Leiden University Student Repository

Barker, Emily (2021)

Visual Parody in Postcolonial Contexts: Wendy Red Star's Subversions of Native American Stereotypes

Bachelor thesis | Kunstgeschiedenis (BA)

Parody is generally characterised as a form of ironic imitation that seeks to make some sort of critical commentary on that which it imitates. Judith Butler’s theory of parody, described in the final chapters of Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, outlines how parody, as a disruption in repeated processes of signification, can be used as a strategy with which to subvert normalised gender identities. This thesis will take Butler’s theory on parody and reinterpret it through a postcolonial lens so that it may be used to analyse how parody is employed in the oeuvre of Wendy Red Star. This analysis will show that parody is used by Red Star to subvert stereotypes of Native American culture established during the colonial era, as well as the colonial technologies that have enabled the continued hegemony of those stereotypes. Ultimately, this thesis will consider how the ambiguity of parody makes it an effective mode of criticism in postcolonial contexts.

Parody

Wendy Red Star

stereotypes

Judith Butler

postcolonialism

Author

Barker, Emily

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Arts, Media and Society

Supervisors

Dr. S.M. Lauritano

ECTS Credits

10

Language

en