The Comparative Use of Humor in ‘The Stinky Cheese Man’ and ‘The Lost Thing’

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The Comparative Use of Humor in ‘The Stinky Cheese Man’ and ‘The Lost Thing’
‘The Stinky Cheese Man’ is one of the bizarre stories in the postmodern children’s book The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales written by Jon Scieszka. The story can be interpreted as a parody of traditional tales and its humor lies in the unconventional story structure as well as satirical and dramatized illustrations of classic folk characters. On the other hand, ‘The Lost Thing’ is a humorous picture book by Shaun Tan about a boy who tries to help a strange creature he finds on the beach locate its source. Both ‘The Stinky Cheese Man’ and ‘The Lost Thing’ employ stylized chaos and offbeat design choices to bring humor to the subject matter. However, the use of humor in ‘The Stinky Cheese Man’ is meant to give a postmodern revision of classic fairy tales while in “The Lost Thing”, the author uses humor to highlight serious social issues like apathy, bureaucracy, and identity.
The use of humor in ‘The Stinky Cheese Man’ consists in the satirical reinterpretation of traditional tales, particularly the children’s story “The Gingerbread Man”. The first point relates to the disruption of conventional fairy story structures. ‘The Stinky Cheese Man’ is a postmodern deconstruction of the grand narrative about the gingerbread man who leaps from an old woman’s oven but has to escape several pursuers only to end in the jaws of a fox. In a similar fashion, the stinky cheese man is brought to life by a lonely old couple: “So the little old lady decided to make a man out of stinky cheese…and put him in the oven to cook” (Scieszka and Smith). However, unlike the gingerbread man, the stinky cheese man has such an awful smell that nobody is interested in pursuing him. The old man is not really hungry and the old lady is not that lonely and therefore they do not chase after him. Similarly, the cow and the children playing outside school are not interested in pursuing the stinky cheese man. This satirical interpretation of the classic gingerbread man is made more bizarre when the main character has to cross a river. Unlike in the classic tale of the gingerbread who eventually falls into the jaws of a cunning fox, the stinky cheese man ends up falling off the back of the fox ferrying him across the river on account of his foul smell: “The fox coughed, gagged, and sneezed, and the Stinky Cheese Man flew off his back and into the river where he fell apart” (Scieszka and Smith). The satirical reinterpretation of “The Gingerbread Man” consists in disrupting the order of the original story and purposely including bizarre qualities to the classic character to elicit humor. The short story is a hilarious rendition of the gingerbread man with wacky twists that capture the ridiculousness of classic folk tales in a clever and silly manner. ‘The Stinky Cheese Man’ shreds the well-familiar plot of “The Gingerbread Man” and soaks the classic character in preposterousness: “Run, run, run…as fast as you can. You can’t catch me; I’m the stinky cheese man!” (Scieszka and Smith). The story is a postmodern rendition of the clichéd children’s story and the intentional disruption of the original plot as well as inclusion of wacky twists are meant to debunk classic folk tales. “The Gingerbread Man” is an old and exhausted tale, something ‘The Stinky Cheese Man’ tries to change by infusing parody and satire.
The second point relates to the disruption of classic fairy aesthetics. Scieszka’s postmodern rendition of the gingerbread man lacks the structure or neatness of the original work but it illustrates a heightened awareness of the possibilities as well as limits of the fairy tale which informs it. The process of reutilizing popular classic folk tales through dramatized illustrations is a postmodern phenomenon aimed at ending further redundancy of clichéd folk stories. The postmodern deconstruction of folk tales in ‘The Stinky Cheese Man’ also consists in the wonky illustrations of various characters in the story. For instance, the text and pictures of the stinky cheese man are ridiculous: the illustrator employed a darker art style to embody the satirical theme of the story (Simandan). The stinky cheese man is comically drawn and the color palate is relatively low in saturation thereby giving the main character a mottled and ridiculous look. Most classic folk stories like “The Gingerbread Man” use richly detailed settings and are filled with wonderful aesthetics, something ‘The Stinky Cheese Man’ makes a mockery of through visual satire. The deliberate distorted renditions of the various characters in the story is not only humorous but also sets the reader free from the confinement of classic fairy aesthetics. For instance, the picture of the cow with an elongated tongue or that of the astonished girl is quite odd but ties nicely with the satirical reinterpretation of the gingerbread man.
(Scieszka and Smith)
On the whole, ‘The Stinky Cheese Man’ dev...