Postmodernism in Media

Post-modernism is a set of theories which suggests that society is undergoing a radical series of changes where modernism is either: coming to an end or, being rejected by people or, changing

into a new order.

Postmodernism it is general the era that follows Modernism

Post modernism is well known since 1970 and 1980

Introduction

Postmodernism itself is a wide ranging term which applies to literature, art, economics, philosophy, architecture as well as new and traditional media forms.

Interpretation is everything with the concept of reality constantly under scrutiny and the key suggestions that these realities are social constructs which are open to change, everything is subjective and there is no absolute truth.

Modernism Postmodernism

purpose play

design chance

Hierarchyorder

AnarchyConfusion

finished work process, performance

distance participation

creation deconstruction

presence absence

depth surface

Modernism Postmodernism

truth irony

determinacy indeterminacy

Reality Imaginary

interpretation against interpretation

reading misreading

narrative Anti-narrative

elitism Anti-authoritarianism

It breaks down the distinction between culture and societyAn emphasis on style at the expense of substance and

content A breakdown of a distinction between high culture art and

popular culture Confusion over time and spaceDecline of Meta narrative -make absolute universal and all-

embracing claims to knowledge and truthPost modernism rejects the claims of any theory to absolute

knowledge, or of any social practice to universal validity.

Features of Postmodernism

A copy of a copy of a copyThere is no such thing as originality The distinction between media and

reality has collapsed

Simulacrum

Intertextuality is when one media text references another

Intertextuality mixes genres, forms, conventions, media: it dissolves boundaries between high and low art, between serious and comic.

Intertextuality

High Art Low Art/ Popular Culture

Fine art Advertising

Opera Pop music

Ballet Genre Films

Classical Music Television

Classical Literature Pulp fiction or Trashy Novels

Art Cinema Pornography

The breakdown of distinction between high culture and popular culture

Against Elitism Treating ‘low art’ or ‘popular culture’ as if they where high art places

The visual and stylistic impact becomes more important than the meaning message

An emphasis on style at the expense of substance and content

Postmodernists claim that in a media-saturated world, where we are constantly immersed in media, 24/7 – and on

the move, at work, at home – the distinction between reality and the media representation of it becomes blurred

or even entirely invisible to us. In other words, we no longer have any sense of the difference between real things and images of them, or real experiences and

simulations of them. Media reality is the new reality.

Postmodern Media

The mass media…were once thought of as holding up a mirror to, and thereby reflecting, a wider social reality.

Now that reality is only definable in terms of the surface

reflections of that mirror. It is no longer a question of distortion since the term implies that there is a reality,

outside the surface simulations of the media, which can be distorted, and this is basically what is at issue.

Postmodern media rejects the idea that any media product or text is of any greater value than another. All judgements of value are merely taste.

The distinction between media and reality has collapsed, and we know live in a ‘reality’ defined by images and

representations – a state of simulacrum. Images refer to each other and represent each other as reality rather than some

‘pure’ reality that exists before the image represents it – this is the state of hyperreality.

The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction-action film Matrix Trilogy -Cyberpunk twist where the world is in fact a

simulated prison for humanity run by intelligent machine agents

Its world full of codes, copies and representations there is no originality.

Your imaginary world becomes the real world. The matrix world becomes peoples real world.

The machine overpowers human.Movies like Spiderman, Batman do represent reality yet they

make us fell that its a real

The Matrix

The power of the system over the human. The Matrix as a series of films that deal with similar themes but in a less ‘real’ context.

The movie is set in 80 but shot in 2007. The movie is going back in times of 80s , its going back to the culture, fashion, representation, settings. Its like misreading the 80’s. There is a confusion of time and space.

Om shanti om song is breaking the conventions of a Bollywood song. A Bollywood song always had an actor, actress and some dancers, but in this songs there is one actor and all the big stars of bollywood dance together for a single song.

Om Shanti Om

The title of OSO is from a famous song of Karz There is a scene in OSO that attempts to parody that

famous scene of Mother India which is an immortal part of the Indian “film tales” due to its repeated retellings. It was this very scene in which Sunil Dutt saved Nargis from a fire and they came closer after that. Shantipriya plays the role that Nargis had played in her real life and Om Prakash, the junior artist, plays the role of Sunil Dutt after the “real” hero of the film refused to jump in the fire that had gone wild.

Om Prakash has a habit of talking to his muse Shantipriya, the “Dreamy Girl” of the eighties – a sure reference to the “dream girl” Hema Malini of the same era.

The second half has songs that address completely the youth amongst the contemporary audience. It flashes a completely and shockingly new image of the real Shah Rukh with his well sculpted body (and the six-packs abdomen) for the first time on screen. Just after this song comes the picturisation of a scene with Mohabbatman, a real and consciously attempted absurdity in the genre that boasts of the technological feats like Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Krrish and a host of small screen super heroes like Shaktiman. It is the second time in OSO that the hero is picturised flying.

The Simpsons follows a non linear narrative, creating confusions over time and space. Every episode is a new start, and ends with a narrative resolution. This is a very postmodern trait, and is quite typical of these sorts of comedy programs, for example Family Guy.

The Simpson, children never age or progress in school. In 17 years Maggie has not learned to walk or talk, and still uses her dummy. The family are timeless as well as placeless. The Simpsons are nowhere, living at no time, and representing no specific family – but ironically they are every family everywhere at any point in the postmodern era.

The Simpsons

There is one episode, when homer tries to vote for Obama, but the vote goes to Mcain, suggesting that the votes were rigged.

The video also shows a specially made "Fat Booth" highlighting the rising problem of obesity in the united states, making light of pressing social issues, It is questioning the system and the way the Presidents, Mcain can be elected even if he is so corrupted are elected the name homer is a Greek poets name.

Overall ‘The Simpsons’ has a huge fan base and is the longest running show in US history because it appeals to an audience of all people regardless of age or personal beliefs. Its postmodern context enables the viewer to take what they want out of it and how much of it they want.

The kids obviously want cartoon and Homer getting hurt and some jokes that may seem socially weird. The adults on the other hand will get the far more complex jokes that talk about politics and such.

Its anti-theoretical position is essentially a theoretical stand

The Postmodern direction to focus on the marginal is itself an evaluative emphasis of precisely the sort that it otherwise attacks.By adamantly rejecting modern criteria for assessing theory, Postmodernists cannot argue that there are no valid criteria for judgment.

Postmodernism criticizes the inconsistency of modernism, but refuses to be held to norms of consistency itself.

Criticism of Postmodernism

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