Parody
In contemporary usage,
parody is a form of
satire that imitates another work of
art in order to ridicule or poke affectionate fun at either the work itself, or the subject of the work, or in some cases simply the subject of the parody.
Parody exists in all art media, including
literature,
music, and
cinema. Cultural movements can also be parodied. Such works are also sometimes colloquially referred to as
spoofs.
In ancient
Greek literature, a parody was a type of poem that imitated another poem's style. Indeed, the Greek roots of the word
parody are
par- ("beside" or "subsidiary") and
-ody ("song", as in
ode). Thus, the original Greek meant, roughly, "mock poem".
Roman writers explained parody as an imitation of one poet by another for humorous effect. In
French Neo-classical literature, "parody" was also a type of poem where one work imitates the style of another for humorous effect.
In reference to 15th- to 18th-century
music, "parody" means a reworking of one kind of composition into another - for example, a
motet into a keyboard work;
Girolamo Cavazzoni,
Antonio de Cabezón, and
Alonso Mudarra all created keyboard parodies of
Josquin motets. More commonly, a
parody mass (
missa parodia) used extensive quotation from other vocal works such as
motets;
Victoria,
Palestrina,
Lassus, and other notable composers of the 16th century used this technique, also called marichu chollu. Song parodies can be filled with mishearings known as
mondegreens.
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 notable citation comes from
John Dryden in
1693, who also appended an explanation, suggesting that the word was not in common use. In his "Preface to the Satires", he says: "We may find, that they were
Satryrique Poems, full of Parodies; that is, of Verses patch'd up from great Poets, and turn'd into another Sence than their Author intended them."
Dryden's definition is therefore a departure from previous usage (as he implies satire), and Dryden adapts what was still a foreign term (
parody) to apply to a recent literary subgenre that had no name: the
mock-heroic.
In "MacFlecknoe", Dryden created an entire poem designed to ridicule by parody. Dryden imitates Virgil's
Aeneid, but the poem is about
Thomas Shadwell, a minor dramatist. The implicit contrast between the heroic style from Virgil and the poor quality of the hero, Shadwell, makes Shadwell seem even worse. When dressed in Aeneas's clothes, Shadwell looks all the more ridiculous.
Other parodies of the Restoration and early 18th century were similar to Dryden's: they employed an imitation of something serious and revered to ridicule a low or foolish person or habit. This is generally referred to as the
mock-heroic, a genre generally credited to
Samuel Butler and his poem
Hudibras. When conscious, the contrast of very serious or exalted style with very frivolous or worthless subject is parody. When the combination is unconscious, it is
bathos (derived from
Alexander Pope's parody of
Longinus, "
Peri Bathos").
Jonathan Swift is the first English author to apply the word
parody to narrative prose, and it is perhaps because of a misunderstanding of Swift's own definition of
parody that the term has since come to refer to any stylistic imitation that is intended to belittle. In "The Apology for the &c.", which is one of the prefaces to his
A Tale of a Tub, Swift says that a parody is the imitation of an author one wishes to expose. In essence, this makes parody very little different from mockery and burlesque, and, given Swift's attention to language, it is likely that he knew this. In fact, Swift's definition of parody might well be a parody of Dryden's presumed habit of explaining the obvious or using loan words.
After Jonathan Swift, the term
parody was used almost exclusively to refer to mockery, particularly in narrative.
The word
spoof finds its origin in a game involving trickery and nonsense. The game was invented by
Arthur Roberts, an
English comedian.
In the older sense of the word, parody can occur when whole elements of one work are lifted out of their context and reused.
Pastiche is a form of parody, and parody can also occur when characters or settings belonging to one work are used in a humorous 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.
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 habit of using historical characters in fiction out of context to provide a metaphoric element. However, in the postmodern sensibility, blank parody is common where an artist takes the skeletal form of another art work and places it in a new context with new content.
Some
genre film theorists see parody as a natural development in the life cycle of any
genre, especially in film.
Western movies, for example, after the classic stage defined the conventions of the genre, underwent a parody stage, in which those same conventions were lampooned. Because audiences had seen these classic Westerns, they had expectations for any new Westerns, and when these expectations were inverted, the audience laughed.
Sometimes the reputation of a parody outlasts the reputation of what is being parodied. A notable 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, such as "
You Are Old, Father William", are much better known than the originals. For example,
Don Quixote, which mocks the traditional
knight errant tales, is much more well-known than the novel that inspired it,
Amadis de Gaula (although Amadis is mentioned in the book).
A subset of parody is
self-parody in which artists satirize themselves (such as in
Ricky Gervais's
Extras) or their work (such as
Antonio Banderas's Puss in Boots in
Shrek 2), or an artist or genre repeats elements of earlier works to the point that originality is lost.
One good example of film parody can be found in the line of
Scary Movie series. The films poke fun at familiar elements from recent horror and other mainstream movies. (For example,
Scary Movie 3 incorporates the storylines of
The Ring and
Signs.)
Although a parody can be considered a
derivative work under
United States Copyright Law, it can be protected under the
fair use doctrine, which is codified in
17 USC § 107. The
Supreme Court of the United States stated that parody "is the use of some elements of a prior author's composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author's works." That commentary function provides some justification for use of the older work.
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. In 2001, the United States Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit, 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.
*
Literary technique*
Parody advertisement*
Parody music*
Parody religion*
Parody scienceHistorical examples
Sir Thopas in
Canterbury Tales, by
Geoffrey ChaucerDon Quixote by Miguel
CervantesBeware the Cat by
William BaldwinThe Knight of the Burning Pestle by
Francis Beaumont and
John FletcherDragon of Wantley, an anonymous 17th century ballad
Hudibras by
Samuel Butler*"
MacFlecknoe", by
John DrydenA Tale of a Tub by
Jonathan SwiftThe Rape of the Lock by
Alexander PopeNamby Pamby by
Henry CareyGulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
The Dunciad by
Alexander PopeThe Memoirs of Martinus Scribblerus by
John Gay, Alexander Pope,
John Arbuthnot,
Earl of Oxford, et al.
Rasselas, Prince of Abbysinia by
Samuel Johnson*
Mozart's
A Musical Joke (
Ein musikalischer Spaß), K.522 (1787) - parody of incompetent contemporaries of Mozart, as assumed by some theorists
Sartor Resartus by
Thomas CarlysleWays and Means, or
The aged, aged man, by
Lewis Carrol. Much of
Alice in Wonderland and
Through the Looking Glass is parodic of
Victorian schooling.
Batrachomuomachia (battle between frogs and mice) , an
Illiad parody by an unknown ancient Greek author
Contemporary examples
Airplane! - gag based parody of disaster films and air travel
Amiright - music
web site which features song parodies, misheard lyrics, and
album cover parodies
*
Army Of Darkness - the third part of the
Evil Dead trilogy, which parodies numerous horror films, including
Evil Dead itself.
*
Ask a Ninja - a series of online comedy videos about the image of
ninjas in popular culture.
Austin Powers series - parodies of spy films, especially the
James Bond series, and a broad range of
popular culture.
Barry Trotter - parodies of
Harry Potter books.
Blazing Saddles - a movie by director
Mel Brooks, parodying American
westernsBob and George - a
sprite comic that parodies the
Mega Man video game franchise.
The Boomer Bible - a book by
R. F. Laird, which parodies contemporary society and mores.
Bored of the Rings - a parody of
The Lord of the RingsBus Driver's Prayer - parody of the
Lord's Prayer, using British
place names. Recorded by
Ian Dury.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) – a parody of all of the plays of
William Shakespeare.
Chappelle's Show - A sketch comedy series that parodies music videos, celebrities, advertisements, Internet, and famous movies.
*
Clubbo Records - a
record label and related
website parodying various popular music genres
The Colbert Report - a parody of
pundit programs, particularly
The O'Reilly Factor.
Cracked Mazagine - popular humor magazine that has been competing with MAD Magazine for years.
The Daily Show - A popular fake news show on Comedy Central hosted by Jon Stewart
Drawn Together - parodies the various genres of
animation, along with
TV reality shows.
Futurama - parodies film & contemporary culture
Star Trek,
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,
Microsoft,
Puppy Chow,
Y2K,
Buck Rodgers, and others.
French & Saunders - a comedy series which has featured parodies of several major hit films (including
Titanic (1997),
Misery,
Braveheart,
Thelma and Louise,
Lord of the Rings)
Genesis' song Jesus He Knows Me had a parody video of TV Evangelists
* Hot Shots - An outrageous war film parody.
*Kung Fu Hustle - a movie by Steven Chow parodying Chinese wuxia films, as well as gangster films in general
* Landover Baptist Church - Parody of Southern Baptist hyper-religiosity.
*Lazy Sunday - a music video parodying hardcore rap and The Chronicles of Narnia film
*The Legion of Net.Heroes - a Usenet shared universe that parodies the Superhero genre, the Comic Book industry, and the Internet.
*MAD Magazine - parody of practically everything in American popular culture
*The Misprint - similar to The Onion, parodies politics in India
*Moral Orel - parody of
Davey and Goliath Chris Morris's The Day Today and Brass Eye - parodies of high paced self-important genre of TV news programmes
*Not Another Teen Movie, a movie that parodies teen flicks such as She's All That, American Pie, The Breakfast Club, Bring It On and various others.
*The Onion - parody of newspaper and magazine journalism
*Parodius - parody of the side-scrolling video game Gradius as well as other Konami franchises
* Perfect Hair Forever- an anime parody on adult swim.
* Pokéthulhu - a roleplaying game combining the fictional settings of Pokémon and the Cthulhu mythos as parodies of each other.
*El Privilegio de Mandar - is a Mexican
politic parody. It's also the most popular parody in the country.
Radio Active - BBC parody of poorly funded rural local commercial radio
Red vs Blue -
Rooster Teeth's machinima series that parodies
first-person shooter games, the military, and science fiction story cliches (like
time travel,
quests, intergalactic war and
artificial intelligence).
Restart Theatrical parody of British politics by the UK's Komedy Kollective.
Ripping Yarns - television tales penned by
Michael Palin and
Terry Jones to parody heroic stories/comics aimed at British boys during the
1920-
1960 (?) period
Robot Chicken - television series comprised of a series of sketches that parody various aspects of pop culture using
stop-motion animation.
Rutland Weekend Television -
Eric Idle inspired parody of low grade commercial television
The Rutles - parody of The Beatles
*Scary Movie (Quadrilogy) - Parodies of horror movies such as Scream,
I Know What You Did Last Summer,
The Exorcist,
The Haunting,
Signs,
The Ring,
etc.
*Scream a sly parody of the slasher horror genre, so subtle that in fact most people took it to be the real thing and it spawned numerous parodies of its own.
*
Second City Television - parody of North American network television programming.
*Many episodes of
South Park, especially in recent seasons. One example is The Church of Scientology Episode - http://www.scientomogy.com/southpark_scientology.php
*Soap - Soap-Opera Parody
*Spaceballs - Mel Brooks-directed parody of space opera, such as Star Wars and Star Trek
*The Sunday Format - BBC radio parody of vacuous lifestyle journalism
*This Is Spinal Tap, a spoof of the heavy metal music business, by Rob Reiner
*Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog- often makes fun of
Musicians,
Actors,and anything else in
pop culture.
Uncyclopedia - Online parody of
Wikipedia.
University of Psychogenic Fugue - A parody college course catalog for a fictional American University.
"Weird Al" Yankovic's, Tom Lehrer's, Cledus T. Judd's, and Allan Sherman's innumerable song parodies
* Whitehouse.org'' - Parody of official Presidential website of George W. Bush.
