OUGD501 - Study task 02 - Parody and Pastiche

Having read each of the extracts in the session (Linda Hutcheon - The politics of postmodernism: Parody and history and Frederic Jameson - Postmodernism: Or the cultural logic of late capitalism) For this study task I had to answer questions through a 300 word summary of parody and pastiche according to Jameson and Hutcheon.


In both texts parody and pastiche are defined by both Hutcheon and Jameson in two very contrasting ways. Jameson who is a literary critic and a marxist political theorist, who is best known for his analysis of contemporary cultural trends but also has voiced views on postmodernism. These views include that he believes postmodernity is characterised by pastiche and that pastiche has replaced parody in the postmodern age 'Parody finds itself without a vocation, it has lived and that new thing pastiche slowly comes to take its place' 'Pastiche is thus blank parody, a statue with blind eyeballs'. Jameson strongly puts forward his views on parody and pastiche in his text but on the other hand, Hutcheon talks about how parody in a way is postmodernism, that postmodernist artists are creating a parody of modernism. Hutcheon who is a academic working in the fields of literary theory, criticism and opera, she believes that 'Postmodern parody resembles modernist parody' this contrasts with Jameson who considers such postmodernism as a symptom of the age. Hutcheon states in her text that 'Jameson condemns all Hollywood films as contributing to the problems of late capitalism'. Hutcheon criticises Jameson because she believes you need both parody and pastiche in order to move forward and create something new, and today new innovative work is created which is influenced by work from the past.

These theories relate to design such as the 'Keep calm and carry on' slogan, the endless parodying of the wartime slogan become tedious and tacky but it was first resold in 2001 as a poster but it soon caught on as it appeared on mugs, t-shirts and all other manner of items, and the parody went one step too far when the once motivational wartime quote was humorously reworded into a thousand different variants. 'Keep calm and drink wine' 'Keep calm and go shopping' these are just two examples of a thousand other pointless quotes that degraded the once inspirational and iconic poster.

The example above shows parody and pastiche working as a commentary of a consumer culture. It shows four instantly recognisable logos but manipulates them to communicate a message, the message being, that we live in a consumerist cycle of working to consume.