Although I agree with Hutcheon that postmodern parody is useful in contesting representations in history and the history of authorization, it seems to be a device that can easily slip into the (scaaaary) category of Jameson's pastiche. It's not just that it legitimizes that which is parodied while subverting it--I actually think that such double-codedness, that is must work within such contradictions and problematic relationships, makes it an especially complex and interesting form of art & representation. Rather, it's that the style of subversive art can be absorbed by mass culture, advertising, etc., often the very systems the parody is criticizing. Take for example billboard altering: artists subverting the advertiser's messages, revealing the advertisement's hypocrisy (etc.). As more and more billboards were altered, advertisers took the cue, too; Dodge, for example, began a campaign of creating billboards for its Neon to appear altered. By lifting the hip style of the altered billboard without the critical stance, the absorption epitomized blank parody. Advertising has absorbed Barbara Kruger's art as well, her "I shop therefore I am" images later printed on shopping bags--stripped of its parody, it rather confirms the euphoria of consumption Kruger sought to parody. So: is the critical parody that Hutcheon describes always dangerous in that it can be absorbed into mere style, a cultural product, turned into "blank parody"?

Another question/concern: I was originally baffled by Linda Hutcheon's claim that postmodernism's parody, interchangeable according to Jameson with pastiche, was the politically-motivated ironic revision of the past. Jameson's "blank parody" certainly didn't seem on par with Hutcheon's description of the postmodern parodic device. By page 94, however, she notes that there is a divergence between the practice of pastiche and the fundamentally critical postmodernist parody. I was clear and convinced of the difference between parody and pastiche before reading this article but now am not so sure. Could a work of art described as parody also be read as pastiche? Could it lay not only in the artist's agenda, but also in how the viewer reads the work?