Spoofing

English music hall entertainer Arthur Roberts (1852–1933) introduced the word spoof into the English language via a card game of his own invention. The first mention of the game Spoof dates to 1884, and within 5 years the term spoof entered into regular usage distinct from Roberts’s parlor-room pastime. Signifying trickery and nonsense, spoof was originally synonymous with “hoax,” while the verb to spoof meant to engage in deception or bluffing, particularly in jest. By the mid-20th century, however, the concept shifted toward its contemporary meaning, that is, lighthearted satire or good-natured parody.

At the root of any act of spoofing is the use of misrepresentation to make light of or ridicule a person or thing. Like many forms of humor, spoofing relies on the gap between reality and representation (or more often, misrepresentation) to produce mirth. Similar to parody, spoofing reproduces stylistic peculiarities of an external subject to achieve humor; however, spoofs typically target a distinct work or genre for mockery, thus requiring a higher level of parasitism than is necessary for parody.

While sharing a focus on the visual with burlesque, spoofing rarely transgresses societal norms, although poking fun at traditional mores is common. Distinct from satire and harsher forms of lampooning, spoofing eschews polemics, generally avoids overt political content, and rarely aims at normative outcomes. In order to mitigate the inherent tension between playful misrepresentation and actual deception, a spoof must be understood by its audience as a hoax, otherwise its author runs the risk of confusing the spectator and thus being “unfunny.”

Today, spoofing is most associated with genre-busting cinema wherein a specific film or a well-defined genre is parodied through the application of deliberate anachronisms, breaking with character, double entendre, intertextuality, and the purposeful subversion of established conventions of the style. The spoof film, despite its low level of respect within the movie industry, enjoys a long history.

One of the earliest spoofs, Hellzapoppin’ (1941), made fun of Citizen Kane—considered by many critics to be the best film ever made—and included the following disclaimer: “Any resemblance between [Page 731]Hellzapoppin’ and a motion picture are coincidental.” In the postwar era, the comedic duo of William “Bud” Abbott and Lou Costello starred in a series of horror send-ups including Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) and Abbott and Meet the Mummy (1955).

Following the cultural upheaval of the late 1960s, the spoof film emerged as a genre in its own right, owing to a generational shift in audience tastes and the rise of a cadre of daring comediansturned-filmmakers. With Blazing Saddles (1974), Mel Brooks established himself as the auteur of the spoof. Playing a number of the characters including a Yiddish-speaking Indian chief, Brooks appeared alongside his standard comedic lineup of Harvey Korman, Dom DeLuise, and Madeline Kahn in a full-length jape of the Western. Not totally devoid of satiric content, Brooks’s film tilted at the genre’s failure to deal honestly with issues of racial intolerance in the American West. Following his parody of the cowboy movie, Brooks took aim at silent films, psychological thrillers, horror flicks, historical epics, and sci-fi operas over the next two decades. In his final spoof, Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), Brooks directed actor Leslie Nielsen, whom film critic Roger Ebert once labeled the “Laurence Olivier of spoofs.”

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