Grotesco is a group of Swedish comedians, with their own television series of the same name. Famous for the song "Bögarnas Fel" (The Gay Men's Fault,) which was included not only in their series but also in the TV show Allsång På Skansen ("Singalong at Skansen"). Lots of clips from the series can be found on YouTube.
Examples are split among individual songs/clips that have at least four tropes. Examples from songs/clips that don't yet meet that requirement go into their own generic category at the bottom.
The Gay Men's Fault
The song is about how everything is the gay men's fault. And by everything we mean everything. More to the point, the song is about a cult preaching this message. The cult is a strange mix between Westboro Babtist Church and certain Swedish organizations and politicians. One of the singers is the cult leader, a pastor named ”Krister From” — his name means ”pious”, and probably referring to a conservative religious politician named Sacredeus.
The video exists in two versions. One takes place during a staged political debate
, the other is a part of Allsång på Skansen, a very popular singalong show. (Both versions has subtitles, but for the second version you need to click the subtitle button at the bottom right.)
- Activist-Fundamentalist Antics: Interupting the debate/show to start singing about how they blame the gay men for everything.
- Aggressive Categorism: Everything bad is caused by the gays. Even when it's not.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The gays caused the war in Afghanistan and are tempting people to steal office supplies.
- As the Good Book Says...: The pastor doesn't know what line, verse, chapter or part of The Bible it is that says that everything is the gays' fault, but he's sure that it's in there somewhere.
- Comedic Spanking: Studio version only has the female journalist getting spanked by the pastor. He uses a book for this, probably supposed to be a bible or book of psalms.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Averted, since they don't bother to give any arguments for why everything is the gay men's fault.
- Easy Evangelism: Studio version only has the female journalist getting convinced and joining the cult.
- Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: Religious fundamentalists of various faiths, singing together in unison about how none of them are to blame for the fact that they keep murdering each other and others in the name of religion. Nope, it's all the gay men's fault.
- They don't seem to like atheists though. Unsurprisingly, they blame the gays for their existance.
- Heteronormative Crusader: Parodied.
- Pride Parade: Singalong version only — the event takes place during the pride festival, and there are people waving pride flags in the video.
- Scapegoat: All gay men.
- Windmill Crusader: The protagonists.
- Windmill Political: The imaginary gay problem, imagined to cause all real and imagined problems of the world.
- You Are What You Hate: In both videos, the pastor is implied to be gay himself. This is done in different ways:
- The debate video uses All Gays Are Pedophiles / Pedophile Priest, with the pastor being a little bit too frienly to a young boy.
- Armored Closet Gay: In the show version, the pastor boldly accuses the male host of turning him on.
Thou Shalt Never "Runka Bulle" With Thy Lord Jesus Christ
This video is about a troubled young man who gets Saved by an encounter with a preacher who is holding a sermon about a social/moral problem relevant to the young man's life. Strictly formula. Unlike ordinary gospel tracts, however, the problem handled is of the juvenile kind: a game called ”Runka Bulle” (the phrase could roughly be translated as "Jerk the bun off"). This game is an old Jerk Jock stereotype with homoerotic as well as homophobic undertones: The winners get their dominance and manliness reinforced, while the loser is implied to be a disgusting faggot. The preacher is preaching that you must never play this game with Jesus Christ – because Jesus is Thy Lord, so he always win.
- Author Tract: Parodied - The video follow the formula of Chick Tracts and similar gospel tracts.
- Black-and-White Morality: The match between Jesus and Satan follow the traditional pattern where the bad guy (Satan) cheats, but the good guy (Jesus) wins anyway.
- Easy Evangelism: The hero gets saved very quickly.
- If It's You, It's Okay: Passionately averted with Jesus Christ.
- Invincible Hero: JESUS IS LORD!!!
- Jerk Jock: It is implied that while regular This Loser Is You character have no chance against a regular Jerk Jock, no Jerk Jock would ever have a chance against Jesus. Rejoice!
- Jesus Was Way Cool: Much cooler (and jockier) than any of the apostles (especially Judas), much cooler than Satan, and much cooler than you.
- Moral Guardians: Of a narrow kind; they are only against the game, not against masturbation otherwise.
- Shaped Like Itself: The preacher warns the listeners that he don't want them to be tempted to fall into the traps that it is so easy to be tempted to fall into.
- The Soulsaver: The preacher, whose charismatic speach manages to get the hero saved.
The series overall
- Alien Abduction: In one episode, the hero is on his way home with some cheese for his wife's birthday (knowing that she'll be very upset if he doesn't give her any this year) when he suddenly gets beamed up and drafted to save the galaxy.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: All of "The Trial" is done in fake English using mostly homophones giving us lines like: "You onion, you can't be cereal!" The dialogue that is not is complete southern-sounding gibberish.
- Back from the Dead: "Long days journey to laughter" features Astrid Lindgren being raised from the dead by a member of a writers' room. Her skeleton immediately starts to go around and strangle people.
- Blackface: In "The Trial", the black man accused for a crime he did not commit is played by one of the regular cast members in black face.
- Captain Ersatz: The episode "The Trial" features fictional actors called Mactew Maconahuloiduhewylewydu & Gene Hackencrack, blatant parodies of Matthew McConaughey and Gene Hackman. There is also an elderly wise southern man who is not named but obvious parody of Sam Elliott.
- The aliens mentioned above is a parody of the cast of Star Trek The Originalseries.
- Clip Show: "Gone" is mostly made up of recycled scenes shot for the pilot episode "Grotesco Royale".
- Conspiracy Theorist: One episode claims that Adolf Hitler never existed as an individual person, he was simply the supervillain alter ego of the previous king of Sweden. And thus, the current king is the son of the real Adolf Hitler.
- Finns with Fearsome Forests: Played straight, then subverted and double subverted. One skit involves a Finnish man drawing a knife in a game show after people fails to laugh at his joke. The program is then interrupted by a presenter who says that due to complaints about stereotypes about Finns they will send a program with sophisticated Finns discussing literature. Then their debate escalates into a knife fight and a man steps out to adress the camera saying: "This is what happens when you try to redeem the Finns".
- Happiness Is Mandatory: Pretty much every clip ends with a message that this humor is national and approved by the government of Sweden, implying that it is your duty as a citizen to laugh at it. This is a jab at the fact that the channel that ran the series is SVT, Sweden's tax funded tv-channel.
- Intrepid Reporter: The Bergren character.
- Once per Episode: In the first season, every episode features a scene were a character opens their mouth so the camera can fly into it for the intro.
- Orphaned Setup: The "Tord Greider"-skit in "Gone" is lifted out of the pilot episode "Grotesco Royale", but you would not realize it because how funny it is on it's own. In the pilot, Tord and the Mad Scientist reappears at the end for the twist ending were it is revealed that all the characters are creations of the Mad Scientist in a bid to create the best comedy show Sweden has ever seen which the protagonist realizes and starts to laugh as a maniac.
- Race Lift: In the stage version recreates "The Trial", but the accused is a poor white (mentally handicapped) man instead. Likely to avoid a controversy about racism and it would be financially unsound to hire a black actor for just one skit when the cast is already large as it is.
- Sudden Downer Ending: Played for laughs. Despite the New York lawyer being able to prove the black man's innocence and the corruption of the prosecutor the judge tells him that in the South they just can't let a black man go and then bluntly orders the deputies to "fry him". Cue Seinfeld-music.
- Those Wacky Nazis: Featured in the conspiracy theory clip, as well as the clip about Hitler's bachelor party.
