lar / Articles / Volume 13 (2016) / Intertextuality and Authorized Transgression in Online Consumer Review Parodies
Parody is a visible contemporary phenomenon associated with many types of digital media. While several discourse analysis studies have discussed multimodal parodies of YouTube videos, this article shifts the focus of the analysis to parodies of a primarily text-based genre of digital communication: user-generated consumer reviews on the e-commerce site Amazon. . Examining 100 texts written about five popularly parodied products, I show how online review parodies are embedded in complex, layered intertextual chains that include other parody reviews and genuine reviews, as well as other related text found on the same site. I also suggest that by engaging in parodic discursive practices, including intertextuality, narrativity, and duplicity of voices, parody critics engage in authorized transgression and create a sense of environmental affiliation.
While parody is an old form, it has also quickly become a contemporary phenomenon associated with many types of digital media. The Internet has been described as a space full of playful possibilities, where the playful is combined with "a particular focus on the manipulation of linguistic material for aesthetic and intellectual pleasure" (Deumert, 2014, p. 26).Goreaccounts,TEDconversations, andYouTubeVideos are just a few forms of digital media that have become vehicles for contemporary user-generated parodies, which are often both comedic and critical. Online environments provide users with virtual spaces in which to indulge in carnivalesque behavior, while playing with the constraints of various genres of discourse and creating parodies that are recognizable by others, resulting in types of sociability that are uniquely of social networks, or which are sometimes described as "environmental affiliation" (Zappavigna, 2011) or "user-friendliness" (Varis & Blommaert, 2014). Although discourse analysis studies that focus exclusively on online parodies are quite rare, some research has addressed the parodic dimensions of online parodies.YouTubevideos (for example, Androutsopoulous, 2013; Chun & Walters, 2011; Leppänen & Häkkinen, 2012; Rymes, 2012). These studies have shown how, through processes such as entextualization and resemiotization, parodic texts found in online environments convey multiple layers of meaning. Intertextual references are often at the center of such processes.
In this article, I present a parody analysis of a primarily text-based genre of digital communication: user-generated online consumer reviews on e-commerce website.amazonas. Like other forms of parody, these texts can be considered heteroglossic (Bakhtin, 1981) to the extent that their authors appropriate recognizable conventions of the critical genre, at the same time that they adopt the voices of “imaginary others” in their creation. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how online review parodies are embedded in complex and layered intertextual chains that include other parodies and bona fide reviews.1revision practices, as well as other related texts found on the same site.
While critical parodies can be identified by virtue of the exaggerated, playful, and often carnivalesque (Bahktin, 1984) images they project, their reception as parodies is ultimately “in the eye of the beholder” (Hutcheon, 2000). , p xvi). Consequently, they are perhaps best understood as intersubjective co-constructions that take place between the writer and the reader. Online consumer review parodies represent a specific type of vernacular literacy practice (Barton & Lee, 2013), with its own processes of production, distribution, and consumption. Participation in writing and reading parodies of reviews online can be seen as a form of coexistence, or a "level of social structuring of participation in flexible, temporary and elastic collectives" (Varis & Blommaert, 2014, p. 1) that it emerges within - and as a result of the possibilities of digital media. As Drasovean and Tagg (2015) explain, concepts such as “coexistence” and “environmental affiliation” provide useful alternatives to “virtual communities” to describe the more fleeting types of connections between individuals that occur in some online environments.
parody defined
Existing theorizations on parody tend to focus exclusively on aesthetic texts. Some theorists trace the existence of parody to ancient and medieval poetry and literature (eg, Denith, 2000; Rose, 1993), while others focus on parodies of more recent forms of literary and cultural production ( eg, Hutcheon, 2000). However, digital communication and associated forms of vernacular literacy invite parody of emerging genres appearing in new media. This requires a shift from conceptualizing textual parody as a form of artistic production, to a broader consideration of how parody occurs in users' everyday digital practices.
In parody, a specific genre becomes the object of representation. Some theorists emphasize the humorous dimensions of this mimesis (Rose, 1993), while others emphasize the social or cultural criticism associated with parody, which tends to be more implicitly expressed (Denith, 2000). Parody is often polyvalent: “[P]odia can obviously be a wide range of things. It can be a serious critique, not necessarily of the coded text; it can be a fun and cool tease in codable ways. Their intent ranges from respectful admiration to scathing ridicule” (Hutcheon, 2000, pp. 15-16). Theorist Linda Hutcheon (2000) defines parody as “a form of repetition with ironic critical distance, marking difference rather than similarity” (p. xii); however, she also points out a central paradox of parody, which is that even when the parody seems transgressive, “its transgression is always authorized. By imitating, even with a critical difference, [parody] always reinforces” (p. 26). This paradox is due to the double voice of parody (Bakhtin, 1981), which can be understood as the projection of two positions at the same time, resulting in a clash of ideological positions (Allen, 2011). Hutcheon explains this duality in terms of opposing forces that are both conservative and revolutionary.
Drawing on notions of intertextuality developed in the work of Bakhtin, Kristeva, and Genette, Hutcheon (2000) further notes that, while parody is clearly a formal phenomenon ("a bitextual synthesis or dialogic relationship between texts," p. xiii), its reception as such depends on the interpretive work carried out by its receivers: "[A]l reader or spectator or listener who decodes parodic structures, we also act as decoders of the codified intention" (23). Parody recognition depends on the receiving audience making inferences from the given text, but parodic texts also provide clues that help guide these interpretations. Some of these signs include irony, hyperbole, ambivalence or ambiguity of meanings, as well as the presence of carnival images. The carnivalesque, another relevant concept of Bakhtin (1984), refers to playful practices that subvert social norms, and that often include grotesque, vulgar or taboo themes or language.
Intertextuality in parodies of commercial texts
All parodies are necessarily intertextual. To be parodies, they must be based on recognizable characteristics of the genre they are imitating. However, to distinguish themselves from what they are imitating, parodies often rely on exaggeration and distortion. As Jameson (1984) has noted, parody “harnesses the uniqueness of .
Drawing on the work of Bakhtin and Kristeva, Fairclough's definition of intertextuality highlights the “ways in which texts […]. 269). This simultaneously historical and prospective conceptualization of how texts relate to one another is especially relevant to online discussions of texts (such as reviews published onamazonas, bona fide, and parodic), which occur at specific times and are often displayed in ways that suggest a linear relationship, but whose temporal relationship to one another may be more complicated than appears at first glance. In other words, the default display of the texts inamazonasOnline review space is determined by an algorithmic calculation that weighs several factors, including recency and the number of helpful votes. Despite all the texts that appear in the review space inamazonasbear a timestamp, the temporal relationship between texts is not always direct. When it comes to parody texts, it is often difficult, if not impossible, to determine who answers to whom, or when and where a given trope arises, or the order in which it evolves. In short, while reliance on intertextual practices is evident in review parodies (as will be shown later), the exact relationships between the texts remain elusive.
As a critical discourse analyst, Fairclough (1992) has focused on how processes of intertextuality are implicated in the "colonizing" invasion of advertising and marketing discourse into other domains, arguing that "commodification, the spread of consumerism, and the commodification they are having pervasive effects on discursive orders” (p. 280).Viewing user-generated consumer review parodies from this perspective provides an interesting reversal of this trend: review parodies exist within a discursive space clearly dedicated to commodification. and consumerism, but these texts seem to offer a contrary discourse to the millions of legitimate reviews that appear on the same site and that offer more serious reviews of a certain product.As Rymes (2012) has argued, “the commercialization of goods implies a communicative event in which an active consumer must enter into some type of interaction with those products” (214). Rymes explains that these interactions can be varied, depending on the extent to which they are unexamined and are “irrational”, or sharply critical, or even “ironic, playful, mocking, subverted” (2012, p. 214). Parodies of commercial products are often critical and funny at the same time, and therefore can be ambivalent, or even polyvalent, in their meanings.
Parody in digital media
Discourse analytic studies addressing parodies found in online spaces have primarily focused onYouTubevideos For example, Androutsopoulos (2010, 2013) and Leppänen and colleagues (Leppänen & Häkkinen, 2012; Leppänen et al., 2014) analyzed user-generated videos that were appropriated from popular culture sources, such as music videos or movie clips . . . . By imitating mass media sources, theseYouTubethe videos generate humor from “misinterpreted” lyrics, which exploit the near homophony between the language presented in the original video and the language of the target audience. These studies showed how, through processes such as entextualization and resemiotization, multimodal parodic texts found in online environments can convey multiple layers of meaning, generating humorous and critical interpretations.
Other scholars of social media have addressed parodies that are more political in nature. For example, Georgakopoulou (2014) analyzed various re-semioticizations of a media spectacle in which a politician sprayed and physically assaulted two female politicians on Greek television. Him analyzing various "fake/parody videos and remixes" based on this show and posted onYouTube, Georgakopoulou found that the more he creatively appropriated the original incident, the further it moved away from its original context, leading to the prominence of increasingly depoliticized meanings. Thus, Georgakopoulou's findings also speak to the ambivalence of meanings associated with parodies.
Digital parodies can be based not only on products and shows presented through the media, but can also be derived from original user-generated content posted online, as illustrated by Yamaguchi (2013). Yamaguchi analyzed the ways in which racialized and gender identities presented by an original studentYouTubeThe post ("Asians in the Library") was reworked by four other usersYouTubeparodies of the original video. Instead of criticizing the stereotypes portrayed in the original video, the parody videos simply reproduced the hegemonic discourses of the original text. This example offers yet another instance of the ambivalent meanings associated with parody and also points out more specifically how, in Hutcheon's words, a parodic text that appears to be transgressive on the surface can simultaneously reinforce or reify "authorized" discourse(s) (2000). ). , p. 26).
In his studio a bilingual comedianYouTubevideo, Chun and Walters (2011) address the issue of online parody in more theoretical terms. Echoing Hutcheon's work, they also argue that parody is bivocal, noting that parodists "enter a game framework (Goffman, 1974) to speak as if they own the words they utter, while at the same time making clear a primary framework in which it is understood that they do not, in fact, own those words, or at least do not want to take full responsibility for them" (p. 255). They also point out that the ambivalence resulting from this dual voice in the parody “is driven by a tension between ideological positions, at least a temporary ambiguity as to 'whose side the parodist is really on'” (p. 269), and that viewers “who are unaware of the tension because they lack necessary prior knowledge or disapprove of positions for ideological reasons are likely to lose their temper” (p. 268) in parodies.The observations of Chun and Walters usefully highlight the important role of prior knowledge as shared, and a shared perspective, to explain the changing receptions and reactions of audiences to parodic texts.
Discourse analytic studies that have addressed online parodies to some degree tend to focus primarily on multimodal data fromYouTubevideos In order to broaden the current understanding of parodies in digital media, in the present study I shift attention to parodies of a primarily text-based Internet phenomenon (i.e.,amazonascritics) and consider the characteristic discursive features of these parodies, focusing more specifically on some of the intertextual processes involved in their production.
Online Consumer Reviews
A relatively new digital phenomenon, online consumer review has a history in earlier genres such as word-of-mouth recommendations and expert reviews written and published by expert reviewers. However, as the growing body of research on online critic discourse has shown, this digital genre has become distinct due to the ways in which online critics claim particular identities (Mackiewicz, 2010a, b), in the typical forms of evaluation that they use. (Skalicky, 2013; Taboada, 2011; Tian, 2013), in the way they create and represent audience engagement (Vásquez, 2014, 2015a) and in their intertextual and narrative practices (Jurafsky et al., 2014 ; Vasquez, 2012, 2014, 2015b).
Because it is now possible to find consumer reviews online for almost any type of product or service, and because these reviews appear on many different sites, the verbatim realizations of the reviews can be quite variable. However, in previous work (Vásquez, 2014), I have identified several characteristics shared by 1,000 online reviews of various sites, includingamazonas. Among these features were various forms of intertextuality, varying degrees of narrativity, and the discursive constructions of context-relevant and specific reviewer identities. I briefly discuss each of them and their relevance to the present study.
Regarding intertextuality, my previous analysis found that reviewers often referred to what previous reviewers had written about the same product (for example,UE I agree with the comments... , Contrary to other reviews...).References like these indicate that many reviewers read what others have posted in the same review space before posting their own contributions. It is not uncommon to see reviewers contextualizing their own opinions in this way. This observation is relevant to the present discussion because, even if such references are not explicitly stated, the presence of product-specific tropes that occur repeatedly in parody reviews of a given product, often in the form of "variations on a theme" - suggests that similar intertextual processes may be at work.
Online consumer reviews are sometimes constructed as digital narratives of personal experiences. While some product reviews are very narrative and focus on the consumer's experience with the product, other reviews are non-narrative and consist only of evaluative and descriptive information about the product and its features. However, other reviews, and these are perhaps the most typical ofamazonascriticisms – include some first-person narrative “pieces” interwoven with a more evaluative and descriptive discourse (Vásquez, 2014). On the contrary, as the analysis below will show, review parodies are almost always very narrative. Even when presented as concise "short story" narratives (Georgakopoulou, 2007a,b), they include various first person pronouns and past tense verbs, and their primary focus is inevitably on the narrator's (imagined) experience or relationship. with the same. product, not product features.
Closely related to narratives of personal experience are the ways in which reviewers inscribe their social identities in their texts. Previous review research has shown that many review writers claim relevant identities depending on the situation to establish their credibility and provide review readers with some context for interpreting the claims made in a review. For example, occupational categories may be relevant when evaluating a particular product, as illustrated in the following review of a yoga mat atamazonas, where the author relates her professional activity as a yoga teacher with her position as a specialist in relation to the analyzed product:Teaching attracts many students with a wide variety of yoga mats. Over the years, I've tried them all...(in Vasquez, 2014). Similarly, review spoof authors provide various kinds of discursively constructed “personal” information. This realized self-revelation serves two functions in parody texts: it mimics a discourse convention that appears in legitimate texts.amazonascritical, and also functions as an anchor device for the unusual or improbable events that are presented in the narratives that follow.
Online Consumer Review Parodies
As online reviews established themselves as a computer-mediated communication (CMC) genre and continued to grow in number and influence, parodies of the genre appeared on the same sites alongside legitimate reviews. These texts present a challenge to computing professionals, especially those concerned with spotting review parodies and filtering them out of legitimate reviews (eg, Reyes & Rosso, 2011). Parodies, which often rely on irony and sarcasm, are notoriously difficult to detect by automated means because their embedded meanings often contradict their surface realizations. From this perspective, as a form of "system noise", they are subversive texts, given the main commercial objectives of a site likeamazonas.2Address the issue of the differences between parody and non-parodyamazonasreviews, a recent corpus-based analysis (Skalicky & Crossley, 2015) compared a sample of 375 parody reviews with a similar sample of legitimate reviews. Analysis of lexical, grammatical, and semantic features revealed that parodic texts were characterized by significantly higher frequencies of past tense words, as well as word specificity: both features are strongly associated with narrativity. The present study builds on these initial findings, offering a discourse-level analysis of the parodic texts and considering the intertextual relationships between them.
Another recent study, conducted by Ray (2016), took a corpus approach to examine parody reviews. Ray's analysis focused on the notion of "stylization" and the gender stereotypes found inamazonasReviews of a popularly parodied product: Bic Crystal for Her Pens. While scholars in other disciplines have begun to realize that “there is, in fact, a thriving and popular genre of Amazonian humor criticism” (Kozinets, 2016, p. 836), Ray's study represents a unique contribution, in the extent to which it goes beyond the humorous aspect of parody and recognizes its potential for social criticism. Specifically, Ray considered the ways parody critics “reframed patriarchal discourses” about a “sexist product” (2016, p. 42). In terms of what makes these texts identifiable as parodies, Ray noted that they typically mention “an implausible or impossible event,” “irrational explanations […or] expectations,” or expressions of “emotional states that seemed improbable” (2016, p. 63).
Although academic studies of consumer review parodies are still in their infancy, various forms of digital media, such as online newspapers, blogs, and content aggregation sites, have featured these parodies (sometimes referred to as "ironic," "parody" , "sarcastic"). ”). ”). ” or “funny” comments) since they began to appear onamazonas, in the mid-2000s (eg, Doward & Craig, 2012; Pogue, 2010). Based on existing corpora-based research on the language ofamazonasparody review (Ray, 2016; Skalicky & Crossley, 2015), I take a closer qualitative discourse analytic approach to identify similarities and variations in a sample of 100 parodies of five different products.
In order to compile a sample of the most popular, best-known, and most widely circulated reviews of frequently parodied products, I conducted aGooglelook for "amazonasparody reviews. This search yielded several entries of articles and blogs written by different authors, dedicated to the illustration and discussion of parodic reviews that appeared in theamazonasIn the last decade. I downloaded posts from the 10 articles and blogs that appear on the first page of results (listed in the Appendix); From there, I identified five frequently parodied products, meaning products that were featured in two or more articles or blogs. My reasoning was that products mentioned in multiple blogs or articles (especially those that appeared at the top of a search) would likely have a wider circulation than a product mentioned in a single blog or article. In addition, the five selected products are also featured on a dedicated "fake customer reviews" page on knowyourmeme.com, which establishes their status as memes and further supports the assumption that they are, in fact, known. well-known parodied products whoseamazonas"comments" have been circulating on various forms of social media (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/fake-customer-reviews/children).
The five selected products were:Mountain Three Wolf Moon Short Sleeve T-Shirt,Tuscan Whole Milk,Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer,BIC Cristal ballpoint pen for her, miAttachable Work Surface Tray for AutoExec Wheelmate Wheelmate. For each of these products, I downloaded the first 20 reviews automatically displayed byamazonasin the order of the site's default "Top" setting and created a data set of 100 parody reviews.3After downloading all 100 texts, I read each one and confirmed that it was a parody. My assessment was confirmed by the fact that many of the top-rated reviews for these products are followed by reader comments that drive the humorous nature of the texts, rather than their usefulness in guiding consumer decision-making, such as I analyze below.4
The frequency information provided in Table 1 illustrates how popular these parodied products are. The second column of Table 1 lists the total number of reviews for each of the five products. As a point of contrast, in my review of more than 200amazonas(Vásquez, 2014), the highest number of reviews associated with a single product was 262. Table 1 shows that the products that have become popular targets for parodies onamazonasit can have thousands of reviews, which is considerably more than common non-parodied products.
| products | Total number of reviews | Highest utility number Votes for a single review |
| AutoExec Handwheel Work Tray | 1.248 | 25.991 |
| Tuscan Whole Milk | 1.881 | 22.801 |
| BIC Cristal ballpoint pen for her | 2.202 | 41.192 |
| Moon of the Three Wolves T-shirt | 3.117 | 40.642 |
| Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer | 5.574 | 55.681 |
Table 1. Number of ratings and usefulness votes for five popularly parodied products
The third column of Table 1 shows the highest number of utility votes for the highest rating listed for each product. It's worth noting that while "helpful" votes for bona fide reviews generally have to do with readers' assessment of how helpful or informative a particular review is, helpful votes for bona fide reviews are more likely to be parody reviews.Noanalogous to "the review was helpful". Instead, in these cases, helpful votes function more as a sign of appreciation from readers. This phenomenon is similar to what has been discussed about the multiple meanings ofasfunction inFacebook, which go beyond simply liking the content of a post (for example, Fuchs, 2014; Lee, 2014; Varis & Blommaert, 2014). Such an interpretation is supported by typical user comments posted onamazonasin response to parody reviews, with content such as "Hilarious, brilliant review!" It's so fun. Thanks for the laugh. I'm posting this on FB!”, which are guided by the humorous nature of the texts, and not by their usefulness in guiding the consumer's decision-making process. Of course, there is no way to determine how many total people actually read any given review. Since it is unlikely that everyone who reads reviews would rate them as "helpful" (or not), the frequencies in column 3 of Table 1 give a very conservative estimate of the number of people who read at least one fake review for each review. product. – the actual number of readers is probably much higher. However, the frequency information in column 3 serves as a useful point of comparison: the largest number of public services vote for only oneamazonasreview in my previous research (Vásquez, 2014) was 316. I have included these numbers to give you an idea of how widely disseminated these specific texts are. As Varis and Blommaert point out, the social meanings communicated by online "responsive acceptance activities" (in this particular case, casting a "help" vote in response to a parody review) generally have a lot to do with the actual content. of what is being appreciated or voted for as they do with an individual that indicates their belonging to some group (often a loose collective), in other words, conveys a sense of "environmental affiliation" (Zappavigna, 2011, p. 801). with "as open-minded people" (Varis & Blommaert, 2014, p. 7).
Analysis of these reviews consisted of multiple readings of each subset of parodies, followed by annotation and coding of the discursive features that emerged as specific to each product. Space limitations prevent me from reviewing all five products, so I focus here on the three that have the clearest examples of specific tropes associated with them: the steering wheel work tray, Bic for Her Pens, and the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt. .
Whether or not a given text is identified as parodic depends on the subjective interpretation of the reader. However, as the examples below show, parody reviews share characteristics that serve as clues to the reader, including highly improbable or unlikely situations (Ray, 2016), exaggeration and hyperbole, transgressive humor, and carnivalesque imagery (many often related to vulgar or vulgar). taboo topics such as violence, sex and other bodily processes). In addition, parody authors also often perform acts of self-disclosure by building characters that somehow become relevant to the product under discussion. Furthermore, most parodies take the form of a simulated narrative of personal experience. This common device is found in parodies of all products. In fact, 95% of these parodies (95/100) appear as narratives of first-person experiences. Parody authors often assume the identity of a "confused consumer," creating short stories involving absurd or improbable events. These stories often revolve around topics such as not understanding a product's instructions or using the product for something other than intended. For example, the authors of the Banana Slicer parodies create humor in a performative manner by appearing confused about how to use the simple plastic kitchen utensil (e.g.,I once found that I had to peel a banana before using it, it works much better...). Authors writing about Tuscan Milk (one of the first targets of parody reviews)5carry out similar "complaints" about the lack of product instructions.
At the same time, however, you can also identify a more specific set of tropes or themes that are unique and specific to each product. As I will show below, once certain tropes are established, they are repeated and reworked by different users, in the form of "variations on a theme", often drawing on intertextual processes similar to those used in the creation of other Internet memes (Blommaert & Several, 2014).
Product Specific Tropes: AutoExec Flywheel Work Tray
The tendency of parody authors to create variations on a theme can be clearly seen in the parody reviews on the AutoExec flyer job tray. according to youramazonasdescription, the work tray isdesigned to clip to the steering wheel of a vehicle "for the mobile worker on the road who needs a tablet holder or a great place to write." Presumably the steering wheel work tray is to be used while the vehicle is stationary; however, this is not stated anywhere in youramazonasProduct description. Almost all of the parody writers on this product take advantage of this oversight and create humor by describing their specific uses of the steering rack while driving. In fact, 19 of the 20 parody reviews for this product include the expressionwhile drivingor related variants likewhile driving on the freeway,when changing lanes, owhile navigating the modern road. These examples represent a specific variation on the "using the product for some other than its intended use" trope, which also appears in parody reviews of other products.
One of the most prominent features of flyer job tray parody reviews is the carnivalesque, often in the form of black humor. In parodies of this particular product, the authors construct simulated narratives that present the narrators, while driving, engaged in clearly inappropriate and unsafe multitasking activities, such as reloading a gun, making cocktails, reading Braille, ironing clothes, playing the guitar, etc. . in. Sometimes these humorous scenarios become even more transgressive when, as a result of these activities, the narrators lose control and crash their vehicle, are stopped by the police, or run over and kill pedestrians. In a characteristically transgressive text, the author refers to the performance of multiple inappropriate activities while driving: consuming alcohol, sleeping and having sex. Example 1 shows an excerpt from this text.
Example 1
Wow this is great! I use it as a 'mini-bar' when friends and I go out bars. I can quickly prepare several shots of tequila for myself and my friends as we drive from one bar to another. We also found that if you place a pillow on top and turn on the cruise control, you can take a quick nap on the interstate. If you make a sharp left or right turn, the lanes of road noise will wake you up long before you get into trouble. Now I can take longer trips without getting tired! Also, I'm dating a midget now and it fits perfectly behind the wheel, allowing us to experience sex while driving... [Address tray, 9:10/26/2009]
Rather than project the identity of a confused consumer, in this case, the parody author represents an indifferent self by casually describing a series of illicit behaviors. He transitions between first person and second person pronominal reference, alternating between describing his own (imagined) actions and presenting possibilities of using the product to other consumers who may be reading the review. The criticisms implicit in the steering wheel work tray parodies are directed at the pervasive social phenomenon of multitasking, or maximizing time efficiency by engaging in two or more activities simultaneously, in this case, while driving a moving vehicle. More specifically, these parodies make fun of a product that could be construed as promoting such irresponsible and dangerous behavior.
Example 2, another parody review of this product, describes the dangerous activity of placing a baby on the steering wheel tray while driving.
Example 2
I have read some 4 and 5 star reviews from those who have successfully used this device to change a baby while driving. On that basis, I bought one. I put my baby in it and drove for over an hour. It hasn't changed. Even baby. I'm glad it worked for some people, but I'm going to return mine. (The steering wheel table.) [Address tray, 6: 11/22/2009]
In this highly heteroglossic example, the parody author plays into the product-specific trope, namely not understanding that the steering wheel tray is not meant to be used while driving, and the idea of being "confusing" (or not very smart). when it comes to issues of linguistic ambiguity. The author projects the identity of an irresponsible driver who placed a child on the steering wheel tray for an hour while he was driving. Furthermore, by making an intertextual reference to having read other reviews (characteristic of non-parodic reviews, as noted above), he exploits the lexical ambiguity associated with the word "change." Acting like he didn't understand that previous reviewers' references to "switching a baby" meant "switching the baby".honeycomb”, comically hints that he was waiting for the baby itself to “change”, in the sense of becoming a different baby. The author plays again with the linguistic ambiguity at the end of the text, referring to the possible anaphoric referents ofmi– and clarifies that he was referring to the steering wheel, not the baby.
While almost all authors of car parodies project driver identities that are highly irresponsible in one or more ways, a smaller group of authors construct even more specific narrative identities related to their (presumably imagined) occupational roles. For example, the author of Example 3 claims to be an airline pilot who uses the steering tray to hold a laptop in the cabin so he can play video games.world of warcraftduring work.
Example 3
My co-pilot and I use them during our "daily work" transcontinental flights from San Diego to Minneapolis. We had to modify them a bit to make them fit snugly on the instrument panels (we didn't know when we bought them that the planes we flew didn't have a steering wheel!), but in the end it worked. With our laptops firmly in place, we were able to focus our attention on what really mattered, raiding with our WoW clan... [Address Tray, 7:11/4/2009]
Similarly, in Example 4, the author claims to be a school bus driver who uses the product to check email and social media while driving.
Example 4
Believe it or not, I am typing this comment at the desk on my laptop's flyer! As a school bus driver, I was never able to check my email and update my Facebook account while at work. Now I'm online more than ever! I am recommending this product to the school board later this month. [Address tray, 11: 11/11/2009]
The way many of these authors begin their reviews, with an explicit claim to identity (for example,As a school bus driver...,Me and my co-pilot...) – is very similar to what happens in many non-parodic reviews (not justamazonas, but also on other sites), as writers claim situationally relevant identities to contextualize their evaluation of a particular product or service (Vásquez, 2014). By doing so, parody authors demonstrate their knowledge of online review conventions; it is also the construction of a fictitious identity that allows them to duplicate themselves throughout the text (for example, it seems highly unlikely that a professional bus driver or airline pilot would endanger the lives of passengers by engaging in such behavior , and even less likely to admit to having done so publicly).
In addition, the almost identical content and structural presentation of Examples 3 and 4, i.e., the mention of a specific occupational role (school bus driver, commercial pilot) followed by a description of participation in specific online activities while in the work, suggests that the authors of the parody are based on intertextual processes in the discursive structuring of their texts. In these cases, and in others, as will be discussed in the next section, it is possible that one (or more) parody reviews serve as a model for other parody reviews of the same product. When this happens, authors create a sense of environmental affiliation, not only showing that they recognize the fun in these texts, but also that they are skilled enough to produce a variant of the dominant trope associated with a given product.
Product Specific Tropes: BIC Cristal for Her Ball Pen
Some authors creatively recontextualizeamazonasproduct descriptions in their parody reviews. This is often the case with another popularly parodied product: the BIC Cristal for Her ballpoint pen.amazonasThe description for this item - a pack of various pastel pens filled with black ink - appears as five bullet points, two of which say "Elegant design, just for her!" and "Slim barrel to fit in a woman's hand." Several parody authors play around with these descriptors, writing reviews in which they intertextually refer to their own hands aslittle,delicate, weak, ofemale, as well as referring to other types of "for her" products (for example,not so fresh feeling,curvy and carefree,high flow days,with wings). Also included in this set of parodies are references to female body parts (for example, having atwisted uterus,my girly parts).
Similar to the parody examples in Steering Tray, the following examples from Bic for Her show how, once a norm is established, other authors pick it up and rework it by writing parodies of the same product. Most BIC for Her parody reviews The pen takes a first-person narrative perspective, usually phrased as a concise 2-3 sentence "short story". Humor is usually created through exaggeration and pushing stereotypes to absurd extremes. As Ray (2016) noted in his corpus-based study, many Bic for Her parodies invoke traditional gender roles and stereotypes, expressed as references to sewing, cooking, baking, knitting, shopping, and being a clerk/servant. Men's. as seen in examples 5 and 6.
Example 5
I would really like to buy a pack of these pens; but I probably need permission from my father or husband first. As I do with all my financial decisions. [Bic, 4: 28/11/2013]
Example 6
These pens don't shine bright enough. I would write more, but I need to go make my husband a sandwich. [Bic, 17: 4/12/2013]
Both examples are written from an implicit female perspective. The relational identities of both authors are created by their first-person references tomy husband, in combination with one or more gender stereotypes (eg, needing husband's permission to make a purchase, liking shiny objects). In other cases, parody authors claim a gender identity in even more explicit terms, as in Example 7.
Example 7
First of all, I am a man. I picked a pink one by mistake to write a quick note... Next thing I know I'm sitting down to pee. Be careful. [Bic, 12: 27/08/2012]
Here, the author assumes the persona of a man, who accidentally wears this "girly" pink product and consequently engages in behavior normally associated with women (i.e.,sit down to pee). This author follows his pithy narrative with a warning to others. The humor here, and in other parodies similar to it, is based on comically implying a causal relationship: using a "for her" product that results in noticeable changes in someone's behavior and/or biology.
What all the BIC for her parody Pen have in common their orientation towards gender politics, emphasizing the critical dimension of parody. Therefore, this particular set of parodies – most of the time, imagined ironic narratives, replete with gender stereotypes – can be seen as public responses to the efforts of marketing professionals aimed at “generifying” a gender-neutral product: in this case , a pen. Such an interpretation is confirmed by the commentary of other review texts that coexist with these parodies, in which the authors express their outrage in response to such marketing efforts even more explicitly, in comments such as: “A ten-pack of the same pen that is not marketed 'for her' costs about half the price. Stop buying that kind of crap!" and “Really Bic? Do you really make this pen? Do you want to insult all the women on the planet? Well you did. When parody reviews convey similar critiques of texts like these, they're usually communicated more tacitly.6However, in Example 8, the criticism of the company's marketing efforts is expressed in explicit terms, but this criticism is also clearly heteroglossic.
Example 8
I did not buy these. I don't understand why the ink is black? I write only in pink, I'm a girl, for God's sake. BIC, think before you market a product to women. so careless [Bic, 16: 4/12/2013]
In this case, the critic directs his criticism directly at the company:For God's sake, BIC, think before you market a product to women.However, instead of criticizing the company for marketing a pen to women in such an overtly gendered way, the article's author adopts another voice, in which she appears to be berating Bic for failing to deliver on its marketing promise. : ie the ink in the pen is black, when it should be pink: the product is not "girly" enough! This text manifests the ideological clash associated with double voice, as the parodist carries out the critique explicitly, while at the same time subverting the audience's expectations about what exactly the target of the critique is or should be.
Gender-specific tropes are less common in parodies of the other merchandise discussed here (with the exception of the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt, where the dominant perspective is male, as shown in the next section). On the contrary, in all the parodies of Bic for Her, explicit reference is made to the genre (for example,like a full-figured woman,for us ladies,I'm a girl,my little feminine hands) or implicitly, in relational terms (for example,my husband,my wife). Repeated reworkings of this feature set by different authors demonstrate their understanding of how parodies of this particular product work. In other words, by implanting a set of recognizable gender stereotypes in their own writing, the authors of the Bic for Her Pens parody demonstrate that they "get" the joke and/or that they understand why the marketing of a gender product to normally gender-neutral women is problematic. As other participants come together and post their own parodies, a shared perspective emerges, resulting in tropical constructions of environmental affiliation.
Product Specific Tropes: Three Wolf Moon Shirt
The Three Wolf Moon T-shirt, a garment that represents three wolf heads howling at the moon, is one of the best-known parody products on the market.amazonas. The first parody review of this product was reportedly posted by an American college student in 2008, who noted its "old-fashioned blue-collar appeal" (Appelbome, 2009). The product quickly became an Internet meme, appearing in various other forms of digital and mass media, as documented in hisWikipediapage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Wolf_Moon). The dominant trope that appears in youramazonasCriticisms of the parody are that the garment is transformative, or "life-changing", endowing the wearer (usually a man) with enhanced sex appeal and virility, as well as miraculous powers such as superhuman strength. In the example below, you can see references to the shirt's magical properties and making the wearer instantly attractive to women. Example 9 is an excerpt from the original fake review, which continues to appear as the top review for this product onamazonas.
Example 9
This item has wolves in it, which makes it inherently sweet and worth 5 stars in itself, but once I got a taste of it, that's when the magic happened. After making sure the shirt covered my waist well, I walked from my trailer to Wal-Mart in the shirt and was immediately accosted by women. […]
advantages: It adapts to my body, it has wolves, it attracts women
Contras:Only 3 wolves (could probably use a few more on the 'weapons'), can't see wolves when sitting with their arms crossed, wolves would have been better if they glowed in the dark. [Three Wolves, 1: 10/11/2008]
Although this original parody was published in 2008, the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt continues to be the subject of parody criticism to this day, with parody authors continuing to rely on the same set of allegories (transformation, superhuman powers, sex appeal, etc.) . ) in the construction of their texts.
author referencestrailerand to buy inwalmartin Example 9 marks another product-specific trope, related to the "blue-collar appeal" of the product. Just as the BIC Pen for Her parodies relied on gender stereotypes to produce humor, the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt parodies often invoke class stereotypes. In such cases, parodists exploit and reify class connotations for humorous effect, focusing on the bad taste of a class of people who would wear such clothing. This is achieved through the discursive construction of a lower-class person, in which the author, writing in a simulated first-person narrative style, refers to any number of elements that identify a person belonging to the lower classes. from the US This includes very specific references to types of employment (eg, factory work, cashier), businesses frequented (eg, Walmart, Sizzler, Waffle House), beverages consumed (eg ., Big Gulp, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, Boone's Wine Farm), driven vehicles (eg Camaro, truck) or owned property (eg velvet plaid, waterbeds, guns, lottery tickets).
The top-ranked reviews are often followed by user reviews; these are shown inamazonasin chronological order. In the case of Example 9, the original parody review is followed by more than 300 comments, the first of which reads: “When I first saw this review, I thought, 'Why would anyone want to write three long paragraphs about a White shirt? Wolf? ?!?” But then I read. I won't be melodramatic and say that my life has changed, but I think it has totally changed. I bought the shirt. Now I'm waiting for the magic in the mail. [04/20/2009]. Comments like these, which are also in the review space atamazonas, offer another type of textual response to a parodic critique. In fact, comments become part of the intertextual chains that occur in this particular ecology of texts (Heyd, 2016). Like the authors of other Three Wolf Moon parodies, the author of this comment makes intertextual reference to the transformation (my life was changed) mimagic. Furthermore, this comment clearly illustrates how parodies can be both transgressive and authoritarian. While the commenter aligns himself with the parody author in what is clearly a playful framework (i.e. repeats the same tropes), at the same time he reinforces the site's business goals by indicating that he actually bought the shirt. This example points to some of the complex intricacies of public participation in mediated commercial spaces.
Referencing another popularly parodied product
Finally, some parody reviewers create other types of layered intertextual relationships by mentioning a well-known parody product in the text that appears in the review space dedicated to a particular product.differentPopularly parodied product. An example of this can be seen in the text below, where the author of a parody review of the Camisa Três Luas Lobo makes only a vague mention of the shirt itself (i.e.,this shirt) and instead names another oft-parodied product,Tuscan Whole Milk.
Example 10
I accidentally spilled a glass of Toscano Whole Milk on the front of this shirt, and my soul was ripped from my body and thrown into heaven by a jealous God. [Three Wolves, 6: 04/05/2009]
In addition to building a first-person narrative of an unlikely event, the author creates an added sense of fun by textually linking in a single review slot two different products that have nothing to do with each other, as well as being popular parody targets. . . . Similarly, the author of a parody review of the Address Tray in Example 11 makes an intertextual reference to another frequently parodied product: the Banana Slicer.
Example 11
I am so glad this product arrived. I finally have a flat surface to use my Hutzler Banana Slicer on the go. [Address tray, 14: 04/19/2013]
In addition to relying on the main product-specific trope featured in the steering wheel tray parodies (i.e. using the tray to multitask while driving), Example 11 is fairly common as far as parodies go; it does not include exaggerations, hyperbole or carnival features. In fact, with its main focus (seemingly) on product review and description, this text actually reads more like a legitimateamazonasproduct review, compared to the other examples discussed here. The only clue to its parody status is the reference to another popularly parodied product.
Examples 10 and 11 show that their authors are aware that they are not only contributing to the continuous stream of parody reviews written about a specific product, but also participating in a broader Internet phenomenon. These examples provide some indication of the complexity of the relationships between users, practices, and resulting texts, and reveal that some online review parody authors are familiar not only with other parodies written about a specific product, but also with parodies written aboutotherproducts that have become popular targets of countless parodies onamazonas– and that probably circulated through other media.
While most discourse analytic research on online parodies has tended to focus onYouTubevideos, a wide range of other vernacular forms of parody can also be found online today. This study focused on a site that features textual parodies: the online review spaces embedded in the e-retailer's site.amazonas. Not all products available inamazonasbecoming the target of parodic criticism; however, when a particular product becomes a popular subject of parody, the resulting number of reviews can be staggering. As parody texts about a product are noticed, shared and circulated by other users, this leads to an increasing number of parodies posted by other users; Sometimes these activities result in parody reviews for a single product that number in the thousands, as well as "helpful" votes that number in the tens of thousands. Some products become such well-established targets that they continue to serve as productive sources of parody for years to come, reaching the status of memes.
By taking a discourse analytic approach, this study has expanded and extended existing research on the language of parody reviews. In line with Skalicky and Crossley's (2015) quantitative findings that parody reviews have more linguistic features associated with narrative (e.g., past tense verbs, concrete nouns) than legitimate reviews, my textual analysis further highlighted that the authors of parodies are based on narrative structures, regardless of the type of product under discussion. In addition, I showed how the authors ofamazonasparodic critiques engage in heteroglossic practices through which they discursively construct imagined identities and produce texts that draw on various forms of intertextuality. These practices allow review spoof authors to engage in a particular kind of sociability, taking place in an online space that is otherwise dedicated to commodification and consumption. Thus, in popularly parodied product review spaces, environmental affiliation emerges as a result of shared text construction practices, such as the reformulation of recognizable tropes and shared stances, such as the deployment of group humor.
Like Ray (2016), my analysis also revealed some of the more critical positions of parody writers. In addition, I showed how criticism is often carried out through a double voice. The double voice contributes to the ambivalence of meaning often characteristic of parodic texts, leaving readers wondering: to what extent does the author also reinforce what he seems to mock? As I've shown, parody texts posted on online review spaces can subvert or reinforce sellers' messages about a particular product. Due in large part to their semiotic indeterminacy, consumer review parodies can, in some cases, achieve both goals simultaneously. As public participation in these discursive practices increases, greater consumer visibility and awareness of a given product may be achieved, which in turn may be associated with unpredictable or undesirable economic outcomes. When viewed as a form of "authorized trespass", parody reviews can be understood as subversive and complicit in a site's primary business objectives such asamazonas. The fact that they remainamazonas- instead of being excluded - even if they clearly violateamazonasThe "Community Guidelines" (i.e. "The content you submit should be relevant and based on your own honest opinions and experiences") further confirms its status as "Authorized Infringement".
Parody reviews occur as part of a larger textual ecosystem (Heyd, 2016). Of course, parodies of reviews exist alongside legitimate reviews (on which they intertextually depend). In addition, they also appear alongside more explicit criticism of companies (as in the Bic for Her examples) and in user comments (as in the Three Wolf Moon example), which can respond and take on the tropes. set in a set of parodies. Online consumer review parodies represent playful digital practices that mark banal spaces dedicated to mass consumption. In this perspective,amazonascan be conceptualized as a 21st centurynow, a virtual marketplace where legitimate consumer practices take place, as well as a sphere where people can exchange views, express their political opinions, be entertained and affiliate with others who enjoy similar practices online.
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Throughout this article, I compare parody reviews with what I call "bona fide" or "legitimate" reviews. This is my way of distinguishing between parodic and non-parodic criticism.
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However, at the same time,amazonascompiled a blog post of his own website's "funniest" parody reviews (http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1001250201). This is another example of the dual nature of parody and of parody as "authorized" (Hutcheon, 2000, p. 26).
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All data was collected in January 2015; however, the review screen is dynamic. As new reviews are added, they may affect the display order of a given product as they interact with the site's algorithm. Therefore, the "Top" rankings at the time of data collection may or may not be the same as the "Top" rankings displayed today.
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Similarly, Ray found that almost all of the reviews in his Bic of Her were parodic: only 12 of the 671 reviews (less than 2%) were non-parodic.
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according to aNew York Timesarticle, early Tuscan Milk parodies, which appeared in the summer of 2006, offer “a high-concept commentary on a bookseller's corporate hype” (Zeller, 2006). These were probably some of the first parody reviews to be published inamazonas, and many of them seemed to address the absurdity of buying a perishable commodity like milk from an online retailer. When Tuscan Milk first appeared inamazonas, its cost was listed at $3.99; Today, the same gallon of milk is priced at $75.00. While the product itself is real, the $75 version may appear onamazonasis the result of some sort of mistake or prank, as this is the only one of the five parodied products discussed here for which we couldn't find "Verified Purchase" reviews. (In contrast, each of the other parodied projects has at least some "Verified Purchase" ratings: Bic for Her Pens = 26; Steering Tray = 67; Three Wolves = 328; Banana Slicer = 535.) because these five products are parodies,amazonasThe "Verified Purchase" badge indicates that at least some review writers actually purchased these products through the site. However, a review with a "Verified Purchase" does not necessarily indicate that it is not a parody review. Several of these products have become memes, and when purchased by some individuals, they can be used or displayed ironically.
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This product is no longer available for purchase atamazonas. Curious as to whether this was related to the public's critical response to the product inamazonas, I contacted Bic with my query, but have received no response as of yet.
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FAQs
Are parodies intertextuality? ›
Application Parody is defined and discussed as an example of explicit intertextuality. It is suggested that parody can involve ridiculing a style of authorship, a genre, or a specific text. In addition, other humorous techniques are often used in parodies. An exercise using parody is offered to readers.
What is the difference between intertextuality and Interdiscursivity? ›Intertextuality can be defined as a text-level phenomenon describing how a text refers to other, prior texts, whereas interdiscursivity is understood as a more abstract kind of borrowing of features of discourses or genres in text or talk (Bhatia, 2010: 35).
How do you find the intertextuality of a story? ›- Step 1: Read the passage to identify intertextual references. You need to have an extensive knowledge of different texts to identify references. ...
- Step 2: Find similar themes or messages from both texts. ...
- Step 3: Identify the purpose of the reference. ...
- Step 4: Discuss insights in a T.E.E.L structure.
A parody is a lampoon or imitation with intentional exaggeration of a specific target or subject for comedic effect. Parodies employ irony, humor, and satire to mock and or criticize their subjects. Over the years, famous works of literature and film have been widely parodied.
What does parody mean in intertextuality? ›parody, in literature, an imitation of the style and manner of a particular writer or school of writers. Parody is typically negative in intent: it calls attention to a writer's perceived weaknesses or a school's overused conventions and seeks to ridicule them.
What is the example of parody in intertextuality? ›A parody is a comical imitation of another work. It stops at mocking or making fun of one work. For example, Pride and Prejudice With Zombies is a parody of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.
What are the 4 types of intertextuality? ›The definition of intertextuality includes forms of parody, pastiche, retellings, homage, and allegory.
What are the 6 common examples of intertextuality? ›Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text, either through deliberate compositional strategies such as quotation, allusion, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche or parody, or by interconnections between similar or related works perceived by an audience or reader of the text.
What are the four specific methods of intertextuality? ›It's found that there are four techniques of intertextuality used, they are direct quotation, mentioning a person, document or statements technique, comment on or valuate a statement, text or otherwise invoked voice technique, then, using recognizable phrasing, terminology associated with specific people or group of ...
What is the great example of intertextuality? ›Ulysses is a great example of deliberate intertextuality in literature, where translation and change in form create a whole new piece of work, despite being directly derived from another known text. Joyce has structured his novel similarly to the original poem.
What is the main purpose of intertextuality? ›
LITERARY THEORY
In its simplest sense, intertextuality is a way of interpreting texts which focuses on the idea of texts' borrowing words and concepts from each other. Every writer, both before writing his text and during the writing process, is a reader of the texts written before his text.
Intertextual figures include: allusion, quotation, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche and parody.
What are the rules for parody? ›In the United States, parody is protected by the First Amendment as a form of expression. However, since parodies rely heavily on the original work, parodists rely on the fair use exception to combat claims of copyright infringement.
What is legally considered a parody? ›Parody has been interpreted by courts to mean “a humorous or satirical imitation of a serious piece of literature or writing” of which imitation is a central aspect. Whether the material is viewed as a parody will depend on the facts of the case.
What legally defines a parody? ›A parody is fair use of a copyrighted work when it is a humorous form of social commentary and literary criticism in which one work imitates another.
Is parody a type of intertextual relationship? ›Application Parody is defined and discussed as an example of explicit intertextuality. It is suggested that parody can involve ridiculing a style of authorship, a genre, or a specific text. In addition, other humorous techniques are often used in parodies. An exercise using parody is offered to readers.
What is the difference between pastiche and parody in intertextuality? ›Both forms of intertextuality rely on existing entities, but parody pokes fun while pastiche pays homage. Parody aims to make gentle fun of trends, people, and events. Pastiche creates work in the spirit of previous art, borrowing elements of a known genre or style that are recognizable to viewers and audiences.
What is the main idea of the parody? ›A parody is a humorous take on something, such as a book, movie or song. A parody takes the original work and turns it into another form of entertainment. It uses the original work as its basis and then adds new elements to make it new. Parodies are often used as commentary about some aspect of society or culture.
What is the difference between a spoof and a parody? ›While parody and spoof are often conflated, a spoof has its own characteristics. Unlike parodies that mock a specific work, spoofs mock an entire genre. Spoofs use humor to imitate a particular genre, such as horror films or romance novels.
Which of the following would not be an example of intertextuality? ›Which of the following would not be an example of intertextuality? A translation of one work into a different language.
What are the different types of intertextuality in films examples? ›
We also learned that, while there are many types of intertextuality, a few common examples include allusion, or direct reference to another work of art; pastiche, or deliberate imitation of the style of another artist or period of art; and parody, or the mimicking of another style for comedic purposes.
What is the best way to define intertextuality? ›noun. the interrelationship between texts, especially works of literature; the way that similar or related texts influence, reflect, or differ from each other: the intertextuality between two novels with the same setting.
What are the disadvantages of intertextuality? ›The disadvantage of an intertextual approach to literature is that it seems to require specialist knowledge on the part of the reader. It ignores the fact that a word or phrase can mean something to a reader, whether or not the reader knows if that word or phrase has already been used by a previous writer.
What should you avoid when you are going to use intertextuality *? ›Avoid Plagiarism
When using exact language from a source, always put that language in quotation marks. Similarly, when using language or ideas from a source, use attribution to give credit to the author of the text.
Media intertextuality, by definition, seeks and theorises links and connections between media texts and textualised social life while global media discourse analysis shows how the globalised political economy of late capitalism influences the content and format of a wide range of media products.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of intertext? ›For the intertext, the advantages are that it seems useful for expository writing, and it requires no specialist technical skills. The disadvantages are that it may be less effective than other methods, and it may require a broader knowledge of key terms.
What types of intertextuality are obligatory? ›Obligatory intertextuality is when the writer deliberately invokes a comparison or association between two (or more) texts. Without this pre- understanding or success to 'grasp the link', the reader's understanding of the text is regarded as inadequate.
What are the two conditions for qualifying fair use in case of parody? ›In the Blackwood Case[vii], the Court stated that in order to use the defence of fair use, a parodist has to satisfy two conditions: (i) he must not intend to compete with the copyright holder, and (ii) he must not make improper use of the original.
What are the 4 fair use exceptions to copyright? ›Fair use of copyrighted works, as stated in US copyright law, “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.”
What is the difference between a parody and satire? ›While a parody targets and mimics the original work to make a point, a satire uses the original work to criticize something else entirely. Another way to look at it is that satire uses another work as a way to comment on something happening in the world that has nothing to do with the original work.
How do you prove a parody? ›
“A parody must convey a simultaneous and contradictory message that it is the original, but also that it is not the original and is instead a parody; to the extent that an alleged parody conveys only the first message, it is not only a poor parody but also vulnerable under trademark law, since the customer will be ...
What are the legal considerations when using parodies in advertising? ›Since a parody generally pokes fun at someone's original work, it is unlikely that the owner of that work will grant permis- sion to use it in a parodied form. Consequently, a parodist uses the original work with some legal risk because the owner of that work may claim copy- right or trademark infringement.
Is parody an affirmative defense? ›Parody. A defendant can raise parody as an affirmative defense to a trademark infringement lawsuit in certain circumstances. The term “parody” is commonly associated with comedy or satire, but the unauthorized use of a trademark does not need to be laugh-out-loud funny for the parody defense to apply.
Can a parody be defamation? ›Parodies and satire are protected by the First Amendment (and are not defamatory). Parodies and satire are meant to humorously poke fun at someone or something, not report believable facts.
Does copyright apply to parodies? ›A parody will not infringe copyright if the parodist has secured the permission of the rightsholder. Note that the author or artist is not always the rightsholder – it may be a publishing company or a music label.
What is parody vs satire vs spoof? ›Satires and parodies are both derivative works that exaggerate their source material(s) in humorous ways. 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”).
What literary technique is parody a part of? ›Hyperbole is the literary version of exaggeration, and it forms the bedrock of virtually every parody. One could argue that without hyperbole, there could be no parody. Hyperbole takes all or a portion of the original text and reimagines it in extreme terms.
What are the common examples of intertextuality? ›Fan fiction is a great example of deliberate intertextuality. In fan fiction, authors enter the fictional worlds of other authors and create their own stories. For example, a Lord of the Rings fan fiction might tell the story of minor characters or add new characters to the world of Middle Earth.
What are the key concepts of intertextuality? ›Intertextuality refers to not only the artist or author's borrowing, transformation, rewriting or absorption of a preceding text or texts but also the reader's reference to a text or other texts which he read and knew already while he is reading the text in question.
What is the purpose of using intertextuality? ›Purpose of Intertextuality
Intertextuality can function as a way to give audiences clues about a work's themes, thesis, or plot. It can also be used to generate humor or to creatively reinterpret the source material.
Why do advertisers use intertextuality? ›
The use of intertextuality in advertising is a conscious strategy that keeps viewers busy in the interpretive activity and thus makes ad texts attractive and memorable. In an advertising text intertextuality has numerous possibilities for existence and complicating the textual fabric.