What is a Parody?

Parodies are works created by artists or writers that imitate or ridicule another’s creation in an amusing way. The earliest examples of parodies were songs or poems in Ancient Greece which imitated yet earlier writing. These examples from Greece and the parodies produced today aren’t copies — they’re original pieces created with the intent of making fun of the earlier work.

In addition to songs or poems, parodies have been created of movies, plays, television programs, sculptures, and paintings. Read more about the different types of parodies and have fun looking at some examples that both Mohan Kumar (Docmo) and I created.

Jan (Johannes) Vermeer was born in the city of Delft in what is now the Netherlands in October 1632. He died at the age of 43 in that same city in December 1675. Vermeer specialized in painting domestic scenes—in interior scenes rather than in landscapes.

Many of the people in Vermeer’s paintings seem to be the same. It’s as if he used models in his paintings and posed them engaged in various everyday, ordinary acts. The backgrounds in the paintings are similar, primarily the same two rooms in a house, possibly Vermeer’s own home, with the furnishings rearranged.

One thing I noticed while studying Vermeer’s work was the pearl earring that many of the women in his paintings were wearing. Vermeer’s models seemed to be wearing the same earrings. In all the research I’ve done, I haven’t seen any mention of this. Whose earrings were they? Did they belong to Vermeer’s wife?

Jan Vermeer preferred using bright colors in his paintings. He took advantage of the natural light and frequently had the sun highlighting one of his models in a given painting. He was especially fond of the colors cornflower blue and yellow.

The model in Girl with a Pearl Earring is wearing the pearl earring and is dressed in cornflower blue and yellow. Vermeer painting Girl with a Pearl Earring in 1652. Less than 40 of his paintings are known to exist today.

Mount Rushmore is a national monument located in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The faces of four influential United States presidents were carved in the mountain's granite rock by sculptor Gutzon Borglund. Completed in 1941, the four presidents carved by Borglund are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

The sculpture was completed in 14 years at a cost of $990,000. Each of the the presidential components of the sculpture is as tall as a 6-story bulding. The facial parts are huge—George Washinton's nose is 21 feet long, his eyes are 11 feet wide, and his mouth is 18 feet wide.

The photograph of Mount Rushmore which appears below is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.

The parody I created contains the images of Dave Roome, Rick Stephen, Jason Menayan, and James Johnson.

Mohan Kumar took a still from a YouTube video and created this parody. The original image features Blake Shelton and Trace Adkins. The parody features Mohan (Docmo) Kumar as Blake Shelton and Bill (billybuc) Holland as Trace Adkins.

I created this Sunshine Mona Lisa parody using a copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and a photograph of Linda Bilyeu (Sunshine625).