Quote:
Originally Posted by ZephyrusX  I think, Mariana, you were taking more of a cultural studies perspective? Cultural studies isn't really one of my strong points. I do remember a class discussion asking whether parodying racist stereotypes serves to reinforce or deconstruct those stereotypes. We were watching some Weird Al video where the black men were portrayed as stereotypical gangsters that wanted to threaten Al. 
It was meant to be funny, but yah... it is still reinforcing a stereotype. I'm not sure what to think about it, to be honest. |
Perhaps I was taking such a perspective, but I wouldn't really know
, because I'm not familiar with the disciplines. I think as far as parody goes, it depends on the context and audience whether it serves to do those things--which I suppose is me saying it doesn't inherently do either. The question I'd ask about the Weird Al video would be: is it parodying the stereotypes or using the stereotypes to parody something else? Though, come to think of it, I honestly don't think I've ever seen racial or sexual
stereotypes successfully parodied. I have seen them, in my opinion, successfully
subverted where the scene is set up to make the audience make assumptions about a character based on race or sex, and the things that go along with it (like stereotypical clothing) and then proves the audience completely wrong, forcing them for a second to think about and recognize those assumptions. I've seen it done for humorous and dramatic effect.