Lecture: Conveying parody in multimodal discourse: a case study of several parodies of an apology video by Coleen Ballinger

This paper investigates different aspects of parody as a genre performed in a multimodal setting on the basis of selected videos created in response to an apology video by Coleen Ballinger entitled hi. (among them those made by Jackfilms, MeatCanyon, Abe Timm and oeod animation). Berger (2016: 123) defines parody as deployment of conscious intertextuality with a source (be it a text, a style of an author or a particular genre) in such a way so as to produce humorous effects. The aims of this paper are to determine which verbal and non-verbal elements are deployed to establish intertextuality and convey parody, which aspects of the source material are subjected to parody, as well as to compare all selected videos in order to discover relevant similarities and differences among them. As the author of the apology performs it whilst playing the ukulele throughout the entire video, music is a significant element in all parodies, but in different fashion. In one of the videos parody is achieved not by modifying the verbal or melodic aspects of the source material, but by offering animations of an imagined scenario of the author of the apology using the exact song in a courtroom. In others, the authors of parodies either play their own compositions on the ukulele, or the animated characters do. The explicitness of reference to the content is different – in some the author of the apology remains the same (e. g. in the animated parodies), in some direct quotations from the source text can be found or recognized as alluded to, while one of the parodies uses the fictional character of Joker from the Batman comics as the one apologizing while playing the ukulele, which is why connections to the source of the parody are not those of explicit content, but those of the manner and the act itseld, and quite possibly the conscious choice of selecting a villain as the person performing the apology.

Info

Day: 2023-10-26
Start time: 11:30
Duration: 00:25
Room: Hofburg Raum 2
Track: Applied Linguistics
Language: en

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