In this assignment, you'll create a parody of some digital genre--for example, an eBay auction page, a personal Web site, a blog, a PowerPoint presentation--in the voice and style of a character who is not you.

As this fictitious author (or multiple authors) speaks through the words, images and design of this work, however, the fictitious author reveals more about him/herself than he/she realizes.

Basically, you'll use the page or site to reveal the facade of the character, and bring the reader to an understanding that undercuts or enlarges the meaning intended by the fictitious author(s).

Examples:

• The famous wedding dress guy from E-bay.
• Rob Wittig's parody of personal Web sites, Fall of the Site of Marsha.
• This "vanity" Web site, "Black People Love Us."
• The pseudo instructional series You Suck at Photoshop, housed at Big Fat University
• The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation
• The Chang Brothers' Kung-Fu Dojo (previous student project). See especially the "About Us" page.
  
  

In each of these pages/sites, the creators of the parody allow the "facade" to slip, revealing some truer face beneath.

Key Terms

• genre: a type of writing or communication, distinguished by its characteristic features, styles, audience, and use (collectively known as conventions). Examples: house renovation blogs, Amazon music page.
  
  
• conventions: the features and styles that compose a genre.
  
  
• parody: an imitation of a serious work for satirical or comic purposes
  
  
• target: in a satire or parody, the particular social or cultural phenomenon being revealed or criticized, especially pretenses, subtexts, or concealed agendas.
  
  
• façade: the literary effect of writing/designing in the "voice" of a character to make that character reveal more to the reader than he/she realizes. On a Web site, the facade is often created through "consistent inconsistencies."
  
  
• pretense, subtext, concealed agenda: in a satire or parody, the gap between the character as publicly presented and the who or what character actually is.
  
  
• (sub)culture: sets of social practices that constitute shared ways of seeing, acting, and being.
  
  
• satirical intention: the ridicule of a social phenomenon, practice, or type, ideally to criticize and reform some representative vice or weakness for the general benefit of human society.
  
  
• literary intention: the aesthetic presentation of character(s) and situation(s) to tell or suggest a story.
  
  
• story: a set of cause-and-effect conditions presented to move a reader/viewer emotionally and intellectually.
  
  
• "not men but manners": The eighteenth-century satirical novelist Henry Fielding said, "I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species."

 

Terms for Satirical Modes to Avoid or Transcend:

• travesty: the treatment of a noble and dignified subject in an inappropriately trivial manner. A crude form of burlesque.
  
  
• burlesque: comic imitation of a serious literary or artistic form that relies on an extravagant incongruity between a subject and its treatment. Generally, burlesque is broader and coarser than parody.

 

Criteria

1. that the project is of sufficient length and density to accomplish a substantially conceived parodic/satirical purpose
   
   
2. the extent to which the project visually and verbally parodies (imitates) a recognizable new-media genre and its conventions (the more specifically the genre is defined, the better). Background and context of this genre can be discussed in the commentary.
   
   
3. the degree to which the satire is "critical," rather than being merely a travesty or burlesque: that is, the parody is used to observe and comment on social and cultural issues or phenomena (e.g., matters of social or professional roles, status, money, gender, race, styles, generations, sub-cultures, identity, etc.)
   
   
4. the clarity and focus of the satirical critique: how consistently and diversely the pretenses and hidden agendas of the "target" are revealed.
   
   
5. how subtly the satire makes its point through implication, facade, subtext, "sliding," irony, etc., rather than through explicit statements or too-obvious self contradictions.
   
   
6. the accuracy and elaboration of the imitation of a character's voice, style (visually and verbally)
   
   
7. the degree that the character is a rounded character: both a recognizable social type--as in Fielding's "not men, but manners" technique--but also a convincingly imagined individual whose depiction avoids broad, flat stereotyping.
   
   
8. the degree to which the project demonstrates the author's technical grasp of the software, techniques, and work flows learned in class so far
   
   
9. how well thoughtfully the project is analyzed in a in a formal, well-written, grammatically correct commentary of at least 500 words (about 2 double-spaced pages), speaking to the criteria above.
   
   
10. how well the commentary explains the context of the project: for example, the genre being parodied, the conventions of that genre being imitated, the social or cultural phenomenon being satirized. (Explaining the context is important since I may not be as familiar with the world of your parody--three varieties of Swedish Death Metal music sites, for example--as you are.)
    
    
11. how well the commentary compares the project's purpose and method with at least two of the parody/satires we discussed in class, either in print or online (including those your classmates found and included in the online forums).
    
    
12. that the commentary thoughtfully employs--and elaborates its use of--the critical vocabulary of parody/satire listed above at least four times. The use of these terms should be productive and seem natural, rather than forced and mechanical. Please type these critical terms in bold.
    
    
13. whether all outside references in the commentary--including online ones--are cited correctly using MLA-style in-text citation format and bibliographic documentation at the end of the commentary.

FAQ

Q: Would the phenomenon of myspace or facebook count as a genre? 

A: Yes, Myspace or Facebook is a good place to start.  The more specific the type of Myspace profile, the clearer what your target and intention are.  Are there recognizable types of profiles that could be an object of parody and satire?

Q: Could I do a myspace profile of a cartoon character or of someone like Paris Hilton?  Would that work?

A: Paris Hilton seems ripe (maybe too ripe?) for satirizing.  What about Paris Hilton do you think needs to be criticized?  Her personally or the people who like her (her appeal, what the idea of her does for them in their lives)?  You could do somebody's "Paris Hilton Tribute Site" or a Myspace profile of a big Paris Hilton fan. There, the facade concerns what's really going on with this fan.

The cartoon character idea raises some interesting challenges.  Can you see through the "facade" of a character who's already comic?   Can we, for example, see through Homer Simpson any more than The Simpsons already lets us see through him?  Often, cartoon characters don't have inner lives, which means they are, well, like cartoon characters (that is, one dimensional), and harder to make into facades where we're seeing through the surface.