There exist conflicting opinions as to whether the postmodern is capable of political engagement. This issue largely centres on the representational function of intertextual citation —or ‘ironic quotation’, ‘parody’ and ‘pastiche’ as it is varyingly called (Hutcheon 2002: 89). For Fredric Jameson, intertextual citation —or pastiche— represents nothing more than a superficial mimicry of old styles, which when pulled out of their original contexts initiate the collapse of historical time into a ‘pseudo-historical depth’ (1991: 20). In this conception of the postmodern —spatially reduced to surface level and temporally reduced to the present— the imagined future (or Utopia) is no longer viable. The term ‘postmodernism’ itself, alongside a series of other commonly referenced phenomena defined by the prefix ‘post’, testifies only to what it follows and makes no provision for political change and Utopia, which are inevitably associated with the future. In contrast, Linda Hutcheon argues that intertextuality —this time in the form of parody— is inherently political. ‘Complicit’ with what it parodies —yes— but nevertheless ‘a valueproblematizing, de-naturalizing form of acknowledging the history (and through irony, the politics) of representations’ (2002: 90). If reality can only ever be approached through different forms of representation, then ‘a politics of representation’ soon translates into ‘a representation of politics’ (90).