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Horrible Histories Xtra Reading - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Hutcheon: parody "authorises" the original'
        
        parody mocks & plays homage to at once
        
        MacDonald: 'most parodies are written out of admiration rather than contempt'
        
        Chatman disagrees ridicule is neccessary
      - '
        
        'Often the most telling clue in a parody is the imitation of subject matter, but subject matter so handled as to point to the preoccupations of the author of the original.'
      - Souter: 'parody's art lies in the tension between a known original and its parodic twin'
      - Genette: parody typically ridicules another text
        
        cites a known text in order to give it a new meaning (strict parody --> replacing words)
        
        travesty modifies style not subject (inverse of parody)
        
        pastiche - stylistic imitation without intention
        
        satiric pastiche - imitating style to fill w vulgar subjects
      - 'parody' as 'stylistic imitation for satiric effect, whether the satiric target is inappropriate content or style'
        
        Porat - 'the target of parody is the form' (indirectly satiricical)
        
        directly satirical = satirises the content by putting in a new form (e.g. mock epic)
        
        'clash between two styles'
      - parody relies 'on hidden subtexts'...'the reader must acknowledge what is implicit rather than explicit and must understand the rhetorical and literary norms which are being flouted by the parodying text'
      - 'not only substance and form can be parodied but also the original author's way of thinking'
        
        'parodies may target single texts of entire genres of texts, general textual conventions or the style of an author, or a period or literary movement'
      - 'as practically every theorist has argues, stylistic parody depends on an audience familiar...both kinds of knowledge are required'
  - - - parodied the figures
    - - 'Perhaps it would be most accurate to say that both aspects of the genre’s logic continue to operate—both its conservative remembering and tradition building and its progressive turning away from the past, toward a continually updated present. Thus genre parody continues to produce tradition, and tradition is susceptible to genre parody, in turn. In the world of Gilbert and Sullivan, arguments about fidelity to or transgression against the tradition have become a part of the tradition itself.'
    - - 'in our debates...we continue the tradition'
    - - 'In all these works, the reference to Gilbert and Sullivan is to a piece of iconic Victoriana, remembered in fragments in the present to assert the modernity of the book or film, whether by differentiating itself from or asserting its continuity with Gilbert and Sullivan. Thus fragmentary allusion goes beyond parody, revival, and updating of “the thing itself,” and the momentum becomes a principle of historical consciousness, while the tradition becomes a part of the contemporary moment.'
- - - - After WW2, decided that BBC should 'strike keynotes attuned to the national position and outlook...virility, a sense of endeavour, [and] courage' - Haley, Director General of BBC
        
        wanted to ''constantly' project the empire and Commonwealth 'as a great heritage' and produce stimulating programs on Britain's role in the world'
      - 'Status as a national institution...special responsibility to listeners, who together constituted the British nation'
        
        'an instrument to reflect, but also to nourish and encourage, the best vitues of the British character'
        
        'construct Britishness around empire'
      - from start of BBC questions about role of broadcasting 'in reflecting, defining and projecting British ational identity'
      - 'BBC regarded itself as a guarantor of an eduring British culture and tradition...[but] national identity is not fixed, but rather constructed and reconstructed over time'
    - - Benedict Anderson - nation as an 'imagined community'
      - 'national identity is not absolute or exclusive'
      - Brubaker - national identity is smth people 'experience or perform at particular moments'
      - Ward - Britishness continues as a concept bc flexible - attached to many diff peoples over time --> this 'most closely m
        mirrors the work of BBC radio from the 1920s to the 1950s'
    - - 'Reith envisioned British broadcasting as a public service, answerable neither to the government nor to the listeners, but only to a higher cultural ideal'
        
        aimed to teach and not include things that might be 'hurtful'
      - Reith turns BBC into public corporation 1927
      - monopoly 'gave the BBC enormous cultural power'
  - - - BBC, 1996: 'BBC has...a special responsibility that transcends, while it cannot afford to ignore, ratings and reach...information, education and entertainment'
      - Implicit in debate of children's TV is debate about nature of childhood
      - when public sphere content invades private (domestic) sphere, children exposed to info wasn't originally intended for them
      - media and child-rearing to "get them grown"
    - - Children's Department separate part of BBC from 2000
      - Dosjunction btw what children think childhood represents and what their adult carers think it represents
      - 'tendency of children to be 'subversive' of adult culture' (anti what adults say they should be)
      - works best when children 'treated as if they were sensible people'
    - - 'socialising and aesthetic functions'
      - 'watched by enormously large numbers of people'
      - 'children now get most of their stories from television or film'
      - 'critcal tradition which does not take seriously material specifically labelled as aimed at children'
      - 'children's drama is expected to serve functions over and above aesthetic excellence, entertainment and narrative engagement...it has to help children in the task of growing up'
    - - Children's marketing continues to rely on gender norms
      - 'one of the primary functions of children's fiction is subversion' (Lurie, 1990)
        
        challenge 'prevailing social attitudes of adult society'
      - 'broadcasting...has been a unifying experience for children in the UK which...is grounds for objection to it - homogeneity of broadcasting output fails to take proper account of local, ethnic and cultural differences in the audience/
      - TV is where every child can be an expert without fearing lack of competency, familiarity, or relevent perspective
  - - - common discourse in children's culturre (eg D Buckingham and M Scanlon, 2003)
- - - - 'humor, as Bakhtin argues...[is[ a social equalizer'
        
        poo humour = carnivalesque = space and time to subvert authority
        
        'intertextual dialogue across time'
        
        'intertextuality is applied...to television program genres'
        
        'challenge the way history is taught...as the authority of those in historical power...[is] shown to be less powerful'
        
        'challenging not only the "official" history but the way in which it is told'
        
        'dialogical'
        
        sketch (in book) on 2 historians not agreeing - open challenge to historians absolute authority
        
        'never allows the reader to slide into an easy acceptance of that history'
    - - 'swift movement between segments from one historical era to the next destabalizes the general narrative structure of the way that history is constructed and also taught in the classroom'
        
        'erases the notion of the authoritative voice of history'
      - history = 'cultural discourse'
      - some sketches 'celebrations of such proetarian victories' others 'offer subtler considerations of class dynamics'
      - whiffy jar sketch 'parodies the production of history'
        
        'allows that audience to be aware that knowledge itself is continually evolving'
      - Songs
        
        'the most popular parodies from the series are the music videos' (episode of songs at end of almost every season)
        
        some 'parodies of genre styles, notably music'hall'
        
        'another illustration of constructing imaginative dialogue across historical eras'
        
        'implicit dialogue between past and present'
        
        'the lyrical content...is intended to be taken "seriously, as truthful'
        
        'the parodies also feature a role-reversal of power relations'
      - paradox of show challenging idea of historical "truth" whilst often asserting its own truthfulness
        
        is it replacing 'one allegedly true history for another?'
        
        HH is in mainstream cultural production
      - doesn't make reader critical perceiver as history as much as books BUT 'in becoming critically engaged in the discursive practices of television programming, that critical engagement extends to the perception of history'
        
        Bakhtin - 'laughing person is more likely to be so critically engaged, and the humour in Horrible Histories reveals a very complex relationship between history, myth and popular culture'
      - 'gives the myths of historical figures corporeality'
        
        'in laughter comes the perspective needed for critical engagement with historical discourses'
      - 'emerged amid the massive wave of television programming devoted to history in the UK'