Study Task 3: Parody & Pastiche

Felluga on Jameson's Pastiche

• postmodern parody = 'blank parody' without any political bite
• parody has been replaced by pastiche in modern age
• "Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the wearing of a linguistic mask, speech in a dead language. But it is a neutral practice of such mimicry, without any of parody's ulterior motives, amputated of the satiric impulse, devoid of laughter."
• "the past as 'referent' finds itself gradually bracketed, and then effaced altogether, leaving us with nothing but texts"
• examples:
• postmodern archtiecture -"randomly and without principle but with gusto cannibalizes all the architectural styles of the past and combines them in overstimulating ensembles" 
• nostalgia films - we approach "the 'past' through stylistic connotation, conveying 'pastness' by the glossy qualities of the image, and '1930s-ness' or '1950s-ness' by the attributes of fashion" 
• postmodern historical novels - "This historical novel can no longer set out to represent the historical past; it can only 'represent' our ideas and stereotypes about that past (which thereby at once becomes 'pop history')" 

Felluga on Hutcheon's Parody

• one of the main features that distinguishes postmodernism from modernism is the fact the it "takes the form of self-conscious, self-contradictory, self-undermining statement"
• "Parody—often called ironic quotation, pastiche, appropriation, or intertextuality—is usually considered central to postmodernism, both by its detractors and its defenders"
• "through a double process of installing and ironizing, parody signals how present representations come from past ones and what ideological consequences derive from both continuity and difference"
• she values postmodernism's willingness to question all ideological positions, all claims to ultimate truth.
• Postmodern film does not deny that it is implicated in capitalist modes of production, because it knows it cannot. Instead it exploits its 'insider' position in order to begin a subversion from within, to talk to consumers in a capitalist society in a way that will get us where we live, so to speak"

*WHAT IS BEING DISCUSSED IN EACH TEXT?

*WHAT IS JAMESON'S DEFINITION OF PARODY AND PASTICHE? QUOTE?

*WHAT IS HUTCHEON'S DEFINITION OF PARODY AND PASTICHE AND HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO JAMESON'S DEFINITIONS? QUOTES?

*WHAT IS HUTCHEON'S CRITICISMS OF JAMESON?

WHAT ARE JAMESON'S AND HUTCHEON'S POSITION ON MODERNISM AND POSTMODERNISM?

Linda Hutcheon 'The Politics of Postmodernism: Parody and History

• postmodernism is a fundamentally cont

  radictory enterprise: its art forms (and its theory) use and abuse, install 

  and then subvert convention in parodic ways, self-consciously pointing 

  both to their own inherent paradoxes and provisionality and, of course, to 

  their critical or ironic re-reading of the art of the past (p 180)

critism of jameson -  

Postmodernist ironic recall of history is neither nostalgia nor aesthetic "cannibalization." Nor can it be reduced to the glibly decorative. '' It is true, however, that it does not offer what Jameson desires -"genuine historicity," that is, in his terms, "our social, historical and existential present and the past as 'referent' " as "ultimate objects,"'

But its deliberate refusal to do so is not a naive one: what postmodernism does is to contest the very

possibility of there ever being "ultimate objects." It teaches and enacts the recognition of the fact that social, historical, and existential "reality" is discursive reality when it is used as the referent of art, and so the only "genuine historicity" becomes that which would openly acknowledge its own discursive, contingent identity. The past as referent is not bracketed or effaced, as Jameson would like to believe: it is incorporated and modified, given new and different life and meaning. p 182

• *Rather than looking at parody as blatant copying or unoriginal almost mocking or disrespecting the "ultimate objects" as Jameson implies, she sees parody as a way to see through these objects and the past and create something that is elevated and modified from the past which in turn has a new meaning and life.

"But the looking to both the aesthetic and historical 

past in postmodernist architecture is anything but what Jameson de

scribes as pastiche, that is, "the random cannibalization of all the styles 

of the past, the play of random stylistic allusion."22 There is absolutely 

nothing random or "without principle" in the parodic recall and re-

examination of the past by architects like Charles Moore or Ricardo 

Bofill. To include irony and play is never necessarily to exclude serious

ness and purpose in postmodernist art. To misunderstand this is to 

misunderstand the nature of much contemporary aesthetic production

 even if it does make for neater theorizing." p 186

Frederic Jameson 'Postmodernism: Or the Cultural logic of late capitalism'

• 'Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the wearing of a linguistic mask, speech in a dead language." p 17
• Pastiche is merely a mimicry and emulation, whereas parody is almost mockery and disrepectful . 'neutral practice of mimicry' p 17
• 'faced with these ultimate objects- our social, historical, and existential present, and the past as 'referent' - the incompatibility of apostmodernist 'nostalgia' art language with genuine historicity becomes dramatically apparent.' p 19

Summarisation of Parody and Pastiche 

Hutcheon and Jameson have opposing view about parody and pastiche as one argues that it's degrading of the 'real past' of 'historicity' whilst one argue that it is through perhaps postmodernism, parody and pastiche that new things emerge and given new life and meaning. 

Hutcheon sees parody and pastiche as a way of recognising '

the fact that social, historical, and existential "reality" is discursive reality..' p 182. She sees parody and pastiche as a way to evaluate the past and for post modernist and postmodernism to 

create something that is elevated and modified from the past which in turn has a new meaning and life. In contrast Jameson sees parody as very satirical and almost disrespectful of the 'ultimate objects', whilst pastiche is more of a 'blank parody', 'the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the wearing of a linguistic mask, speech in a dead language'p 17. It is here that Hutcheon criticises Jameson's points as she points out that 'postmodernist ironic recall of history is 

neither nostalgia nor aesthetic "cannibalization"' p 182. It is deliberate to the fact that it aims to elevate the designs of the past in order to find something new and exciting. For example, pastiche work of Victorian print advertising, showcases and references the style and effect of the design whilst achieving an outcome that is appreciative of the design as opposed to mockery. However, on the other hand, like Jameson said, parody can also be seen as mockery, for example, a parody movie of the 2008 trilogy 'Twilight', 'Vampire Suck' 2010, shows deliberate bad acting and over the top lines, which jabs at the fact that the original movie acting was bad and hints at the fact that the overall plot of the movie was bad. In this way, we can understand that parody can be of mocking and satire.