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April 25, 2007
Mashups and Gender, Part 2
Just wanted to mention that Karina followed up on my question about gender and parody trailers in a column on the NewTeeVee blog. Her read helped to clarify a couple of points I'm working through in my article on trailer mashups.
Karina identifies a couple of cases that tested my speculation that "fake trailers are more commonly identified with male producers." She first points to the very popular Scary Mary that reworks Mary Poppins as a horror film, but notes that the trailer reworks a "girl-friendly" text with a "masculine (and maybe even misogynist) gaze in mind." Her second example, Notes on a Queen creatively mixes Notes on a Scandal and The Queen based on the "rivalry" between Oscar contenders Helen Mirren and Judi Dench. But, as Karina notes, the use of the Rocky theme still evokes a predominantly male genre.
All of which leaves open the question of why online parody seems to be a largely male domain. Karina's observation about pop culture geared towards women seems like one reasonable hypothesis, although I would argue that Rocky IV through VI don't need to be subverted any more than Pretty Woman or the other chick flicks that Karina names (that being said, I still think Rocky parodies are lots of fun). I'm in paper writing mode for the rest of the day but would continue to welcome suggestions or observations (including examples that might test the limits of this observation).
Posted by chuck at April 25, 2007 11:48 AM
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