Littler grew up fascinated by public information films & propaganda in the 1960s & 70s, and the way that they displayed "some quite outrageous societal attitudes toward race, gender, and children":
"I was always scared as a kid, always frightened of what I was faced with. You'd walk into WH Smith and see horror books with people's faces melting. [...] I remember a public information film made by some train organisation in which a children's sports day was held on train tracks and, one by one, they were killed. It was insane."Littler has produced a series of mock posters based around the fictitious town of Scarfolk, in brilliantly accurate period trappings, parodying the genre. Careful choice of muted & faded colours, typefaces and art style make these some of the best examples of this kind of thing I've seen in some time.
He has taken these ideas further to parody the cultural trappings of the period, making use of wonderfully inappropriate contrast or by highlighting the mundane nature of the original:
Postmodernism in game design
On the surface Littler's work doesn't immediately appear to have any links with video game design. However, one of the main things I'm concerned about in my own project work is evoking period without transgressing trademarks or copyright. For example, in early drafts of my Eggles game, I've used an LP cover for The Shadows' 20 Golden Greats -- iconic in its time and easily recognised. Trying to get copyright clearance for this former EMI asset would likely be a nightmare (and costly). So, at some stage, I'm going to have to adjust the LP cover to turn it into a pastiche of the original.
Littler's work here shows a way to make that step smarter, by extending it into the realm of parody -- something which adds value to the exercise. Literary critic Fredric Jameson had particularly strong views on this:
"Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the wearing of a linguistic mask, speech in a dead language. But it is a neutral practice of such mimicry, without any of parody's ulterior motives, amputated of the satiric impulse, devoid of laughter and of any conviction that alongside the abnormal tongue you have momentarily borrowed, some healthy linguistic normality still exists. Pastiche is thus blank parody, a statue with blind eyeballs [...]"Having grown up coddled by TV comedy shows full of pastiche -- like The Two Ronnies or Russ Abbott's Madhouse (well, it all seemed funnier when I was under 10 years old) -- I find myself in agreement with Jameson.
This is a great example of the reasons why game designers need to take a cross-disciplinary approach. The lessons learned from Littler's work will have an effect on aesthetics within my game.
I believe there is a lot of potential in using parody rather than pastiche, where possible, to enhance the nostalgic experience ... so long as it does not undermine the familiarity of the artefact, or the affect which I am seeking to exploit.