Towards the Parody Machine. Qualitative Analysis and Cognitive Processes in the Parody of a Politician

Abstract

The paper presents a model of parody, viewed as a distorted imitation of a text, dis-course, behavior or trait of a person performed in order to elicit laughter. Focusing on the parody of politicians as a way to discredit them for persuasive purposes, a qualita-tive analysis is presented of the parody of a Mayor of Rome by an Italian comedian. The role of allusion in parody, and its consequent dependency on culturally shared knowledge are highlighted, and the function of ridicule as a form of moralistic aggres-sion is stressed. Finally a first flash of a procedure for the construction of a parody machine is provided, based on the cognitive process of parody in humans

“The Bitter Laughter”. When Parody Is a Moral and Affective Priming in Political Persuasion

“…Yet, there are two ways to distort the imitation, differing for the extent to which the Parodist’s traits or behaviors are far from the Target’s actual ones. These two different levels of distortion result in two different types of parody, that as distinguished in previous works ( Poggi and D’Errico, 2013 ) we call “surface” and “deep” parody.…”

“…To Hulstijn and Nijholt (1996) , verbal parody is a situated, intentional, conventional speech act that re-presents some object but flaunts the re-presentation to convey humorous criticism; after Poggi and D’Errico (2013) , like ridiculization, it is a form of “moralistic aggression” ( Bischof, 1980 ).…”

“…A communicative behavior frequently exploited in the political arena by political opponents – whether politicians themselves, or political critics (journalists, satiric writers, comedians) – is one of casting discredit over each other. According to a socio-cognitive model of mind, emotions, social interaction, and communication based on the notions of goal and belief ( Castelfranchi, 1995 ; Miceli and Castelfranchi, 2000 ; Poggi, 2007 ; Poggi et al, 2011 , 2012 ; Poggi and D’Errico, 2013 ), to cast discredit over some X means to spoil the image of X before some people ( D’Errico et al, 2012 ; D’Errico and Poggi, 2013 ). X’s image is the set of evaluative and non-evaluative beliefs that people have concerning X ( Miceli and Castelfranchi, 2000 ).…”

“…In the parody of a person, the Parodist P imitates a Target T by reproducing his/her traits and/or communicative or non-communicative behaviors, but in a distorted, for example an exaggerated or misleading way, that highlights the Target’s flaws; to do so the parodist must single out the most characterizing features of T’s physical traits or behaviors, and imitate them while exaggerating or anyway changing them in such a way as to make them appear ridicule ( Poggi and D’Errico, 2013 ).…”

“…A parody is defined as a communicative behavior (a discourse, text, body movement, song) that imitates a communicative behavior or trait displayed by some Target by reproducing it in a distorted way, with the aim of making fun of the Target. Based on a socio-cognitive approach, a distinction is made between “surface” and “deep” parody ( Poggi and D’Errico, 2013 ), with the former simply imitating behaviors actually displayed by the Target, and the latter implying a (humorous) re-categorization of the Target. The paper studies the effect of these two different types of parody on persuasion processes.…”