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 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.
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