Examples of Post-Modernism

1.  Wolverine - Pastiche (celebrating something)
2. Matrix - Hyper-reality (in-ability to distinguish from reality)
3. Lady Gaga - Parody (mocking something)
4. Death to Videodrome - Grand Narrative/Disjointed Narrative (represents history)
5. Doctor Who - Grand Narrative (erosion of history), Dystopia (bad environment), Hyper-reality
6. Pulp Fiction - Simulacra (simulations of reality)
7. Miley Cyrus - Pastiche (parody of other video)
8. Aphex Twin - Dystopia (bad environment)
9. Dead Set Davina - Hyper-reality (in-ability to distinguish from reality)

Post Modernism Revision

Modernism - 

• Came from Victorian Era right up to 1914 - came from the believe that the lives of people we're improved by science. 

Turning point - 

• First World War made people doubt that the world was a better place. Science created weapons that destroyed.

Post-Modernism- 1960s onwards

• The idea in the loss of goodness in people and a suspicion in people. 

• Brought on by The Holocaust and The Atomic Bomb in the Second World War.

• People gave up on religion. 

• Rejects and comes after modernism.

However:

• There are still aspects of modernism in society -

1. Genre Hybrids

Theorists -

1. Baudrillard - Hyperreality and Simulacra
2. Lyotard - grand narratives (MAIN ROAD - ORIGINATOR)
3. Jameson - Hybrility

Technology:

1. Communication

2. Hyper-reality

Consumerism:

1. Food - Marks and Spencer's 

2. Clothes - reputation for people to buy into 

3. Deaths - selling products, superficial, Micheal Jackson

Emptiness:

1. Collapse of Rules and Meaning

2. No Belief - religion, science, government

Nostalgia:

1. Video Games - not immersive

2. Snakes on Nokia, PAC Man

POST-MODERNISM IS A REFUSAL TO BELIEVE IN THINGS WE ARE TOLD TO BELIEVE IN.

People have lack of belief in progress so to make anything you have to look back - that's why there isn't anything new.

Post-Modernism Text

Post-Modernism Exam Example

Grace Cuthbertson:

To what extent is Wreck It Ralph a postmodern text?

It can be argued that Wreck It Ralph is a postmodern text, but in my opinion, it is more modern than post modern. It has aspects of both modern and post modern texts though. Despite using intertexuality, nostalgia e.g. pacman and bricolage, which are all aspects of Jameson's post modern theory, this film itself is in fact more modern.

Throughout the film, there are two Grand Narratives. The first one being Religion. Ralph goes into the volcano to sacrifice himself to save the world. This shows him as almost 'Godlike'. This is clearly a grand narrative as it is a large scale theory, influened massively by the progress of history.

The second grand narrative shown is in the last scene. The idea of the female character being a princess and then wanting to become president shows the change in femininity. It is clear that a princess is a very feminine role where as president is quite masculine. The change is shown most obviously through her appearance. This goes against the modernism theory. In the last scene, combining different intertextual ideas and creating a bricolage has become a new way of making “old” feel “new". 

The film shows recycling the gaming culture and create something new that will create nostalgia for a large audience. Dystopian is very Post Modern as that type of audience reject new ideas and don't believe in progression. It can be argued that the film is post modern in the sense that it has an audience within the film as well as the audience watching, but the film follows the story of what looks like a evil person who eventually becomes good and the villain who looks good at the start but is seen as evil by the end of the film. The film follows the equlibrium theroy and has a typical, “happy ending”which is very modern. It also has the propp theory within the characters e.g. hero, villian, helper.

Overall, id say it can be argue that this is not a post-modern film but it only explains and demonstrates post-modern ideas and is in fact more modern than post modern. It does this to appeal to a wider audience.

3 Types of Post Modernism

1. Historical (as an era – 'after' Modernism or 'against modernism', end of history/progress, cynical, what caused it, when is it?)
2. Aesthetic (what it looks like, style over substance, retro, nostalgia)
3. Philosophy (what it thinks like – grand/meta narratives, hyper-reality, simulated)

STYLE

Hybridity - can take various forms across most media. Means its from more than one source, mixing and sampling of different kinds and levels. Hybrid (hierarchies of taste) distinctions between high culture and popular culture. Post Modernism 'raid image bank' is available through digital technology.

Bricolage- "Jumble" - Used to refer to the process of adaption where aspects of one style are given different meanings when mixed with stylistic features.

Simulacra- Jean Baudrillard. Blur of real in film, tv and magazines e.g. increasing CGI in films and scripted documentary in TOWIE. 

Wolverine

Shows simulacra through increasing CGI. Popular Culture.

The Matrix

Post - Modernism notes

Ideas of truth need to be deconstructed

People who are privileged construct these ideas whereas people who live in underprivileged countries break conventions every day. 

If truth is absent then how do we deal with the matters of justice.

Baudrillard believed in hyper-reality presenting a different world to our own, a fictional one.

Simularcra - simulations of reality that replace any 'pure' reality.

The concept of grand narrative, and in particular what Lyotard called the “emancipation narrative”, concerns the kind of meta-narrative which talks, not just about “one damn thing after another”, but sees some kind of interconnection between events, an inner connection between events related to one another, a succession of social systems, the gradual development of social conditions, and so on – in other words, is able in some way to make sense of history. More particularly, when pronounced as it usually is, with a sneer, the “grand narrative”, the “narrative of emancipation” is all those conceptions which try to make sense of history, rather than just isolated events in history, concepts like “class struggle”, socialism and capitalism, productive forces and so on.

According to Lyotard, in the postmodern period, people no longer believe in grand narratives, and consequently, to the armies of postmodern pen-pushers, ipso facto, “grand narratives” are old fashioned and oppressive – oppressive because one grand narrative excludes another and doesn’t my narrative have just as much right to truth as yours?

The Matrix represents what could happen in society as they realise they aren't happy plugged into machine. This could represent society becoming more reliant on technology. 

The 9/11 was a scapegoat for terrorism and military invasion.

The Mighty Boosh deliberately messes with the idea that they are suppose to be a TV show and pretending that what the audience is real - TV shows are artificial. There is no depth or meaning - it is superficial.  

What people believe in: 

Grandparents

Family

Religion

Their country

Science & Technology

The government has destroyed the believe in the system because nothing has changed. Protesting shows that people don't buy into it. People have lost faith. Post modernism is not a belief in nothing but a rejection in traditional structures/dominant idealogies. 

We have emptiness because we have no belief in anything anymore. We have moved from external desires to internal desires. 

Post-Modernism words: 

1. Intertexuality - The relationship between texts
2. Distopia - An imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one.
3. Simulacra - Simulations of reality that replace any 'pure' reality.
4. Bricolage - Bricolage is a word which is used to mean an assemblage of objects, along with the trial and error process of putting such objects together.
5. Pastiche & Parody - A pastiche imitates and celebraes something and a parody mocks it.
6. Superficial - Appearing to be true or real only until examined more closely.
7. Nostalgia - Something done or presented in order to evoke feelings of nostalgia.
8. Hyper-reality - Hyperreality is an inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality
9. Prosumers (Participatary media) - The merging of producers and consumers.
10. Grand Narrative -  An abstract idea that is supposed to be a comprehensive explanation of historical experience or knowledge

Genre Demonstration

Theories applied to my Music Video