Wednesday, December 2, 2009

10 Things I Hate About You Parody

While reading Sturken and Cartwright's discussion of parodies in chapter 8, I immediately thought of Not Another Teen Movie, a 2001 parody on the Teen/High school movie phenomenon that was very popular in the early 90s. The film is a perfect example of postmodernism, as Sturken and Cartwright point out that "postmodernism has been characterized by a kind of fatigue with the new and the sense that everything has been done before." (p. 328)  This pastiche, or the artistic work that imitates, remakes, and parodies films such as Bring It On, American Beauty, She's All That, 10 Things I Hate About You, and countless others. 

The particular scene that I have chosen is a parody of the film 10 Things I Hate About You, starring Heath Ledger and Julia Styles. Heath Leadger's character, Patrick, is trying to win the heart of tough-girl, Kim, by publicly serenading her in the middle of her soccer practice. In this film it comes across as cute because the song is "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You." In Not Another Teen Movie, the scene is remade and the context is somewhat similar, Jake is trying to woo Janey. However, to add a comical element to Jake's act, he sings, "Janie's Got a Gun" which is not so cute because it causes everyone around her to freak out in fear that she has a gun. Unfortunately, she gets tackled by security and tazered. Not so much of a cute serenade after all.

 

5 comments:

  1. If this were made today she totally would've yelled "don't taze me bro"

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  2. haha and MGG would've been the one singing

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  3. i love the two. so entertaining:)

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  4. Ten Things I Hate About You was one of my all time favorite movies and when it got made into the spoof I was really disappointed. I know that it's a compliment and what not, but I just fell in love with the original and I get mad when movies that I love and turned into jokes..

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  5. I think, at this point, these spoof movies are getting so old. Maybe in post postmodernism, there can be a spoof of the spoof...

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