Beyond a Joke: Parody in English Film and Television Comedy Hardcover – 30 Jul 2016
by Neil Archer (Author)
Beyond a Joke explores the myriad ways English film culture has used forms of parody, from the 1960s to the present day. It provides a contextual and textual analysis of a range of works that, while popular, have only rarely been the subject of serious academic attention from Morecambe and Wise to Shaun of the Dead to the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony. Combining the methodologies both of film history and film theory, Beyond a Joke locates parody within specific industrial and cultural moments, while also looking in detail at the aesthetics of parody as a mode. Ultimately, such works are shown to be a form of culturally specific film or televisual product for exporting to the global market, in which Englishness , shaped in self-mocking and ironic terms, becomes the selling point. Written in an accessible style and illustrated throughout with a diverse range of examples, Beyond a Joke is the first book to explore parody within a specifically English context and makes an invaluable contribution to the scholarship on both English and global film culture.
Product details
Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: I.B.Tauris (30 July 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1784536636
ISBN-13: 978-1784536633
Product Dimensions: 14 x 2.5 x 22.2 cm
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,169,948 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
About the Author
Neil Archer is lecturer in Film Studies at Keele University. He is the author of The French Road Movie: Space, Mobility, Identity (2013) and Studying The Bourne Ultimatum (2012), and editor of a work on adaptation in French film, theatre and literature (2011). He has just completed a book on the film Hot Fuzz (2015).