Parody

Parody is an imitative form of subversive writing and performance in which the words or thoughts of an author are taken and, by a slight change, adapted to some new purpose. Parody encompasses the concept of lampoon, where the original work or individual is trivialized; the original becomes the target of ironic or satiric imitation. Parody is derivative; it is an exploitation of an existing person or thing. Parody is considered under fair use legislation to be commentary. Burlesque entertainments (where individuals are imitated) are examples of parody because the imitations are designed to ridicule through exaggeration. Parody is a resistance genre through which the oppressed and marginalized can offer commentary on the apparent oppressor.

Background

Aristotle (ca. 384–322 BCE) in his Poetics (ca. 334–323 BCE) chronicled the work of Hegemon of Thasos (ca. 450–ca. 388 BCE) and credited him with the invention of parody. Hegemon entertained audiences when he slightly altered words in popular poems to transform them from the beautiful to the ridiculous in order to create a countersong antagonistically targeting specific individuals. Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1343–1400 CE) created a distinct parody of medieval romances with Sir Thopas in his Canterbury Tales (1387–1400), characterized by a hodgepodge of stories and simple rhymes found in the popular culture of the time.

Parody is situational. Italian ephemeral impromptu comedy featuring music and dance was known as commedia dell’arte; it featured archetypal stock characters thought to date back to ancient Roman theater. Commedia emerged with the festivals of the Renaissance and influenced the collective imagination throughout Europe from the 1550s to the late eighteenth century. Plays were improvised based upon briefly outlined scenarios with psychological and physical undercurrents employing classical mime and farce to parody rustic regional characters.

British humor, characterized by sarcasm and self-deprecation, has long embraced parody. William Shakespeare (1564–1616), one of the most influential playwrights in English literature, utilized parody to convey social context, and his own works continue to be parodied in the twenty-first century. In England, Ben Jonson (1572–1637), in his Every Man in His Humour (1598, 1601) defined parody: “A Parodie, a parodie . . . to make it absurder than it was.” John Dryden (1631–1700), who relied upon patterns of language and rhythm found in everyday speech, elaborated on this theme, suggesting that to parody was to toy with describing what one is doing as if to spoof or mock the original version.

Parody is an art form of opportunity in which the parody can become more enduring than the original. English songwriter Henry Carey (ca. 1687–1743) wrote “Namby Pamby” (1725) as a parody of seven-syllable lines innovated in poems by Ambrose Philips (1675?–1749). The title of Carey’s poem became a term used to describe affected and maudlin speech or verse. Henry Fielding (1707–54) anonymously published a classic parody called An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews (1741) that spotlighted rhetorical flaws in the best-selling epistolary novel called Pamela, or, Virtue Rewarded (1740–41) by Samuel Richardson (1689–1761). Fielding’s protagonist, Shamela, is a wicked and lascivious former prostitute who feigns innocence to entrap her master into marriage, whereas Richardson’s Pamela embodies the virtue that attracts the admiration of her master; the rhetorical flaw is that Richardson turned his protagonist’s virtues (chastity and innocence) into a commodity.

Impact

Parody is a device used by the marginalized to subvert the establishment for profit. Parody can be employed as a resistance humor, or humor by the oppressed that is used to critique or otherwise attack oppressors; conversely, it can also foster positive dialogues between cultures and subcultures or be employed by oppressors to reflect and maintain the status quo. Minstrel productions by white Americans in blackface appropriated Southern plantation society to appeal to white audiences in a way that perpetuated racist stereotypes of African Americans.

The earliest cinematic parody was Mud and Sand (1922) by comedian Stan Laurel (1890–1965), which was a spoof of the top-grossing film of 1922 called Blood and Sand, starring Rudolph Valentino. Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977), who grew up in dismal poverty and started his career in burlesque and vaudeville, developed a political parody the Nazis with The Great Dictator (1940), in which he played both the protagonist (a Jewish barber in the ghetto) and antagonist Adenoid Hynkel, the dictator of Tomania (a parody of Adolph Hitler and Germany). Chaplin’s work illustrates how parody is employed to make social and political points; its main function is to provide commentary, either to ridicule or flatter.

The American legal system considers parody to be fair use: the case Fisher vs. Dees (1986) found that Rick Dees could use twenty-nine seconds from Marvin Fisher and Jack Segal’s “When Sunny Gets Blue” (recorded by Johnny Mathis), even after being refused permission to use it in his parody, “When Sonny Sniffs Glue.” Parody continues in postmodernism to be an important artistic device used to inspire innovation; within this context, blank parody broadens the form beyond ridicule to serve other functions in creative and even scientific uses. Modern parodists such as Weird Al Yankovic (who obtains permission to parody songwriters before recording) have created careers parodying other artists.

In the twenty-first century, the video-sharing website YouTube abounds with user-generated parodies and allows private amateur video producers as well as professional production companies to innovate parody. YouTube offers multiple channels of music-video parodies, parodies produced by marginalized groups, and an archive of classic twentieth-century parodies of comedic masters and shows, including Chaplin, Benny Hill, Blackadder, and Monty Python. Parody continues to be extremely profitable when creatively employed. African American comedian Keenen Ivory Wayans created the successful 1990s Fox television series In Living Color, which parodied famous African Americans and others. In 2000 Wayans directed Scary Movie, the first film of what turned out to be a successful franchise. The film parodies Wes Craven’s slasher film Scream (1996), and subsequent films in the franchise have parodied the entire genre of teen horror films for great profit.

Bibliography

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