A challenge faced by marketers is to make their products stand out in today's cluttered marketplace. Recently, a new approach to attract attention has been observed - brands communicating their products by making fun of other brands. This way of Parodying a competitor, or even an unrelated brand, is a risky but potentially effective way to increase attention. Brand parodies walk a fine line between being humorous and clever, or coming off as offensive. Furthermore, Parodying another trademark poses legal considerations.

AbstractTitle: Dragshow on the seven seasNumber of pages: 51 (56 including enclosures)Author: Therése PlastrougiTutor: Ylva EkströmCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Fall 2007University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: My main purpose with this paper is 1) to study how film as a media can subvert traditional gender constructions and 2) study the character of Elizabeth Swann in the trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean through four dimensions; Gender performance, Class, Desire and Power.Material/Method: My main material is the trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean. I have studied Elizabeth?s character based on semiotic and narratological methods.Main results: Film as a media possesses the full potential to change traditional gender roles, but the full subversion is denied due to the heterosexual matrix. Elizabeth?s character almost completes her subversive journey throughout the trilogy, but since she too is a victim of the heterosexual matrix, a full subversion is not possible.Key words: gender performance, class, desire, power, sex/gender, subversion, narratologic, semiotic, queer, feminism, pirates of the caribbean, intersectionality, Parody.

En metastudie som använder sig av en specifikt anpassad tolkning av grounded theory för att undersöka The Daily Shows satiriska kritik och funktion, samt hur detta relaterar till det sociologiska perspektivet. Fynden visar på en problematik som väl överrensstämmer med mer allmänna sociologiska teorier hos Foucault, Bourdieu och Habermas. Satiren visar sig utöva en serie meningsfulla funktioner som har potential att verka som en populistisk samhällskritik med stort inflytande. Satiren visar sig dock inte vara en problemfri diskurs och ett antal problem identifieras som behöver adresseras för att diskursen ska kunna åberopa någon form av legitimitet..

This study examines four short stories- ?Gudarnes like?, ?Vänner?, ?Lolo? and ?Kvinnor? - in a novel called Upptäckter written by Ulla Bjerne in 1918. My aim has been to study whether Bjerne in these stories writes from a New Woman- position. The New Woman novel as a genre flourished around the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. I have also studied whether Bjerne in these short stories uses a melodramatic style.

This study analyses the german writer and artist Unica Zürn´s novel, The Man of Jasmine,1970 (Jasminmannen). Zürn was mostly active in the surrealist avantgarde in Paris during the 1950ies - and 60ies. The male surrealist images of women was polarised in to the godlike, child and the erotic, convulsive object. The mythologizied woman was the muse of men´s creativity. But still there were many women artists who participated in the movement, so clearly there was something in surrealism that attracted women.

This study analyses the german writer and artist Unica Zürn´s novel, The Man of Jasmine,1970 (Jasminmannen). Zürn was mostly active in the surrealist avantgarde in Paris during the 1950ies - and 60ies. The male surrealist images of women was polarised in to the godlike, child and the erotic, convulsive object. The mythologizied woman was the muse of men´s creativity. But still there were many women artists who participated in the movement, so clearly there was something in surrealism that attracted women.

In this essay I analyze Karin Boye?s first novel, Astarte, focusing on her views concerning norms,ideals and female liberation. The novel is written in a tone of irony, allowing for many of thecharacters to be viewed as caricatures. The theories and methods I use are drawn from genderstudies and queer theory. Queer theorist Judith Butler, and the concepts of performativity, interpellation, genealogy and the heterosexual matrix, are of central importance for my analysis.

This paper examines in what way the heterosexual matrix is challenged by Stephenie Meyer in Breaking dawn (Så länge vi båda andas). By doing a thematic study on the various family constellations appearing in the novel, I search for the queer elements in it. I discuss incest, family building and motherhood, and find that there are numerous queer elements associated with the themes I have chosen. I conclude that the Cullen family challenges the heterosexual matrix, despite not being typical queer vampire characters. I also find that building a successful family is not based on gender or constellation otherwise, but is instead dependant on democracy and equality.

This thesis is a queer masculinity reading of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?s short story collection The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894). The analysis focuses on the dissonances, tensions and queerness that reside within the text itself. This has been done from my problem statement: How is Sherlock Holmes and John Watson?s sexuality and masculinity portrayed within the boundary of the text? What is being said, what is hidden, and what is dealt with silently? To reveal these queer parts this analysis has been focused around five themes: the late Victorian male, the Woman, countertypes and decadence, the homosocial sphere and sexuality.