A Closer Look: Definition of Spoof

Although many would define “spoof” as being synonymous with “parody,” it appears in actuality to be far more specific according to general usage. Whereas a parody can be made in any medium – literature, music, film, visual art, oration – to mock or simply recycle the ideas of the original work, author or artist, the word “spoof” is usually only used in reference to film parodies. Furthermore, spoofs are always meant to have a comic effect while a parody may or may not be intended to be funny.

For example, when a musician parodies another musician’s work, it can go in one of two directions. The most well-known, modern, musical parodies are those of Weird Al Yankovic, who takes the melody of popular songs and replaces the original lyrics with humorous ones. However, artists who rework another artist’s songs or sample bits of other songs are creating a type of parody as well. In Kanye West’s “Gold Digger,” Jamie Foxx sings a portion of Ray Charles’s “I Got a Woman” but with new lyrics to fit the needs of West’s song, which is about a woman taking a man’s money rather than giving it to him as is the case with Charles’s original. It’s not funny by any means; rather, this type of parody is done in the name of evolution and as an homage to the original.

Spoof vs. Satire

Spoofs can also be distinguished from satires in that a satire is meant to criticize or bring to light some social, political or economical reality in the hopes of bringing about change. Huckleberry Finn, Dr. Strangelove and The Colbert Report are all examples of satire. They are filled with irony and can certainly be humorous, but their goal is to provoke thought and change through witty commentary on issues of their day (slavery in  Huckleberry Finn and the Cold War in Dr. Strangelove). A spoof just makes fun of a pre-existing film or film genre. It is not meant to be incisive, only ridiculous.

Spoof as Defined by Its Conventions

Spoof films will generally include several of the following characteristics:

• exaggerated stereotypes - Think about Austin Powers’s British teeth.
• exaggerated and/or superfluous actions (violence with no consequences or pointless visual gags) - Remember in Monty Python and the Holy Grail when Lancelot kills all those people at the wedding in his efforts to rescue the prince he believes to be a princess? Or when the French guards throw a cow off the roof of the castle?
• entire scenes that have no bearing on the story and only exist for humor’s sake - Again, in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, there’s a random “intermission” right before the end of the film.
• mocking of other film genres, films, or iconic scenes from specific films - The whole Scary Movie series mocks pop-horror films, Spaceballs mocks Star Wars, and Top Secret! mocks scenes from several James Bond and Elvis Presley films as well as one scene from The Wizard of Oz.
• sarcasm
• characters with silly names or names with obvious meanings (the characters may even comment on the meanings of their or other characters’ names) - In Top Secret!, there is a character named Deja Vu, whose first line is, “Have we not met before monsieur?” And the female leads in the Austin Powers movies get more and more double-entendreic with Felicity Shagwell even commenting “Shagwell by day, shag very well by night,” although one could argue that the James Bond movies (of which the Austin Powers series is a parody) began to parody themselves after the first few, beginning with the introduction of Pussy Galore and Bond’s incredulous response to her name upon their first meeting.

While these are the conventions that define spoof films, the films themselves vary greatly, mocking every conceivable genre from zombie horror (Shaun of the Dead) to folk music documentary (A Mighty Wind). And while this type of film is, in itself, an art form, the films themselves are, in every way, a laughing matter.