Ambiguous Resistance

Parody is an important category of western literary theory, which has a long history since Ancient Greece and the connotation of parody has been changing continuously. In the mass media age, with the development of Internet and hyperspace, the forms of parody has become more abundant and peoples' desire of expression has expanded greatly, thus making parody one of the most important discourses today. The contemporary parody practices in China have gone through the following three stages, called "Da-Hua", "E-gao" and "Shan-zhai" in Chinese. These practices shared such features like non-classical source text, non-fixed intertextuality, and they are more entertaining. The existing theory is insufficient in the context of Chinese culture to explain today's practice of parody, which reveals that the connotation of parody need re-conceptualization. Parody is the imitation with critical distance. It shows differences through double-voice structure, and has an ironic tone to create artistic tension. As "producerly text", parody has the cultural potentiality of resistance on authority and hierarchical order. In the perspective of power theory, it is clear that the contemporary parody practices in China have their own paradox. On the one hand, these parody practices tease and upset the traditional or existing classical discourse aesthetic order, as well as the moral and cultural order supporting behind them. On the other hand, the contemporary parody practices in China are the strange combination of resistance and compromise, the cooperation and offensive so that we may call it "ambiguous resistance". Nevertheless, the ambiguous character of the practice of contemporary parody will not weaken its critical potentiality. As a matter of fact, behind the mask of "ambiguous resistance", contemporary parody practices are the expression of a "carnival-style" feeling of the world, which is to subvert the caste system seeking for pro-democracy, equality and freedom.