Opposition in Team StarKid’s “Hatchetfield” Series

The content of these readings made me recall a time somebody on Twitter said that independent theatre company Team StarKid’s shows were not deep or political. This struck me, as well as many other StarKid fans, as odd, because nearly every StarKid show has included some political messaging. The most prominent example is in the second show of their horror comedy franchise The Hatchetfield Series, written by brothers Nick and Matt Lang. The show, Black Friday, uses a subverted oppositional reading to reject capitalistic ideals that are normalized by other popular culture.

Black Friday centers around a group of murderous mallgoers on the titular shopping day, attacking one another all for the sake of acquiring a “Tickle-Me Wiggly” plush doll for their children. This alone provides a commentary criticizing capitalism and serving as oppositional, but the show goes much further than that.

The mallgoers fighting over Wiggly in "Black Friday"

Wiggly is revealed to actually be an Eldritch Lord, Wiggog Y’Wrath, the leader of the Lords in Black, who are the overarching antagonists of the Hatchetfield shows. Each LiB represents some form of societal critique, but Wiggly is the most outright, as he is the physical manifestation of capitalism. It’s not uncommon for media to critique capitalism, but the level at which the Lang brothers shove the criticism in the audience’s faces stands out. It’s a clear subverted opposition to the hegemony of capitalism not being quite that bad or that evil. 

The Lords in Black (left to right: Pokotho, Tnoy Karaxis, Wiggog Y'Wrath, Bliklotep, Nibblenephim)

Hatchetfield also opposes the hegemony that the military is good, this time using a more subtle approach. The first show in the series, The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals, features a number titled “America is Great Again,” sung by the military and poking very clear fun at President Trump’s campaign slogan. However, the song is led by the character General John MacNamara, who is commonly thought of by the viewers and the writers alike as an objectively good person. By putting this critique through the lens of a “good” character, it forces audiences to think a bit more critically about what is being said.

Paul Matthews in "The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals"

There are more subtle examples as well. The leads of the shows are in many ways unlikable, by playing into archetypes that are often thought of as good, but emphasizing the bad parts of them. TGWDLM lead Paul Matthews is apathetic at best and a downright bad friend at worst, Black Friday’s leads are an emotionally absent single father, a virtue-signalling nurse who killed her husband, and an alternative teenage girl raising her younger sister. The final stage show, Nerdy Prudes Must Die is less clear than the other two, with two of the three leads being relatively normal, but the third ends the show by becoming the villain and starting her own murder spree. Despite this, the Langs manage to get audiences to root for her.

Grace Chasity in "Nerdy Prudes Must Die"

Ultimately, the question is whether these commentaries are an outright rejection of these norms, or just a critique of them. After all, StarKid did sell their very own Wiggly dolls just like in the show