A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satirical or ironic imitation. Often its subject is an original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, etc), but a parody can also be about a real-life person (e.g. a politician), event, or movement (e.g. the French Revolution or 1960s counterculture). Literary scholar Professor Simon Dentith defines parody as "any cultural practice which provides a relatively polemical allusive imitation of another cultural production or practice". [1] The literary theorist Linda Hutcheon said "parody ... is imitation, not always at the expense of the parodied text." Parody may be found in art or culture, including literature, music, theater, television and film, animation, and gaming.
The writer and critic John Gross observes in his Oxford Book of Parodies, that parody seems to flourish on territory somewhere between pastiche ("a composition in another artist's manner, without satirical intent") and burlesque (which "fools around with the material of high literature and adapts it to low ends"). [2] Meanwhile, the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot distinguishes between the parody and the burlesque, "A good parody is a fine amusement, capable of amusing and instructing the most sensible and polished minds; the burlesque is a miserable buffoonery which can only please the populace." [3] Historically, when a formula grows tired, as in the case of the moralistic melodramas in the 1910s, it retains value only as a parody, as demonstrated by the Buster Keaton shorts that mocked that genre. [4]
A parody may also be known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature.
According to Aristotle ( Poetics , ii. 5), Hegemon of Thasos was the inventor of a kind of parody; by slightly altering the wording in well-known poems he transformed the sublime into the ridiculous. In ancient Greek literature, a parodia was a narrative poem imitating the style and prosody of epics "but treating light, satirical or mock-heroic subjects". [5] Indeed, the components of the Greek word are παρά para "beside, counter, against" and ᾠδή oide "song". Thus, the original Greek word παρῳδία parodia has sometimes been taken to mean "counter-song", an imitation that is set against the original. The Oxford English Dictionary, for example, defines parody as imitation "turned as to produce a ridiculous effect". [6] Because par- also has the non-antagonistic meaning of beside, "there is nothing in parodia to necessitate the inclusion of a concept of ridicule." [7]
In Greek Old Comedy even the gods could be made fun of. The Frogs portrays the hero-turned-god Heracles as a glutton and the God of Drama Dionysus as cowardly and unintelligent. The traditional trip to the Underworld story is parodied as Dionysus dresses as Heracles to go to the Underworld, in an attempt to bring back a poet to save Athens. The Ancient Greeks created satyr plays which parodied tragic plays, often with performers dressed like satyrs.
Parody was used in early Greek philosophical texts to make philosophical points. Such texts are known as spoudaiogeloion, a famous example of which is the Silloi by Pyrrhonist philosopher Timon of Phlius which parodied philosophers living and dead. The style was a rhetorical mainstay of the Cynics and was the most common tone of the works made by Menippus and Meleager of Gadara. [8]
In the 2nd century CE, Lucian of Samosata created a parody of travel texts such as Indica and The Odyssey . He described the authors of such accounts as liars who had never traveled, nor ever talked to any credible person who had. In his ironically named book True History Lucian delivers a story which exaggerates the hyperbole and improbable claims of those stories. Sometimes described as the first science fiction, the characters travel to the Moon, engage in interplanetary war with the help of aliens they meet there, and then return to Earth to experience civilization inside a 200-mile-long creature generally interpreted as being a whale. This is a parody of Ctesias' claims that India has a one-legged race of humans with a single foot so huge it can be used as an umbrella, Homer's stories of one-eyed giants, and so on.
Parody exists in the following related genres: satire, travesty, pastiche, skit, burlesque.
Satires and parodies are both derivative works that exaggerate their source material(s) in humorous ways. [9] [10] [11] However, a satire is meant to make fun of the real world, whereas a parody is a derivative of a specific work ("specific parody") or a general genre ("general parody" or "spoof"). Furthermore, satires are provocative and critical as they point to a specific vice associated with an individual or a group of people to mock them into correction or as a form of punishment. [11] [12] In contrast, parodies are more focused on producing playful humor and do not always attack or criticize its targeted work and/or genre. [11] [13] Of course, it is possible for a parody to maintain satiric elements without crossing into satire itself, as long as its "light verse with modest aspirations" ultimately dominates the work. [11]
A travesty imitates and transforms a work, but focuses more on the satirization of it. Because satire is meant to attack someone or something, [11] the harmless playfulness of parody is lost. [13]
A pastiche imitates a work as a parody does, but unlike a parody, pastiche is neither transformative of the original work, nor is it humorous. [13] [14] Literary critic Fredric Jameson has referred to the pastiche as a "blank parody", or "parody that has lost its sense of humor". [14]
Skits imitate works "in a satirical regime". But unlike travesties, skits do not transform the source material. [13]
The burlesque primarily targets heroic poems and theater to degrade popular heroes and gods, as well as mock the common tropes within the genre. [11] Simon Dentith has described this type of parody as "parodic anti-heroic drama". [13]
A parody imitates and mocks a specific, recognizable work (e.g. a book, movie, etc.) or the characteristic style of a particular author. A spoof mocks an entire genre by exaggerating its conventions and cliches for humorous effect. [13]
In classical music, as a technical term, parody refers to a reworking of one kind of composition into another (for example, a motet into a keyboard work as Girolamo Cavazzoni, Antonio de Cabezón, and Alonso Mudarra all did to Josquin des Prez motets). [15] More commonly, a parody mass (missa parodia) or an oratorio used extensive quotation from other vocal works such as motets or cantatas; Victoria, Palestrina, Lassus, and other composers of the 16th century used this technique. The term is also sometimes applied to procedures common in the Baroque period, such as when Bach reworks music from cantatas in his Christmas Oratorio .
The musicological definition of the term parody has now generally been supplanted by a more general meaning of the word. In its more contemporary usage, musical parody usually has humorous, even satirical intent, in which familiar musical ideas or lyrics are lifted into a different, often incongruous, context. [16] Musical parodies may imitate or refer to the peculiar style of a composer or artist, or even a general style of music. For example, "The Ritz Roll and Rock", a song and dance number performed by Fred Astaire in the movie Silk Stockings , parodies the rock and roll genre. Conversely, while the best-known work of "Weird Al" Yankovic is based on particular popular songs, it also often utilises wildly incongruous elements of pop culture for comedic effect.
![Allegory of the Tulip omania [de], persiflage on the tulip mania, by Jan Brueghel the Younger (1640s) Jan Brueghel the Younger, Satire on Tulip Mania, c. 1640.jpg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Jan_Brueghel_the_Younger%2C_Satire_on_Tulip_Mania%2C_c._1640.jpg/220px-Jan_Brueghel_the_Younger%2C_Satire_on_Tulip_Mania%2C_c._1640.jpg)
The first usage of the word parody in English cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is in Ben Jonson, in Every Man in His Humour in 1598: "A Parodie, a parodie! to make it absurder than it was." The next citation comes from John Dryden in 1693, who also appended an explanation, suggesting that the word was in common use, meaning to make fun of or re-create what you are doing.
Since the 20th century, parody has been heightened as the central and most representative artistic device, the catalysing agent of artistic creation and innovation. [17] [18] This most prominently happened in the second half of the century with postmodernism, but earlier modernism and Russian formalism had anticipated this perspective. [17] [19] For the Russian formalists, parody was a way of liberation from the background text that enables to produce new and autonomous artistic forms. [20] [21]
Historian Christopher Rea [22] writes that "In the 1910s and 1920s, writers in China's entertainment market parodied anything and everything.... They parodied speeches, advertisements, confessions, petitions, orders, handbills, notices, policies, regulations, resolutions, discourses, explications, sutras, memorials to the throne, and conference minutes. We have an exchange of letters between the Queue and the Beard and Eyebrows. We have a eulogy for a chamber pot. We have 'Research on Why Men Have Beards and Women Don't,' 'A Telegram from the Thunder God to His Mother Resigning His Post,' and 'A Public Notice from the King of Whoring Prohibiting Playboys from Skipping Debts.'" [23] [24]
Jorge Luis Borges's (1939) short story "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote", is often regarded as predicting postmodernism and conceiving the ideal of the ultimate parody. [25] [26] In the broader sense of Greek parodia, parody can occur when whole elements of one work are lifted out of their context and reused, not necessarily to be ridiculed. [27] Traditional definitions of parody usually only discuss parody in the stricter sense of something intended to ridicule the text it parodies. There is also a broader, extended sense of parody that may not include ridicule, and may be based on many other uses and intentions. [27] [28] The broader sense of parody, parody done with intent other than ridicule, has become prevalent in the modern parody of the 20th century. [28] In the extended sense, the modern parody does not target the parodied text, but instead uses it as a weapon to target something else. [29] [30] The reason for the prevalence of the extended, recontextualizing type of parody in the 20th century is that artists have sought to connect with the past while registering differences brought by modernity. [31] [ page needed ] Major modernist examples of this recontextualizing parody include James Joyce's Ulysses , which incorporates elements of Homer's Odyssey in a 20th-century Irish context, and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land , [29] which incorporates and recontextualizes elements of a vast range of prior texts, including Dante's The Inferno .[ citation needed ] The work of Andy Warhol is another prominent example of the modern "recontextualizing" parody. [29] According to French literary theorist Gérard Genette, the most rigorous and elegant form of parody is also the most economical, that is a minimal parody, the one that literally reprises a known text and gives it a new meaning. [32] [33]
Blank parody, in which an artist takes the skeletal form of an art work and places it in a new context without ridiculing it, is common. [14] Pastiche is a closely related genre, and parody can also occur when characters or settings belonging to one work are used in a humorous or ironic way in another, such as the transformation of minor characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from Shakespeare's drama Hamlet into the principal characters in a comedic perspective on the same events in the play (and film) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead .[ citation needed ] Similarly, Mishu Hilmy's Trapped in the Netflix uses parody to deconstruct contemporary Netflix shows like Mad Men providing commentary through popular characters. Don Draper mansplaining about mansplaining, Luke Danes monologizing about a lack of independence while embracing codependency. [34] In Flann O'Brien's novel At Swim-Two-Birds , for example, mad King Sweeney, Finn MacCool, a pookah, and an assortment of cowboys all assemble in an inn in Dublin: the mixture of mythic characters, characters from genre fiction, and a quotidian setting combine for a humor that is not directed at any of the characters or their authors. This combination of established and identifiable characters in a new setting is not the same as the post-modernist trope of using historical characters in fiction out of context to provide a metaphoric element.[ citation needed ]
Sometimes the reputation of a parody outlasts the reputation of what is being parodied. For example, Don Quixote , which mocks the traditional knight errant tales, is much better known than the novel that inspired it, Amadis de Gaula (although Amadis is mentioned in the book). Another case is the novel Shamela by Henry Fielding (1742), which was a parody of the gloomy epistolary novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740) by Samuel Richardson. Many of Lewis Carroll's parodies of Victorian didactic verse for children, such as "You Are Old, Father William", are much better known than the (largely forgotten) originals. Stella Gibbons's comic novel Cold Comfort Farm has eclipsed the pastoral novels of Mary Webb which largely inspired it.
In more recent times, the television sitcom 'Allo 'Allo! is perhaps better known than the drama Secret Army which it parodies.
Some artists carve out careers by making parodies. One of the best-known examples is that of "Weird Al" Yankovic. His career of parodying other musical acts and their songs has outlasted many of the artists or bands he has parodied. Yankovic is not required under law to get permission to parody; as a personal rule, however, he does seek permission to parody a person's song before recording it. Several artists, such as rapper Chamillionaire and Seattle-based grunge band Nirvana stated that Yankovic's parodies of their respective songs were excellent, and many artists have considered being parodied by him to be a badge of honor. [35] [36]
In the US legal system the point that in most cases a parody of a work constitutes fair use was upheld in the case of Rick Dees, who decided to use 29 seconds of the music from the song When Sonny Gets Blue to parody Johnny Mathis' singing style even after being refused permission. An appeals court upheld the trial court's decision that this type of parody represents fair use. Fisher v. Dees 794 F.2d 432 (9th Cir. 1986)
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Some genre theorists, following Bakhtin, see parody as a natural development in the life cycle of any genre; this idea has proven especially fruitful for genre film theorists. Such theorists note that Western movies, for example, after the classic stage defined the conventions of the genre, underwent a parody stage, in which those same conventions were ridiculed and critiqued. Because audiences had seen these classic Westerns, they had expectations for any new Westerns, and when these expectations were inverted, the audience laughed.
An early parody film was the 1922 movie Mud and Sand , a Stan Laurel film that made fun of Rudolph Valentino's film Blood and Sand . Laurel specialized in parodies in the mid-1920s, writing and acting in a number of them. Some were send-ups of popular films, such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde —parodied in the comic Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde (1926). Others were spoofs of Broadway plays, such as No, No, Nanette (1925), parodied as Yes, Yes, Nanette (1925). In 1940 Charlie Chaplin created a satirical comedy about Adolf Hitler with the film The Great Dictator , following the first-ever Hollywood parody of the Nazis, the Three Stooges' short subject You Nazty Spy! .
About 20 years later Mel Brooks started his career with a Hitler parody as well. After his 1967 film The Producers won both an Academy Award and a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay, [37] Brooks became one of the most famous film parodists and created spoofs in multiple film genres. Blazing Saddles (1974) is a parody of western films, History of the World, Part I (1981) is a historical parody, Robin Hood Men in Tights (1993) is Brooks' take on the classic Robin Hood tale, and his spoofs in the horror, sci-fi and adventure genres include Young Frankenstein (1974), and Spaceballs (1987, a Star Wars spoof).
The British comedy group Monty Python is also famous for its parodies, for example, the King Arthur spoof Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974), and the Jesus satire Life of Brian (1979). In the 1980s the team of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker parodied well-established genres such as disaster, war and police movies with the Airplane! , Hot Shots! and Naked Gun series respectively. There is a 1989 film parody from Spain of the TV series The A-Team called El equipo Aahhgg directed by José Truchado.
More recently, parodies have taken on whole film genres at once. One of the first was Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood and the Scary Movie franchise. Other recent genre parodies include. Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday The 13th , Not Another Teen Movie , Date Movie , Epic Movie , Meet the Spartans , Superhero Movie , Disaster Movie , Vampires Suck , and The 41-Year-Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It , all of which have been critically panned.[ citation needed ]
Many parody films have as their target out-of-copyright or non-copyrighted subjects (such as Frankenstein or Robin Hood) whilst others settle for imitation which does not infringe copyright, but is clearly aimed at a popular (and usually lucrative) subject. The spy film craze of the 1960s, fuelled by the popularity of James Bond is such an example. In this genre a rare, and possibly unique, example of a parody film taking aim at a non-comedic subject over which it actually holds copyright is the 1967 James Bond spoof Casino Royale . In this case, producer Charles K. Feldman initially intended to make a serious film, but decided that it would not be able to compete with the established series of Bond films. Hence, he decided to parody the series. [38]
Kenneth Baker considered poetic parody to take five main forms. [39]
A further, more constructive form of poetic parody is one that links the contemporary poet with past forms and past masters through affectionate parodying – thus sharing poetic codes while avoiding some of the anxiety of influence. [44]
More aggressive in tone are playground poetry parodies, often attacking authority, values and culture itself in a carnivalesque rebellion: [45] "Twinkle, Twinkle little star,/ Who the hell do you think you are?" [46]
A subset of parody is self-parody in which artists parody their own work (as in Ricky Gervais's Extras ).
Although a parody can be considered a derivative work of a pre-existing, copyrighted work, some countries have ruled that parodies can fall under copyright limitations such as fair dealing, or otherwise have fair dealing laws that include parody in their scope.
Parodies are protected under the fair use doctrine of United States copyright law, but the defense is more successful if the usage of an existing copyrighted work is transformative in nature, such as being a critique or commentary upon it.
In Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. , the Supreme Court ruled that a rap parody of "Oh, Pretty Woman" by 2 Live Crew was fair use, as the parody was a distinctive, transformative work designed to ridicule the original song, and that "even if 2 Live Crew's copying of the original's first line of lyrics and characteristic opening bass riff may be said to go to the original's 'heart,' that heart is what most readily conjures up the song for parody, and it is the heart at which parody takes aim."
In 2001, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin , upheld the right of Alice Randall to publish a parody of Gone with the Wind called The Wind Done Gone , which told the same story from the point of view of Scarlett O'Hara's slaves, who were glad to be rid of her.
In 2007, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied a fair use defense in the Dr. Seuss Enterprises v. Penguin Books case. Citing the Campbell v. Acuff-Rose decision, they found that a satire of the O.J. Simpson murder trial and parody of The Cat in the Hat had infringed upon the children's book because it did not provide a commentary function upon that work. [47] [48]
 | Parts of this article (those related to Changes from the Copyright Modernization Act, 2012) need to be updated.(September 2012) |
Under Canadian law, although there is protection for Fair Dealing, there is no explicit protection for parody and satire. In Canwest v. Horizon , the publisher of the Vancouver Sun launched a lawsuit against a group which had published a pro-Palestinian parody of the paper. Alan Donaldson, the judge in the case, ruled that parody is not a defence to a copyright claim. [49]
As of the implementation of the Copyright Modernization Act 2012, "Fair dealing for the purpose of research, private study, education, parody or satire does not infringe copyright." [50]
In 2006 the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property recommended that the UK should "create an exception to copyright for the purpose of caricature, parody or pastiche by 2008". [51] Following the first stage of a two-part public consultation, the Intellectual Property Office reported that the information received "was not sufficient to persuade us that the advantages of a new parody exception were sufficient to override the disadvantages to the creators and owners of the underlying work. There is therefore no proposal to change the current approach to parody, caricature and pastiche in the UK." [52]
However, following the Hargreaves Review in May 2011 (which made similar proposals to the Gowers Review) the Government broadly accepted these proposals. The current law (effective from 1 October 2014), namely Section 30A [53] of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, now provides an exception to infringement where there is fair dealing of the original work for the purpose of parody (or alternatively for the purpose of caricature or pastiche). The legislation does not define what is meant by "parody", but the UK IPO – the Intellectual Property Office (United Kingdom) – suggests [54] that a "parody" is something that imitates a work for humorous or satirical effect. See also Fair dealing in United Kingdom law.
Some countries do not like parodies and the parodies can be considered insulting. The person who makes the parody can be fined or even jailed. For instance in the UAE [55] and North Korea, [56] this is not allowed.
Parody is a prominent genre in online culture, thanks in part to the ease with which digital texts may be altered, appropriated, and shared. Japanese kuso and Chinese e'gao are emblematic of the importance of parody in online cultures in Asia. Video mash-ups and other parodic memes, such as humorously altered Chinese characters, have been particularly popular as a tool for political protest in the People's Republic of China, the government of which maintains an extensive censorship apparatus. [57] Chinese internet slang makes extensive use of puns and parodies on how Chinese characters are pronounced or written, as illustrated in the Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon.
Parody generators are computer programs which generate text that is syntactically correct, but usually meaningless, often in the style of a technical paper or a particular writer. They are also called travesty generators and random text generators.
Their purpose is often satirical, intending to show that there is little difference between the generated text and real examples.
Many work by using techniques such as Markov chains to reprocess real text examples; alternatively, they may be hand-coded. Generated texts can vary from essay length to paragraphs and tweets. (The term "quote generator" can also be used for software that randomly selects real quotations.)
Further to its esoteric interest, a discussion of parody generation as a useful technique for measuring the success of grammatical inferencing systems is included, along with suggestions for its practical application in areas of language modeling and text compression. [58]
Parody is often used to make a social or political statement. Examples include Swift's "A Modest Proposal", which satirized English neglect of Ireland by parodying emotionally disengaged political tracts; and, recently, The Daily Show, The Larry Sanders Show and The Colbert Report , which parody a news broadcast and a talk show to satirize political and social trends and events.
On the other hand, the writer and frequent parodist Vladimir Nabokov made a distinction: "Satire is a lesson, parody is a game." [59]
Some events, such as a national tragedy, can be difficult to handle. Chet Clem, Editorial Manager of the news parody publication The Onion , told Wikinews in an interview the questions that are raised when addressing difficult topics:
I know the September 11 issue was an obviously very large challenge to approach. Do we even put out an issue? What is funny at this time in American history? Where are the jokes? Do people want jokes right now? Is the nation ready to laugh again? Who knows. There will always be some level of division in the back room. It's also what keeps us on our toes. [60]
Parody is by no means necessarily satirical, and may sometimes be done with respect and appreciation of the subject involved, without being a heedless sarcastic attack.
Parody has also been used to facilitate dialogue between cultures or subcultures. Sociolinguist Mary Louise Pratt identifies parody as one of the "arts of the contact zone", through which marginalized or oppressed groups "selectively appropriate", or imitate and take over, aspects of more empowered cultures. [61]
Shakespeare often uses a series of parodies to convey his meaning. In the social context of his era, an example can be seen in King Lear where the fool is introduced with his coxcomb to be a parody of the king.
Nearly all periods of artistic innovation have had a strong parodic impulse, advancing generic change. As the Russian formalist Boris Eichenbaum once put it: "In the evolution of each genre, there are times when its use for entirely serious or elevated objectives degenerates and produces a comic or parodic form....And thus is produced the regeneration of the genre: it finds new possibilities and new forms."
From these words, it can be inferred that Genette's conceptualisation does not diverge from Hutcheon's, in the sense that he does not mention the component of ridicule that is suggested by the prefix paros. Genette alludes to the re-interpretative capacity of parodists in order to confer an artistic autonomy to their works.
Genette individua la forma "piú rigorosa" di parodia nella "parodia minimale", consistente nella ripresa letterale di un testo conosciuto e nella sua applicazione a un nuovo contesto, come nella citazione deviata dal suo senso
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)In popular culture, formula fiction is literature in which the storylines and plots have been reused to the extent that the narratives are predictable. It is similar to genre fiction, which identifies a number of specific settings that are frequently reused. The label of formula fiction is used in literary criticism as a mild pejorative to imply lack of originality.
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposing or shaming the perceived flaws of individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society.
Genre is any style or form of communication in any mode with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other forms of art or entertainment, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. Stand-alone texts, works, or pieces of communication may have individual styles, but genres are amalgams of these texts based on agreed-upon or socially inferred conventions. Some genres may have rigid, strictly adhered-to guidelines, while others may show great flexibility. The proper use of a specific genre is important for a successful transfer of information (media-adequacy).
A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, music, or architecture that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche pays homage to the work it imitates, rather than mocking it.
A parody film or spoof film is a subgenre of comedy film that lampoons other film genres or films as pastiches, works created by imitation of the style of many different films reassembled together. Although the subgenre is often overlooked by critics, parody films are commonly profitable at the box office. Parody is related to satire, except that "parody is more often a representation of appreciation, while a satire is more often...pointing ...out the major flaws of an object through ridicule." J.M. Maher notes that the "difference is not always clear" and points out that "some films employ both techniques". Parody is found in a range of art and culture, including literature, music, theater, television, animation, and gaming.
A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects. The word derives from the Italian burlesco, which, in turn, is derived from the Italian burla – a joke, ridicule or mockery.
Bathos is a literary term, first used in this sense in Alexander Pope's 1727 essay "Peri Bathous", to describe an amusingly failed attempt at presenting artistic greatness. Bathos has come to refer to rhetorical anticlimax, an abrupt transition from a lofty style or grand topic to a common or vulgar one, occurring either accidentally or intentionally. Intentional bathos appears in satirical genres such as burlesque and mock epic. "Bathos" or "bathetic" is also used for similar effects in other branches of the arts, such as musical passages marked ridicolosamente. In film, bathos may appear in a contrast cut intended for comic relief or be produced by an accidental jump cut.
Mock-heroic, mock-epic or heroi-comic works are typically satires or parodies that mock common Classical stereotypes of heroes and heroic literature. Typically, mock-heroic works either put a fool in the role of the hero or exaggerate the heroic qualities to such a point that they become absurd.
Poodle Hat is the eleventh studio album by the American parody musician "Weird Al" Yankovic, released on May 20, 2003. It was the fifth studio album self-produced by Yankovic. The musical styles on the album are built around parodies and pastiches of pop of the early-2000s. The album's lead single, "Couch Potato", is a parody of "Lose Yourself" by Eminem. The single failed to chart, although the album's song "eBay" eventually peaked at 15 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles in 2007.
Parody music, or musical parody, involves changing or copying existing musical ideas, and/or lyrics, or copying the particular style of a composer or performer, or even a general style of music.
Comedy rock is rock music that is comedic in nature. It is often mixed with satire or irony.
Parody science, sometimes called spoof science, is the act of mocking science in a satirical way. Science can be parodied for a purpose, ranging from social commentary and making political points, to humor for its own sake.
Comedy music or musical comedy is a genre of music that is comical, comedic or humorous in nature. Its history can be traced back to the first century in ancient Greece and Rome, moving forward in time to the Medieval Period, Classical and Romantic eras, and the 20th century. Various forms of comedic musical theatre, including "musical play", "musical comedy", "operetta" and "light opera", evolved from the comic operas first developed in late 17th-century Italy. Popular music artists in the 20th century interested in comedy include Allan Sherman, Frank Zappa, Tiny Tim, Barenaked Ladies, Randy Newman, and "Weird Al" Yankovic. Artists in the 21st century include Tenacious D, Flight of the Conchords, The Lonely Island, Ninja Sex Party and The Axis of Awesome.
Rejected Addresses was an 1812 book of parodies by the brothers James and Horace Smith. In the line of 18th-century pastiches focussed on a single subject in the style of poets of the time, it contained twenty-one good-natured pastiches of contemporary authors. The book's popular success set the fashion for a number of later works of the same kind.
Comedy is a genre that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term originated in ancient Greece: In Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance pitting two groups, ages, genders, or societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old". A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions posing obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth then becomes constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to resort to ruses which engender dramatic irony, which provokes laughter.
Comedy hip hop or comedy rap is a subgenre of hip hop music designed to be amusing or comedic, compared to artists who incorporate humor into their more serious, purist hip hop styles.
Hypertext, in semiotics, is a text which alludes to, derives from, or relates to an earlier work or hypotext.
Satirical music describes music that employs satire or was described as such. It deals with themes of social, political, religious, cultural structures and provides commentary or criticism on them typically under the guise of dark humor or respective music genres. Topics include sexuality, race, culture, religion, politics, institutions, taboo subjects, morality, and the human condition.
Mandatory Fun is the fourteenth and final studio album by the American parody musician "Weird Al" Yankovic. The self-produced album was released by RCA Records in the United States on July 15, 2014. Yankovic had previously released Alpocalypse in 2011 and was touring in support of it when he first spoke of his next record. When he began to work on Mandatory Fun, Yankovic found himself listening to older acts, many of which he stylistically spoofed on the album.
Mockery or mocking is the act of insulting or making light of a person or other thing, sometimes merely by taunting, but often by making a caricature, purporting to engage in imitation in a way that highlights unflattering characteristics. Mockery can be done in a lighthearted and gentle way, but can also be cruel and hateful, such that it "conjures images of corrosion, deliberate degradation, even subversion; thus, 'to laugh at in contempt, to make sport of' (OED)". Mockery appears to be unique to humans, and serves a number of psychological functions, such as reducing the perceived imbalance of power between authority figures and common people. Examples of mockery can be found in literature and the arts.
archived at University of Idaho, English 506, Rhetoric and Composition: History, Theory, and Research. From Ways of Reading, 5th edition, ed. David Bartholomae and Anthony Petroksky (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999
An anthology including Arts of the Contact Zone
