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The communal constraints on parody: The symbolic death of Joe Bob Briggs

1987; Routledge; Volume: 73; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00335638709383819

1479-5779

Barry Alan Morris,

Language, Metaphor, and Cognition

The essay seeks an answer to the question: When does good humor become bad taste? For the structure of irony and parody to work there must develop a communal "in‐ness" that separates the sender and receiver of the message from others who are not in on the joke. The development of that communal sense can create a set of group norms, which in turn create "phantom constraints" of which the author of the parody may not be aware. The failure of Joe Bob Briggs's parody of "We Are the World" is presented as an example.