Parody, Homage and Dramatic Performances

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is on play in which children draw on media to create staged performances. The performances range from replications of chants from children’s TV programmes, dramatic enactments of songs from musicals to parodic sketches of reality TV programmes. The analysis focuses on the social identities being enacted in these performances and the different ways of engaging with media productions. The chapter focuses in depth on an episode of play which featured a group of children at Monteney re-enacting elements of the TV talk show The Jeremy Kyle Show. The episode is analysed in the light of work which has identified the key elements of the talk show genre (Tolson, 2001) and the children’s play is examined in relation to conceptualisations of talk shows as carnivalesque spectacle (Tolson, 2001) and vehicles of social class anxiety (Gamson, 1999). The chapter explores the children’s playful re-enactment as a parody of adult worlds but also as a confirmation of the ‘ordinariness’ of everyday life. It is argued that in episodes such as these, the functions of play are multiple and complex but include a desire to construct collective moral sensibilities and reinforce normative discourses relating to sexuality and what it means to be a ‘good citizen’. In this way, play episodes that focus on talk shows or reality TV can be seen to be closely related to play which is rooted in the exploration of moral dilemmas and issues of right and wrong, which is a stock feature of children’s play, as identified in the work of the Opies (Opie and Opie 1959/2001).