OUGD501 - Studio Brief 01 - Study Task 02: Parody/Pastiche

Fredrick Jameson (pg.16-19) - An American literary critic and Marxist political theorist. He is best known for his analysis of contemporary cultural trends.

Marxist literary critic Frederick Jameson has a cynical view on postmodernism and, more importantly, parody and pastiche in Postmodernism; or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. He mainly suggests that postmodern culture is representing the end of a historical period, and that pastiche has replaced parody - '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'.

Linda Hutcheon (pg.179-186) - A Canadian academic working in the fields of literary theory and criticism, opera, and Canadian studies.

As opposed to Jameson, Hutcheon is defending the idea of parody and pastiche by stating that, despite parody being more of a mockery of the original work, new work created is refreshed with a different style, meaning and message. This is highlighted where she says '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.' 

Summary (300 Word Task)

Marxist literary critic Frederick Jameson has a cynical view on postmodernism and, more importantly, parody and pastiche in Postmodernism; or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. He mainly suggests that postmodern culture is representing the end of a historical period, and that pastiche has replaced parody - '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'. Jameson believes that pastiche is non-political, trivial and that modernism is capitalist; this is inferred by his point that we can no longer understand the past, except as a repository of genres, styles, and codes ready for commodification - 'the new spatial logic of the simulacrum can now be expected to have a momentous effect on what used to be historical time'.

Opposed to Jameson, however, Hutcheon defends the idea of parody and pastiche by stating that, despite parody being more of a mockery of the original work, new work created is refreshed with a different style, meaning and message. This is highlighted where she says '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.' Whilst Jameson condemns all Hollywood film as contributing to the problems of capitalism, Hutcheon believes that work should be valued in the following manner - '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'. Despite the two differing views in the sense of pastiche and parody having an effect on history and capitalism, Hutcheon and Jameson ultimately have the same view that modernism is capitalist.

Some examples of this argument against and for parody and pastiche can be highlighted by analysing some examples of modern-day contemporary design. Stranger & Stranger produce product designs that have very clearly been inspired by the design of the past. Their 'stranger' design, seen on the left' was clearly inspired by the Victorian graphic design; a poster from the Victoria era can be seen in comparison on the right. The letters in both are extremely similar in style, especially the 'S'. Furthermore, a layering effect has been used in both examples of work. Whilst this proves Jameson's point that history is de-contextualised through pastiche and parody, it is clearly evident that a new context is born through using past references. 

Another evident example of the re-contextualisation of work can be seen by Android phone company's logo. Their logo has been claimed to have been inspired by a character in the Atari video game Gauntlet: The Third Encounter, which was created in 1990 (18 years before Android). Irina Blok, the Android designer who thought up the logo, highlights what actually led to the logo appearing as it is:

'This logo is designed to be international symbol for Android, and it is open source, just like the platform itself. There are no cultural references to any other characters or cultural icons… The process was very simple – we talked to the founder of android and did a research on the whole android/robot theme. It was clear that the logo needed to relate to the name, and the first step was to create a huge mood board with all kinds of droids, robots that were inspired by the android operating system. Next step was to explore a variety of visual languages and directions – ranging from pixel based, realistic to cartoony. There were 2 designers working on this – but at the end my sketch was selected…it is ironic that the most basic symbol was chosen. In fact this was my first sketch that I created in 5 minutes, and after that we spent weeks ideating and sketching more. I think the simplicity of this mark really made a statement, this became an international symbol of android (just like airport signs: men, woman, android)…'

This highlights that not all new work has been inspired or re-contextualised from a previous historic work. My view is fairly relative to Jameson's in the fact that I think modern-day work should not exactly copy historic work, as it can take away the historic, contextual aspect that was so special about that work. However, I agree with Hutcheon strongly that if a piece of work is re-contextualised to give a new, effective purpose, it should be considered as a successful piece of design.

OUGD501 - Studio Brief 01 - Study Task 01: Triangulation Task

Laura Mulvey

◦ Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, written by Laura Mulvey, created the known term 'male gaze'.
◦ She criticises cinema for giving women an 'erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness', inferring that women are solely used in films as objects.
◦ Another point she makes is that 'a woman performs within the narrative; the gaze of the spectator and that of the male characters in the film are neatly combined', highlighting that women are received differently from the male characters and audience.

Richard Dyer

◦ Richard Dyer is an academic film critic. He challenges Mulvey’s views by stating that male stars are erotically objectified too.
◦ He argues that ‘male pin-ups’ are able ‘to be looking in ways which suggest they are not an erotic object’ - this insinuates that male stars are more capable of diverting an audience's attention.
◦ Dyer's argument has been written in the perspective of a homosexual male, which highlights that Mulvey's views can be challenged and aren't definitely right.

John Storey

◦ John Storey talks about Laura's views on cinema in Cultural Theory and Popular Culture.
◦ He immediately refers to Mulvey as 'from the perspective of feminist psychoanalysis', which highlights how her essay is from her point of view and not considered from an audience's perspective.

My Triangulation:

Laura Mulvey is a British film theorist and feminist. Her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema created the well-known term 'male gaze', which criticises cinema for portraying women from a male’s perspective. Mulvey highlights that women are given an 'erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness', inferring that women are solely used in films as objects. This is further backed by her point that 'a woman performs within the narrative; the gaze of the spectator and that of the male characters in the film are neatly combined'. Richard Dyer, an academic film critic, challenges Mulvey’s views by stating that male stars are erotically objectified too. However, he argues that ‘male pin-ups’ are able ‘to be looking in ways which suggest they are not an erotic object’, including ways such as ‘looking off as if disinterested in the viewer’. Whilst this brings to light the point that female stars are not the only gender to be objectified, Dyer is insinuating that the male stars are more capable of diverting an audience's attention.

John Storey talks about Laura's views on cinema in Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. He immediately refers to her essay as being 'from the perspective of feminist psychoanalysis', which highlights how her essay is from her point of view and not considered from an audience's perspective. This is important to remember; Richard Dyer's argument has been written in the perspective of a homosexual male, which highlights that Mulvey's views can be challenged and aren't definitely right. Overall, it is clear that there are contradicting views on the erotic perspectives on females and males in cinema. However, it is even more evident that stars in cinema, no matter what their gender, are frequently objectified.