life can adopt commonalities through fantasy. Community seems to be writing fantasy into its structure more explicitly. As Michael pointed out, genre parody is its best running gimmick, and as io9 blogged, the genres Community most often uses are Sci fi and fantasy. In a way, I wonder if watching Community satirize fantasy can give me some clues as to its genre. Parody is actually a great way to identify the traits of a genre. Terry Pratchett has taught me easily as much as George R.R. Martin. So, I might start posting a bit more about fantasy, and what constitutes fantasy as a genre. I'm still working up to that X Files post, don't worry.*

* You didn't.