Parody

A parody is a creative work "designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satirical or ironic imitation"; the subject may be an original work, a person, an event or a movement. The Greek parōidia means "counter-song," though par- also carries the milder sense "beside," so ridicule is not inherent to the form. Aristotle credited Hegemon of Thasos with inventing parody by tweaking well-known poems to turn the sublime ridiculous, and the article separates parody from satire: both exaggerate a source humorously, but satire targets the real world to correct it, while parody derives from a specific work or genre and can stay playful, Nabokov's "Satire is a lesson, parody is a game."

Don Quixote mocked knight-errant romances so thoroughly that it outlasted its model, and Fielding's Shamela answered Richardson's Pamela. Fandom runs on the form: the Mary Sue was coined by a 1973 parody sketch, and where the mockery aims at real institutions instead of a work, it shades into satire.