Greetings. Welcome to my thesis "Homestar Runner - Faces of Alienation".
I wrote a first version of this text in 2003 called "The Meaning of Homestar Runner" and posted it on the now-defunct forum homestarrunner.net. This is a revision, adding a basic structure to the text, a discussion of themes, a graphic of the social dynamics and analysis, and adding elements to the character analysis. All in all, this text was augmented by more than 50%.
I intend to explore the subtext of Homestar Runner the site (hereby identified as "HR", to differentiate with the character) - that is to say, the meaning behind the stories that compose the HR corpus (please note that I define this corpus as the content of homestarrunner.com).
I have divided this text in three parts : the themes of HR, a graph of the social dynamics of HR, and an analysis of the main characters.
1. Main themes of HR
After careful analysis of the HR corpus, I have come to the conclusion that there are two main themes present within it. These themes are :
* Alienation.
The theme of alienation is obvious when one looks at the interactions between the characters. Social isolation seems to be the norm in the HR universe, either because of lack of social power, capacity to communicate, or discordant values. The characters I would call alienated in HR are :
Homestar Runner - tabula rasa, more on this in his character analysis.
Marzipan - discordant values.
Strong Sad - discordant values and lack of social power. Interestingly, Strong Sad and Marzipan's modes of expression sometimes seem to intersect.
King of Town and Poopsmith - they have social power only to each other, and therefore form a self-contained system. This alienates them from the rest of HR.
Homsar - His status as Other automatically alienates him.
I will come back to many of these points in the character analysis.
* Communication.
Another, even more obvious theme of HR is communication. Some of the most prominent features of the HR corpus are the "SBemail" and "Marzipan's Answering Machine", which both feature communication as a central theme. However, both are examples of what I would call the "seriality" of HR processes - there is only serial interaction, separated by time or space. Email and answering machines are not interactive media, they serialize the interactions in time. Thus the theme of alienation comes in play here also.
The zeitgeist of this serialization process in HR, in my view, is the Halloween episodes, such as the Carve-nival and the story-telling, where each character is only allowed to truly express himself within a structured, serialized context. This ritualization seems to perfectly represent the dynamics of communication within HR.
Alienation also comes into play in the second part of the theme of communication, and that is communication breakdown. To express it simply, I am referring to 1. difficulty in interacting with other characters due to lower cognitive, linguistic or physical abilities and 2. difficulty in being understood or in communication being accepted. Here are characters I would say symbolize communication breakdown :
Strong Mad - Has an inability to formulate or express thoughts. Can only shout.
Coach Z - Due to an unspecified problem, his communications are sometimes ill-received.
Poopsmith - Took a vow of silence. This seems to be a special case of someone who voluntarily refuses to communicate. One may surmise that his limited and self-contained social role would make communication pointless.
Homsar - Can only communicate in sayings.
Note that I do not include The Cheat or Pom-Pom on this list. Both are understood by their peers, even though they do not speak English (or indeed, a recognizable language). This is an obvious give-away that the authors of HR have a more sophisticated view of communication and communicative breakdown than we would expect. They understand that it is meaning and transmission of meaning that is fundamental, not the use of a specific language.
All these conclusion will be expressed in the graph in the next section. However, I want to point out which themes are not present in HR, even though we would expect them.
Power relations - There is no politics or power relations in HR. For a thematic of social relations and social alienation, this is surprising. The only obvious political status is represented by King of Town, who appears to be a king only in name. Why this is so, I am not certain - perhaps as an illustration of the fundamental nature of communication and visibility. Without such elements, social organization could not be sustained. And there is very little social organization in HR.
Subtext - There is no subtext in HR, at least none that I can see, apart from some elements from the main themes discussed above. One would expect to see a subtext emerge, although with the absence of power relations, this may not be surprising.
Self-reference - There is little self-reference in HR, with the exception of some flashbacks. Strong Bad seems to be the character with the most awareness of his own context, which reflects his cleverness and creativity.
This is, therefore, a simple world, concerned with fully expressing a small number of thematic elements. No wonder, then, that they are so salient.
2. Graph of the social dynamics of HR
This graph is, for the most part, self-explanatory. "*" denotes a pivotal character, "A" denotes an alienated character, and "B" denotes communicative breakdown.
I have denoted the main groups "Structured" and "Unstructured" because of their modes of expression. Structured characters express themselves mostly structurally (such as the Halloween episodes, the Luau, sport contests, plays, etc), and unstructured characters express themselves outside of those structures (in pranks and destructive activity). This is only an approximation, as Strong Bad obviously takes part in many structured activities, such as making a movie, but even there he puts himself center-stage. His activities do not seek to structure as a primary goal, unlike the activities of the Structured Group.
I have not included Strong Sad under the line of the Marginalized. I admit that this is highly debatable. The Strong Sad Lookalike Contest, the Luau, and the more recent "Experimental Film" could be seen as significant interactions, but they can also be explained away.
3. Analysis of the main characters
Homestar Runner
Homestar Runner seems to be the central character, the "star" (as his name and shirt indicate), but he is really, as any good fan of HR knows, a peripheral figure. This is because he is a tabula rasa - the clean slate - on which few intentionalities rest. Being essentially an empty vessel, he cannot sustain his own narrative.
Homestar Runner represents the empty ying to Strong Bad's fully-developed yang. This duality of intentionality seems to be the real duality, the real opposition, the real tension in HR. We can observe this in many SBemails, where Homestar Runner tries to engage Strong Bad in interactions, which inevitably end with frustration as the contrast between them is too great. They gravitate around each other but personal, close contact is impossible.
Due to his tabula rasa nature, he does not quite seem to fit anywhere, even with his pseudo-girlfriend Marzipan, with whom he alternates between affection and disgust. He likes marshmallows but hates Marshie, he likes to play sports but has little respect for Coach Z.
His primary motivation seems to be a quest for fame, of forging an identity on the basis of exterior objects and a narrative orbit around the Strong brothers, both seen in various places such as In Search of the Yello Dello (in the commentary), The Luau, Where's The Cheat?, Arcade Game, The Interview, The Best Decemberween Ever and more recently in What's In The Bag?. In most of these cases, Homestar attempts to ingratiate himself with Strong Bad, but with little success. Such is the nature of his Quixotic quest.
Strong Bad
Unlike Homestar Runner, therefore, Strong Bad's main attribute is that he is full of intentionalities. He has superior "street smarts", wits, leadership. He is a creator (sings, paints, makes his own comics, and even movies) and destructor, but longs for more (represented in the romantic unattainable, Marzipan). He represents the power of the will.
Strong Bad, then, is our major central character, as his status of star in the SBemails confirms. Why? Well, for one thing, we love him because he is the most complex character. Behind his mask and gloves, he is really the most human, and we relate to him most easily. Due to his varied expression of will, he becomes both hero and villain, both noble and tramp.
Within the HR narrative, Homestar Runner orbits around him, desiring his popularity. Ironically, his own desires are few and humble. The pivotal story in this regard is SBE "invisibility", where he explains that, even if he was invisible, he would do the same things he already does: "steal stuff, punch stuff, eat stuff and at the same time watch stuff". These are not the desires of a man lusting for fame, love, or power. One may think that this is an evasion from the social pressure put on him, but he is quite serene about everything he does. Note that he always speaks his mind frankly, which is not the sign of a calculating man.
He is nominally an evildoer, but those seem to be trivialities compared to the bulk of his work: the only "capers" he performs are either whimsical (as in SBE "current status", where he exchanges Bubs and Coach Z's heads - it is interesting to note that both are similar in terms of subtext) or seem trivial to us (as in SBE "caper", where he attempts to steal a jumble, or in "A Jumping Jack Contest", where he attempts to win a Jumping Jack competition).
He can be likened to a masked satyr, as he tramples around the narrative, doing whatever he pleases (or so it seems). As such, he is one of the two only self-contained characters in HR (the other being Marzipan, which will be discussed in a moment).
The other key to Strong Bad's character is his mask. In SBE "some kind of robot", he says unequivocally in answer to a reader asking whenever he ever removes his mask: "Do you take your face and hands before you go to bed?" The mask is an integral part of Strong Bad. Yes, it has mysterious, perhaps supernatural powers, as displayed in SBE "super powers", but that is only a material manifestation of Strong Bad's central attribute: his capacity to change at will. Strong Bad can do anything - he is journalist, boxer, cartoonist, musician, and more.
This brings us to the central question about Strong Bad, that is, "how can he type with his gloves on?" The answer, of course, is "why couldn't he?". Strong Bad is the Joker of children's stories, the polyvalent satyr who comes and goes at his whimsy.
Marzipan
Marzipan is the minor central character. She is both alienated because of her affinity for different values, and because she is the sole female of HR. She represents the female essence within the social context, an object of desire. It is therefore expected that both Homestar Runner and Strong Bad vie for her attention.
With Strong Bad specifically, nowhere is this dynamic more prevalent than in "The Luau" and in SBE "marzipan". Any serious student of this central relationship must carefully examine the narrative of these two stories.
In the first story, the opposition is at a distance: Strong Bad organizes another party far from her eyes, and steals her wood while no one is looking, thus providing the impetus for his defeat, as everyone rallies to Marzipan's Luau instead. The distance between Strong Bad and Marzipan here defeats the former - his happy-go-luck behaviour is thwarted by the inevitable profundity of the gender dichotomy.
In the second story, Strong Bad approaches Marzipan in an attempt to bridge this dichotomy and bring about a resolution, but Marzipan refuses. The shot of the StrongBadian emblem brings us a discordant note in her refusal, however, and the ambiguity, and therefore distance, remains intact.
When I wrote the first version of this text, I concluded this section by wondering what would happen if Strong Bad succeeded in his Quest for Marzipan. It seems, however, that HR right now seems to be going in the opposite direction, neglecting Marzipan altogether, and the groups in general seem to be collapsing on themselves. It will be interesting to see how HR develops in the next months.
Utilitarian group
He shares this quest with three secondary characters: Bubs, Coach Z, and the King of Town. For the first two, who have few appearances outside of their work, the pivotal private moment is on Marzipan's Answering Machine. There, we are made witnesses of their own quest, a quest for Marzipan's acceptance, once again without success.
As for their individual roles, Coach Z represents the Authority Figure that imprints sports on Homestar Runner's tabula rasa. But this authority does not translate into social power, as his manner of speech causes him to be alienated from Homestar Runner. Bubs serves the roles of agent of trade and repairman. These vital abilities, as well as his capacity to express himself, keep him within the circles of the main characters in a way that cannot be achieved by the other utilitarian characters.
The King of Town's case is more straightforward. Old and "uncool", he asks Marzipan, once again in Marzipan's Answering Machine, to help him find gifts for "the boys". He does not fit in: his insatiable hunger alienates him from the others, notably in "Pumpkin Carve-nival". I will discuss the theme of alienation on two more occasions here, but this is the most blatant example. But here also, his quest is unsuccessful.
The other secondary characters, Pom-Pom, Strong Mad and the Cheat, are Sidekicks. As such, they inherit the attributes of their respective heroes (Homestar Runner and Strong Bad), to a lesser degree.
Dysfunctional group
I have kept for the end the three most meaningful and philosophical characters: Strong Sad as the Alienated, Homsar as the Other, and Poopsmith as Abdication.
Strong Sad is alienated by his sadness and passive values. As demonstrated by Marzipan's Answering Machine, above all he craves intelligent communication, but even that is denied to him. He represents the Artist, a contrast to Strong Bad's more practical creative energy.
Homsar represents the Other. As is made clear to us by SBE "interview", he is not a familiar fixture of the HR world: he is "a song from the sixties". Other signs of his Otherness: he does not have a firm grasp on the names in HR, and his hat whirls around in defiance of gravity.
Homsar's Otherness is not accepted: as an example of this, see the "easter egg" on SBE "dragon", where Homsar's contribution is rejected by a Strong Bad bound to the drawing conventions of the HR world. He is the gentle observer - he mournfully accepts that "[he] do[es] what [he's] told", content to watch from the sidelines.
Strong Sad and Homsar together represent the apotheosis of meaning in HR. The story "Where's the Cheat?" is a must-see for any fan because it represents this apotheosis. We see in two occasions Strong Sad and Homsar playing Connect Four (note the word "Connect" here : a hint ?). The game is a microcosm of HR, and the views of Homsar and Strong Sad clash in a dramatic battle of wills. See how affected Homsar is, as he proclaims: "you shanked my Jenga ship !". Who can remain unaffected by his plight? For it is their very purposes that are played out on the game board, forced by the communicative plight that is endemic to HR to confront in this manner.
Strong Sad plays games in many occasions, as is made clear in that story. Alienated, he devotes himself to "winning" in such manner, instead of participating in the real world. Homsar probably sees the game more as another occasion to observe, but surely he grasps its gravity as well. The rejection committed by the HR characters against him is nowhere more cruel than in this crucial scene, where Bubs point-blank tells him "don't you talk to me!" (Bubs, as the most practical character, is the greatest counterpoint to Homsar's Otherness). This is radical, but necessary.
Finally, The Poopsmith is a character who took a vow of silence, shoveling excrements all day. While he participates in HR outings, like everyone else, his is the way of Abdication. He does not even have a name, but is identified by his job: he is called "The Poopsmith", not "Poopsmith". Little more needs to be said for now, unless his character is more developed in the future.
Thank you for reading this. I hope my exploration of the subtext of HR has been enlightening. If you have any suggestions for revision or addition, please post them here.
