OUGD501 Studio Task 02 - Parody & Pastiche

We started the second seminar of the COP module by being given two different pieces of text one written by Frederick Jameson and the other written by Linda Hutcheon. Both of the pieces of text are written around the concept of the comparison of parody and pastiche with both of the authors standing with different beliefs around the subject. This seminar will provide a very important part of my analytical research skills as it will improve my understanding of the comparison of two different pieces of texts that are based on the same topic but stand with different beliefs on the topic and therefore allowing me to piece together a deep understanding of  a subject. In the seminar we then read through the texts and outlined the parts of the texts that were related to our topic of parody and pastiche.

 In her book The Politics of Postmodernism:Parody and History Hutcheon(1989) she states that "What I mean by 'parody' here is not the ridiculing imitation of the standard theories and definitions that are rooted in eighteenth century theories of wit. The collective weight of parodic practice suggests a redefinition of parody as repetition with critical distance that allows ironic singling of difference at the very heart of similarity." In which she describes parody as the act of not just mimicking a certain era of which is being brought to intention in a ridiculing and derogatory way, but rather it consists of bringing said era's to light to elude to its faults and ironically point out its drawbacks, rather than ridiculing the era, attention is brought to the standpoints and ironic tendencies. 

Contrastingly to the last definition In his book Postmodernism Jameson(1991) he states that "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 and of any conviction that alongside alongside the abnormal tongue you have momentarily borrowed, some healthy linguistic normality still exits"in which he eludes to the fact that rather than eluding to a previous era with the end goal of outlining its faults and set backs instead pastiche relates to the practice of mimicking something that came before it, non in a ridiculing sense but actually to draw attention to the era and its attributes in a positive way.