Tag Archives: american gothic
Biel, chap. 4, pt. 2
More notes from Biel, chapter 4: Lampooning presidents through AG calls into question rhetorical “plain folks” appeals Irony is the default setting for AG knockoffs, though not of the original painting Nan Wood’s legal fight against certain parodies raises interesting philosophical … Continue reading
Biel, chap. 4, pt. 1
Titled “Parody,” Chapter 4 of Steven Biel’s American Gothic: A Life of America’s Most Famous Painting deals with the morphing of the painting along satirical lines. Biel pegs the beginning of this trend to the 1957 musical The Music Man, which includes an … Continue reading
Biel, chap. 1
Biel begins the book by relating his experience visiting the “American Gothic House” in Eldon, Iowa. He describes the unique dissonance modern Americans sense in the presence of something they have been “taught” to see through a media lens, a … Continue reading
Abu Ghraib
This next remix is by artist Gerald Laing (American Gothic, 2004). Immediately obvious is its connection to a specific American scandal; clearly we are meant to read this as an ironic twist on the original. My primary question: is this … Continue reading
Family Portrait
Here we have a typical photo-homage to the painting. I find this particular image interesting for a couple of reasons. It comes from the blog of a professional photographer, and was taken during a family photo shoot “in front of … Continue reading
Barack and Michelle Obama
There have been a number of versions of AG featuring the Obamas, most of them fairly innocuous and straightforward. The two images to the right are typical. The second is a more thorough attempt at both acknowledging and remixing the … Continue reading
Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich and his wife Callista (from BlueGal). This seems to be a remix of a previous Green Acres parody, with only the heads changed and the RNC Iowa seal added in the background. This version also employs elements of the … Continue reading
Gothic Thoughts 