History Main / ParodyRetcon

** TheSpirit is possibly playing this straight.
** Given that in neither case was he hired to do a parody it's still a pretty big screw you to the people who wanted a ''real'' adaptation of TheSpirit or an All-Star Batman that could stand alongside ''AllStarSuperman'' in anything but a Goofus and Gallant comparison.

-->''I contend that making a film that's only part satire is hedging your bet, in a sense saying 'if you like it and think it's good, then it's a good movie. If you think it stinks, then I meant it to be funny.' It's the coward's way to make a movie.''

* ''OzzyAndMillie'' Millie tried to do this with [[http://www.ozyandmillie.org/d/20010429.html ''one of her school reports'']].

* SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal. Parodied with the page image (original comic [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1656#comic here]]).
* The "SCUM Manifesto'' Valerie Solanas wrote this work "which calls for the eradication of men". 10 years later, after she became famous for trying to kill Andy Warhol, she claimed it was satirical.
* ''{{Sonichu}}''`s author, Chris-chan, claims that Sonichu is completely '''PURE AND ORIGINAL''' despite blatantly copying SonicTheHedgehog. After the internet told him otherwise, he now he thinks that labeling it as a "Parody" will allow him to make money off of it under fair use.

* ''SpaceMutiny'' Legendary (thanks to ''MysteryScienceTheater3000'') ths sci-fi stinker's lead actress claimed that the whole thing was in fact a spoof of the genre, which might at least explain the cheesy sets and costumes, as well as the bizarre "ancient dentistry" scene.
** ''ManosTheHandsOfFate'' A fellow ''[=MST=]'' alum [[strike:was made]] happened as a straight horror film, though by the end of the experience its creator predicted that it could make good money if it were redubbed as a comedy.

* UweBoll. When he publicly trashed MichaelBay and EliRoth in a number of interviews, both responded rather loudly and publicly, giving Boll [[NiceJobBreakingItHero high-profile attention]]. Boll later claimed this was an engineered publicity stunt to promote ''{{Postal}}''. If so, it was probably the only CrowningMomentOfAwesome in his career. Except it didn't work, because ''Postal'' tanked at the box office.

<<|ParodyTropes|>>
<<|ExampleAsAThesis|>>

* [[QuentinTarantino]] films are borderline. He claims that some of his films are homages to certain genres, but his not-quite serious and not-quite parody leaves one with this impression.

* The most famous example is probably the backpedaling done by Tommy Wiseau after his SoBadItsGood movie ''TheRoom'' was released and critically panned. Taking a page from ''{{Showgirls}}'', he decided to pull a SureWhyNot when people asked him if this was supposed to be taken seriously and say it was a black comedy all along, not a poorly written and poorly acted melodrama. It even says so on the DVD case.
* Legendary (thanks to ''MysteryScienceTheater3000'') sci-fi stinker ''SpaceMutiny'''s lead actress claimed that the whole thing was in fact a spoof of the genre, which might at least explain the cheesy sets and costumes, as well as the bizarre "ancient dentistry" scene.
* Roland Emmerich repeatedly claimed that ''IndependenceDay'' was supposed to be comical all along.
* Fellow ''[=MST=]'' alum ''ManosTheHandsOfFate'' [[strike:was made]] happened as a straight horror film, though by the end of the experience its creator predicted that it could make good money if it were redubbed as a comedy.
** Well, that movie was also made pretty much for the sake of making a movie.
* Completing the snarky puppet trifecta, Herschel Gordon Lewis claimed ''MonsterAGoGo'' was a parody of some sort, although ''what'' exactly it's a parody of is unknown.
* The {{Crunkcore}} group BrokenCYDE pulls a ParodyRetcon when they're flopping but [[IndecisiveParody switches back]] to DoingItForTheArt whenever they're doing well commercially.
* Parodied on SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal with the page image (original comic [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1656#comic here]]).
* ''Mommie Dearest'' started being advertised as a parody a few months after its release.
* ''{{Deafula}}'' was said to be a parody, and was even renamed Young Deafula in some places. The reason for the conspicuous lack of jokes? Only deaf people will get it, said the director.
* LRonHubbard's publishers responded to criticism of ''BattlefieldEarth'' (the novel) by claiming that it was meant to be satirical. Riiiight.
* A common occurrence in FanFiction, especially after {{Mary Sue}}s are pointed out.
* Also on the internet, some {{troll}}s claim that their antics were "just an experiment." This is so common, that the phrase "SocialExperiment" has become both a [[MemeticMutation meme]] and a trope of its own among the denizens of Fandom Wank.
** Some people who end up receiving an InternetBackdraft claim they were trolling all along. Nobody is fooled.
** And some try to excuse JerkAss behavior with "satire" or in more egregious cases, ''call the victim out'' on "having no sense of humor" and/or [[PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad "being against freedom of speech."]]
* FrankMiller has responded to the (quite large) criticism of ''AllStarBatmanAndRobinTheBoyWonder'' (aka ASBAR) by saying that it's a parody. No one is entirely sure whether it's true or not, some think it's this trope, others think he's telling the truth. It helps his case that he claimed [[MisaimedFandom his comics were meant as parodies]] when people still ''liked'' them.

* Millie of ''OzyAndMillie'' tried to do this with [[http://www.ozyandmillie.org/d/20010429.html ''one of her school reports'']].
* ''{{Sonichu}}''`s author, Chris-chan, claims that Sonichu is completely '''PURE AND ORIGINAL''' despite blatantly copying SonicTheHedgehog. After the internet told him otherwise, he now he thinks that labeling it as a "Parody" will allow him to make money off of it under fair use.
** It helps that CWC [[YouKeepUsingThatWord literally doesn't know the meaning of a lot of the stuff he says]]. This is [[LampshadeHanging pointed out]] [[RunningGag excessively]] at the [[TheWikiRule CWCki]].
* Succinctly described in the [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Trollface.png originator]] of the "troll face" meme.
* Valerie Solanas wrote the "SCUM Manifesto," which calls for the eradication of men. 10 years later, after she became famous for trying to kill Andy Warhol, she claimed it was satirical.
* This occurred during the filming of the 1966 B movie ''Rat Pfink A Boo Boo''. It starts out serious, but apparently halfway through, the director (Ray Dennis Steckler, the same guy who directed ''[[TheIncrediblyStrangeCreatures The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies]]'') got bored and decided to film the rest of it as a comedy/parody.
* When UweBoll publicly trashed MichaelBay and EliRoth in a number of interviews, both responded rather loudly and publicly, giving Boll [[NiceJobBreakingItHero high-profile attention]]. Boll later claimed this was an engineered publicity stunt to promote ''{{Postal}}''. If so, it was probably the only CrowningMomentOfAwesome in his career. Except it didn't work, because ''Postal'' tanked at the box office.
** UweBoll also hired a bunch of comedians to recut ''Film/HouseOfTheDead'' into a comedy. The result, unimaginatively titled ''House Of The Dead: Funny Version'' was considered by many to make the movie ''even worse'' than it already was.
* This has been said about rapper Canibus' [[SoBadItsHorrible disastrous]] third album, 'C: Tru Hollywood Stories', after its terrible reception.
* [[QuentinTarantino Tarantino]] films are borderline. He claims that some of his films are homages to certain genres, but his not-quite serious and not-quite parody leaves one with this impression.
** Then again, he's a critical darling, if a self-indulgent one, so it's probably just his style. And it's really hard to argue that he's not doing genre homages.
* Martha Coakley claims to have been joking when, in a segue from Giuliani to Curt Schilling, she commented that they were [[CriticalResearchFailure both Yankees fans]], and when the reporter reacted as you might expect, didn't seem to know who Schilling was. [[http://coldheartedtruth.com/politics1/index.php/2010/01/17/martha-my-dear?blog=18 Here's the transcript.]] You be the judge.
* ''WildThings'' is generally seen as a GuiltyPleasure if nothing else, but the sheer volume of [[SoBadItsGood unintentional hilarity]] has lead some to hypothesize that it may have been a StealthParody of erotic thrillers all along.

* During the 2010 UK general election, the makers of Marmite threatened legal action after The British National Party included a jar of Marmite in one of their videos. The BNP originally claimed their video had been a parody, and only later admitted that it was a [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8647630.stm mistake]].
* A YouTube [[VideoReviewShow video game reviewer]] under the [[SarcasmMode clever]] title "G** e D** e" (censored due to his paranoia) made a bunch of poorly-made reviews that amounted to "whiny nit-picking". After he received heavy criticism he started claiming that his reviews were satirical rants not meant to be taken seriously. Nobody bought it.
* South Carolina State Senator Jake Knotts wasn't being an ignorant, racist monster when he called Nikki Haley, a Republican candidate for his state's governor and an ethnic Punjabi that converted to Methodist Christianity from Sikhism, a "raghead" (and Obama a secret Muslim in the same breath). He was being ''satirical''. And just quoting a ''SaturdayNightLive'' skit that exists only in his head.
* Depending on which day of the week you ask him, [[VelvetUnderground Lou Reed]]'s album ''Metal Machine Music'' (a double album of [[BrownNote nothing but multitracked feedback noise]]) is either a TakeThat to his record company, a parody of Serious Music (John Cale in particular), a drug-fuelled mistake, or actual Serious Music.
* StephenKing claimed that his SoBadItsGood film ''MaximumOverdrive'' (which he wrote and directed) was a deliberate homage to bad movies such as {{Plan 9 From Outer Space}} after it received bad reviews.
** However, he later acknowledged on more than one occasion that the film sucked.

* [[LetsPlay LPers]] that receive the {{Retsupurae}} treatment tend to end up evoking this trope. With a few exceptions aside, it's mostly to save face.
* On the DVD commentary track to ''There's Nothing Out There'' the filmmakers [[LampshadeHanging lampshade]] their own jocular use of this trope endlessly, chuckling that everything they didn't intend and which didn't work was part of the parody whereas everything else wasn't. (It should be noted that there is no doubt as to whether the film on the whole ''was'' a parody.)
* "[[FanNickName Banana-Man]]" Ray Comfort now claims that his infamous "Banana: The Atheist's Worst Nightmare" argument was satire.

* Isnt it ironic, don't ya think, that when Alanis Morisette wrote a song about irony, and everyone pointed out that all her examples of irony were wrong, she suddenly decided that that was, in fact, the irony all along?
* Similarly to the above, when a sex scene in his book ''I Am Charlotte Simmons'' was nominated for and won the "Bad Sex In Fiction" award, a yearly award given to poorly written, overly melodramatic and [[PurpleProse flowery]] and / or unengaging sex scenes in literature, Tom Wolfe could suddenly be found telling everyone who'd listen that it was ''supposed'' to be bad.

Simply put, any work which, once consumer reaction came back negative, had its failings {{handwave}}d by claims that it was supposed to be a parody. A relative of IMeantToDoThat and JustJokingJustification. See also PoesLaw and AuthorsSavingThrow. Not to be confused with an ExternalRetcon. Compare IndecisiveParody. Contrast SpringtimeForHitler.

Simply put, any work which, once consumer reaction came back negative, had its failings {{handwave}}d by claims that it was supposed to be a parody. A relative of IMeantToDoThat and JustJokingJustification. See also PoesLaw and AuthorsSavingThrow. Compare IndecisiveParody. Contrast SpringtimeForHitler.

* ''MommieDearest'' started being advertised as a parody a few months after its release.

* This occurred during the filming of the 1966 B movie ''RatPfinkABooBoo''. It starts out serious, but apparently halfway through, the director (Ray Dennis Steckler, the same guy who directed ''[[TheIncrediblyStrangeCreatures The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies]]'') got bored and decided to film the rest of it as a comedy/parody.

* Isnt it ironic, don't ya think, that when Alanis Morisette wrote a song about irony, and everyone pointed out that all her examples of irony were wrong, she suddenly decided that that was, in fact, the irony all along? A little too ironic, yeah I really do think.

* Isn't it {{ironic)), don't ya think, that when Alanis Morisette wrote a song about irony, and everyone pointed out that all her examples of irony were wrong, she suddenly decided that that was, in fact, the irony all along? A little too ironic, yeah I really do think.

* The most famous example is probably the backpeddling done by Tommy Wiseau after his SoBadItsGood movie ''TheRoom'' was released and critically panned. Taking a page from ''{{Showgirls}}'', he decided to pull a SureWhyNot when people asked him if this was supposed to be taken seriously and say it was a black comedy all along, not a poorly written and poorly acted melodrama. It even says so on the DVD case.

* Whether or not the film version of ''StarshipTroopers'' is supposed to be satirical or not has been a rich source of InternetBackdraft.

* FrankMiller has responded to the (quite large) criticism of ''[[AllStarDCComics All Star Batman And Robin]]'' (aka ASBAR) by saying that it's a parody. No one is entirely sure whether it's true or not, some think it's this trope, others think he's telling the truth. It helps his case that he claimed [[MisaimedFandom his comics were meant as parodies]] when people still ''liked'' them.
** Even if it was a parody, it doesn't excuse the fact that he ''wasn't'' writing a story which told the bare essence of the character of Batman, like he was supposed to.
** Bigger problem. Aren't parodies supposed to at least be funny? ASBAR is just ... bad.

* ''TheCore''.

** And some try to excuse JerkAss behavior with "satire" or in more egregious cases, ''call the victim out'' on "having no sense of humor" and/or [[PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad "being against freedom of speech."]] [[WallBanger * BANG* ]]

* HideakiAnno has gone on record to claim that the dubious final episodes of ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' were ''supposed'' to disappoint and piss off the "[[{{Otaku}} unhealthy anime bastards cooped up in their rooms]]", when most other sources attest that they were the product of a sinking budget and ExecutiveMeddling. But to be fair, he ''does'' hate otakus, and specifically made EVA a deconstruction of HumongousMecha because he wanted to ruin it for them. And yet the death threats seemed to have gotten to him enough to make ''End of Evangelion''. It's probably a combination of the two.

Simply put, any work which, once consumer reaction came back negative, had its failings {{handwave}}d by claims that it was supposed to be a parody. A relative of IMeantToDoThat and JustJokingJustification. See also PoesLaw and AuthorsSavingThrow. Compare IndecisiveParody.

* [[strike: The Goddamn]] AllStarBatmanAndRobin: FrankMiller going batshit insane or FrankMiller pretending to go batshit insane for comedic value? Depends on which editor you ask.

* The director and star of ''TheRoom'' claimed his film was actually a "black comedy" after it became the SoBadItsGood hit of 2003. Trailers were even hastily edited to reflect this. No one was fooled.

* HideakiAnno has gone on record to claim that the dubious final episodes of ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' were ''supposed'' to disappoint and piss off the "unhealthy anime bastards cooped up in their rooms", when most other sources attest that they were the product of a sinking budget and ExecutiveMeddling.

* Depending on which day of the week you ask him, [[VelvetUnderground Lou Reed]]'s album ''Metal Machine Music'' (a double album of [[BrownNote nothing but multitracked feedback noise]]) is either a TakeThat to his record company, a parody of Serious Music (John Cale in particular), or actual Serious Music.

* "[[FanNickName Banana-Man]]" Ray Comfort now claims that his infamous "Banana: The Atheist's Worst Nightmare" argument was satire.

* BobDylan's 1970 album ''Self Portrait'' (mainly made up of sloppily-performed cover versions) received the first mostly (and often viciously) negative reviews of his career. In the first few years after its release he defended the album, but since then he's claimed that it was [[WriterRevolt a deliberate attempt to alienate his more obsessed fans]]. Dylan also made the same claim about his previous album, ''Nashville Skyline'', a country-flavored album where Dylan trades in his nasal sneer for a singing voice that borders on crooning. Ultimately, both albums were Top Ten [=LPs=], and ''Nashville Skyline'' even kept [[TheWho the Who's]] ''{{Tommy}}'' out of the #1 spot in the [=UK=].