Postmodern Pastiche: Following the Path of Productive Parody on Sesame Street
Critics of postmodernism may dismiss the theory as an overarching discourse serving
as a showcase in the demise of high art, the inability to achieve truth, the death of the grand
narrative, or the emptiness of parody. While I do not wish to engage in a discussion regarding
the facets of postmodern theory itself, I will focus on addressing the issue of pastiche and
parody specifically, as well as their context. This article seeks to explore parody that serves a
purpose, which I refer to as productive parody, and in order to accomplish this I chose Sesame
Street as the primary basis for my analysis. While Sesame Street functions overall as
postmodern pastiche, there are certain segments of the show that serve implicitly as parody.
Firstly, I will provide an overview of postmodern pastiche and how Sesame Street fits into that
description, and secondly I will analyze specific segments of the show, both vintage and
contemporary episodes, in order to illustrate how they function as a form of productive parody.
Additionally, by analyzing contextual shifts within the educational platform of a televisual
pastiche, we may be better able to assess exactly how productive parody functions, as well as
its implications.
Pastiche and Parody
There are multiple ways that we can define parody and pastiche; therefore, I would like
to begin by exploring the tension between the definitions that have been established by
postmodern scholars thus far. Fredric Jameson has referred to pastiche, in the postmodern
age, as an empty and meaningless replacement to parody without the presence of a “healthy
linguistic normality” (17). Thus, parody no longer exists in postmodern culture precisely
because we are unable to create new meaning, as language and subject have become both
fragmented and schizoid (Powell 39). Since Jameson argues that we must have linguistic
normality (i.e., modern language) in order to create parody, he provides us with a gloomy
prospectus of our inability to derive new meaning from established works (at least in parodic
form), while simultaneously indicating we no longer have a formal and healthy language
structure.
Linda Hutcheon, on the other hand, provides us with a distinctly different perspective of
postmodern pastiche and parody. She refers to “postmodern parody” specifically, generally
objecting to the notion that parody and pastiche are one in the same or that parody has been
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