American Gothic Parodies: Spoofs of the Well Known Painting

American Gothic: A Life of American's Most Famous Painting

by: Steven Biel

Amazon Price: $5.50 (as of 02/13/2012)

Is there anyone who has not seen the sturdy Iowa farmer with his pitchfork and his thin-lipped wife or daughter? Ever since it met the public eye in 1930, the work titled American Gothic has elicited admiration, disgust, reverence, and ridicule-and has been reproduced hundreds of thousands of times, in every medium. Painted by a self-proclaimed "bohemian" who studied in Paris, the image was first seen as a critique of Midwestern Puritanism and what H. L. Mencken called "the booboisie." During the Depression, it came to represent endurance in hard times through the quintessential American values of thrift, work, and faith. Later, in television, advertising, politics, and popular culture, American Gothic evolved into parody-all the while remaining a lodestar by which one might measure closeness to or distance from the American heartland.

Spongebob - American Gothic Poster Print, 23x34

Amazon Price: $13.99 (as of 02/13/2012)

American Gothic

Amazon Price: $3.00 (as of 02/13/2012)

A group of yuppies charter a plane for a camping getaway, only to find themselves making an emergency landing on an isolated island. They are taken in for the night by the only inhabitants, the rapidly-religious "Ma & Pa", who seem trapped in a Rockwellian time-warp. This proves to be every bit as unpleasant as it seems.