On March 27, Super Deluxe gave the Twitter-sphere a golden parody which showcased snippets from Trump’s campaign and presidency speeches transformed into a 2000’s-style emo song.
If you don’t already know, a parody is a literary device that imitates the work of another while deliberately altering the material into something that is comical.
Gif Credit: https://giphy.com
No doubt a public speaker’s use of parody would be to illicit laughter from an audience which can lead them to be more engaged. The engagement is a response to the spike of endorphins being received, creating emotions of happiness. Generating this response in an audience will make the experience memorable which is a key goal when giving any form of speech. The more memorable, the more likely an audience will talk about your speech with other people.
However, parodies are often confused with satire but they are not synonymous. For instance, both are viewed separately in the courtroom when regarding fair use in copyright infringement cases. In an ABA Section of Litigation Intellectual Property Committee Roundtable Discussion regarding parody versus satire,
The Court explained further that while a parody targets and mimics the original work to make its point, a satire uses the work to criticize something else, and therefore requires justification for the very act of borrowing. See id. at 581. As a result, the Court appears to favor parody under the fair use doctrine, while devaluing satire.
Although the video was making fun of President Trump, legally Super Deluxe is in the clear because the fair use of copyrighted material allows for transformative works such as parody. Therefore, it would be difficult for Super Deluxe to be sued for copyright infringement.
In a previous post, ‘Zootopia’ Lawsuit — Talk your way out of this one Disney, copyright infringement was touched upon but in the case Goldman v. Disney, the work was not transformative enough to be free of infringement allegations.
According to the Court,
“parodies can be considered “transformative” works, as opposed to merely “superseding” works. Since transformative works “lie at the heart of the fair use doctrine’s guarantee of breathing space within the confines of copyright,” the more transformative the parody, the less will be the importance of other § 107 factors that may weigh against a finding of fair use.”
All things considered, the video Super Deluxe created legally fits into the category of parody. Click on the video below to watch emo trump:
As you can see, the video received high impressions,
- 17K retweets
- 30K likes
- 672 responses
High impressions mean that Super Deluxe’s parody successfully engaged their audience, making the experience memorable enough to generate buzz. Here are a few responses:
https://twitter.com/shandamarie9/status/846399931720044544
https://twitter.com/isaacrentz/status/846113242736840704
While there were many responses to this video, the few selected received the most buzz from other Twitter users which generated positive word of mouth for Super Deluxe (e.g., free publicity).
Let me know what your reaction was to Super Deluxe’s video in a comment below or follow me on Twitter at @cayla_redlon.
Mahalo
Public Speaking 
Cayla,
LOL. I love this. That video was great, but I also love that you discuss the fair use doctrine and endorphins behind internet satire. It’s important to note the science happening in our brains when funny things happen and why humans are so interested in parodies.
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Haley, Thank you for your kind observations! I’m glad that you enjoyed the post as much as I enjoyed writing it 🙂 I appreciate your input!
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