Film Parody

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Film Parody is the first major book on one of the most prolific and profitable – though under-discussed – modes of contemporary filmmaking. This book provides a lucid introduction to the films and a rigorous theoretical account of how parody itself operates on textual, pragmatic and sociocultural levels. Harries provocatively asserts that film parody is now so routinised by the major studios that it must be considered, in its own right, as a major mode of contemporary filmmaking.

Tracing a history of parodic cinema from early Laurel and Hardy spoofs to recent box-office hits such as Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, this book defines parody in relation to other related, though different, modes of discourse such as irony and pastiche. Drawing from this history, and close analyses of films including Blazing Saddles, Airplane!, Young Frankenstein, Hot Shots!, Naked Gun 33 1/3 and Zelig, Film Parody lays out the formal characteristics and examines the various strategies spectators bring to bear when watching parodies.