Parody

(I wrote this some time ago, but it didn't get posted for some reason)

Since the text for class mentions parody—I happened to see two hilarious commercial parodies on television quite some time ago (like the 1980's). One was an advertisement for RAID, the bug spray, but it was clearly based on the black and white Calvin Klein Obsession ads that were also on the television at the time. There were obvious differences in that the animated insects RAID usually employed were there and the commercial was in color (so there was no confusion as to the product being sold—a can of insect killer, not musky perfume). However, the cartoon insects were lounging around, leaning on classical columns and things like that, spouting fragments of speech like the attractive people in the perfume commercials.

The second commercial was a Burger King ad that was based on the De Beers diamond ads—the people (I remember there being a man and woman) were in grayscale silhouettes, but the Whopper was in color. The “diamond music (“Palladio” by Karl Jenkins) played in the background. Instead of the diamond, the man handed the woman the Whopper. Again, I don’t think many would have confused the product being sold.
Despite both of these commercials being brilliant parodies, in my opinion, they only aired once or twice. I’m sure there was a curt cease and desist letter sent in each instance, and I’m not sure “fair use” applies to commercial works (commercial speech isn’t as free as regular speech).

When I did research on Stella Gibbon’s novel Cold Comfort Farm, I discovered it was a parody of the “rural” novels that were popular in England during the first couple of decades of the 20th century. I actually have two novels by Mary Webb, who was one of the major authors of this literary genre, but I would not have associated them with Cold Comfort Farm (and I was introduced to that book through an ad—how could I resist a book described as “Jane Austen meets the Beverly Hillbillies”? ). However, Cold Comfort was such a great parody that it apparently put an end to the genre it was making fun of. Speaking of Austen and parody, I read Northanger Abbey long before I was able to find a copy of Ann Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho (which was not quoted in the recent BBC adaptation of Northanger Abbey—Matthew Lewis’s The Monk was. Geesh. It isn’t as if Mysteries lacks bits as titillating as The Monk). The same goes for Thomas Love Peacock’s parody of the 18th century gothic novels, Nightmare Abbey (I probably read that before Northanger Abbey). Finding the original novels being parodied was a bit tough 20 some years ago. I eventually did.

I like a good parody.