A Parody is a work that mimics in an absurd or ridiculous way the

conventions and style of another work - in order to derive ridicule, ironic

comment or affectionate fun.

Critic, Simon Dentith (2000: 9), defines parody as “any cultural practice which provides a relatively polemical allusive imitation of another cultural production or practice.”

• Parody (The New Critical Idiom). Routledge.

Parody

Duchamp's parody of the Mona Lisa adds a goatee

and moustache.

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. Original painting from

circa 1503 – 1507.

Parody

Marcel Duchamp's Dadaist painting LHOOQ parodies DaVinci's Mona Lisa by marring it with a goatee and moustache. In keeping with his Dadist practices, which called artistic conventions and aesthetic assumptions into question, DuChamp’s paired his visual parody with a low pun; in French, "L.H.O.O.Q." sounds like an idiom describing women who sexually tease men: "elle a chaud au cul," or "she is hot in the ass."

Some genre theorists see parody as a natural development in the life cycle of any genre. 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 new Westerns, and when these expectations were subverted, the audience laughed.

Parody

Most of the humour in recent parodies of film genres is based on our familiarity with formula plots, conventions and characters. Films like Scary Movie, Not Another Teen Movie and Team America: World Police first build on our habitual expectations of their genre and then violate them. Because each of these films incorporates the plot, characters & conventions of dozens of films, they can be helpful in studying the genres they parody.

Parody

Self-ParodyA subset of parody is self-parody in which artists satirize themselves (such as in Ricky Gervais' Extras) or their work (e.g. Antonio Banderas' Puss in Boots in Shrek 2),or an artist or genre repeats elements of earlier works to the point that originality is lost (e.g. Sylvester Stallone in Rocky Balboa).

Intertextuality

Intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. It can refer to an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another.

Intertextuality

• The term intertextuality has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined by poststructuralist Julia Kristeva in 1966. As critic William Irwin says, the term “has come to have almost as many meanings as users, from those faithful to Kristeva’s original vision to those who simply use it as a stylish way of talking about allusion and influence” (Irwin, 228).

• ''Against Intertextuality''. Philosophy and Literature, v28, Number 2, October 2004

A pastiche is “a medley of various ingredients; a hotchpotch, farrago, jumble.”

The term denotes a technique employing a generally light-hearted tongue-in-cheek imitation of another's style; although jocular, it is usually respectful (as opposed to parody, which is not).

PastichePastiche is prominent in popular culture. Many genre pieces, particularly in fantasy, are essentially pastiches. George Lucas’ Star Wars series is often considered to be a pastiche of traditional science fiction television serials or radio shows.

The films of Quentin Tarantino are often described as pastiches, with their mixing and blurring of generic conventions and boundaries. Kill Bill (2003) pays tribute to (or perhaps imitates) numerous genres; pulp novels, blaxploitation, grindhouse, kung fu and western films - though some say his films are more of a homage.

Homage

Homage is generally used to mean any public show of respect to someone to whom you feel indebted. In this sense, a reference within a creative work to someone who greatly influenced the artist would be a homage (for example, Johnathan Glazer’s music video for Blur’s The Universal payed homage to Stanley Kubrick’s film Clockwork Orange).

Satire is a technique in which a target is held up for merciless ridicule. Because satire often combines anger and humour it can be profoundly disturbing - because it is essentially ironic & sarcastic - it is often misunderstood.

Although satire is usually witty, and often very funny, the primary purpose of satire is not primarily humour but criticism of an individual or a group in a witty manner.

Satire