Explain how certain types of
media can be defined as postmodern.
Postmodernism is the remixing
of existing ideas by rejecting modernism and grand narratives.
Different types of media can
be defined as postmodern when using other ideas and samples of other work. This
will use multiple aspects from other media to produce their own distinct
product and text. This produces a good quality of work and typically stands out
from the rest. Modernism is identified as the precursor to postmodern ideas.
Modernism is the reference to the broad movement in western art, architecture
and design which self-consciously rejected the past as a model for the art of
the present, and placed an emphasis on formal qualities within artworks and
processes and materials. This created the ideas to be used which produced
present day post modern media. Modernism concerned itself with producing a
utopian ideal through architecture and media
The film Deadpool directed by
Tim Miler is identified as being postmodern, it is a film based on Wade Wilson
a contract killer and former mercenary who is diagnosed with cancer. But after
being subjected to a rogue experiment he is cured along with gaining the
ability to heal turning him into Deadpool and to reunite with his true love.
Deadpool comprises of four
main elements violence, comedy, references and continuous forth wall breaking
with the latter two being the two causing it to be a post modern film.
The intertextual references
(Genette) make up a large section of the film, with the Green Lantern being the
subject of a few of the intertextual jokes and references. Green Lantern was
Ryan Reynolds first step into the superhero domain with it being a large
failure causing it to be the brunt of jokes. For example, a parody of the film
is created when being taken for his operation Wade Wilson states “Don’t make
the super suit green…or animated”. This generates the parody because this
section that it references is part of the factor that caused the demise of the
Green Lantern. Furthermore, due to it being another superhero film it directly
references another film in this genre producing a very self aware piece of
work. This joke forms the self aware work as it shows that Reynolds even though
he is playing Wade Wilson still believes this to be a problem with the film
causing it to be referenced and made the fun out of.
The title sequence to the
film also produces a number of references this produces a pastiche (Jameson),
this is because it references itself with the people who made the film and also
the people with in it. One example being
the People magazine with Ryan Reynolds face on with the title of ‘Sexist man
alive’. This causes it to be even more
of a self referential film with it relating to its main character played by
Reynolds. This also produces the self aware addition to the film further adding
to the postmodernity of the film. This again is because it is directly
referencing the main actor within the film making it aware of who is in the
film rather than making the person on the front of people magazine up or saying
that it is Wade Wilson. Furthermore, it references Green Lantern again with a
playing car intensifying the effect of the pastiche furthering the vacuous and
endless cycle of references and jokes. Additionally, with the references to the
crew of the film for example ‘Produced by Asshats’ this furthers the
postmodernity and the pastiche.
Bricolage (Levi-Strauss) is
another large component of the film through the addition, substitution,
deletion and transposition of components within the film further producing the
postmodern text. The addition to this superhero genre film is the addition of
comedy which isn’t typical of this genre with them usually being a very serious
type of film. Furthermore, it adds romance turning it into more of a rom-com
genre of film due to this mixture of genres causing it to further its
postmodernity of a film due to this remix of genres, this produces a rom-com violent
superhero film producing a film which falls into four genres. Additionally,
graphic violence is added to the super hero genre only being seen in a select
few like Kickass or Super causing it to push the boundaries of the genre making
a completely new idea of what a super hero film is. The main addition to this
whole film and the genre is the addition of a high amount of intertextual
references which isn’t seen in this genre much at all. It is commonly seen in
the Marvel films but only in the Avengers which are apart of the same universe
but it isn’t seen going referencing films not apart of its own franchise e.g.
Deadpool is Marvel whereas Green Lantern is DC, two completely different
superhero franchises.
Through substitution of one
thing to another the creators further push these boundaries producing this
postmodern film, one of these is substitution of the audience this is from a
young audience which is the typical audience for the super hero genre of film
and is changing it for a 15 and older audience due to its rating making the
audience much older than it typically is due to the content that is in the
film. Furthermore, the nature of the actual ‘superhero’ is completely changed
this is from a do-gooder to a do-bad super hero which again is completely
against the norms of this genre. This further proves how it is rejecting the
existing ideas of this super hero genre and remixing them and changing the
concept to produce this post modern text.
Deletion of elements also
makes up Deadpool mainly with the storyline by the fact that it doesn’t go
after the typical superhero genre storyline of the hero saving the world.
Instead the action is much more personal that he’s fighting to make him look
back to normal and also to save his own girlfriend, not to help anyone else but
him self. This produces a selfish super hero rather than selfless, further
going against the typical values of a superhero adding to the postmodernity of
the text.
Transposition adds to the
storyline heavily giving a large amount of a storyline to the film, the
storyline can be seen as taken from the myth of Orpheus descending into hell to
find his true love. This can be seen in Deadpool through how he descends into
the criminal under world to save his girlfriend and can be seen as hell.
Postmodern definitions can
also be concerned with music; the band Daft Punk is constantly referred to as
postmodern. One of the reasons is that they don’t respect the barriers between
genres previously set (Kramer). This has been done with the duo producing music
with the funk guitarist Nile Rodgers. This produced the mixture of the
electronic and funk genres producing a new style of music. By performing on
three tracks of their new album it created the new blend of dance music by
combining the old style of dance music (funk) and the newer style of dance
music (electronic). Additionally, the pair also further their media as
postmodern by making the music relevant to cultural, social and political
contexts (Kramer). They did this through the use of their music videos for the
album discovery, the videos got put together to make a film called Interstella
555 the film was based on alien musicians kidnapped by humanoids and forced to
produced music. This referenced the control that music labels have over artists
in controlling everything they do and the artists not having full creative
control.
Pastiche (Jameson) also
generates a large part of Daft Punks music through sampling other songs from
other artists to produce their own music. The samples include: Cola Bottle Baby
by Edwin Birdsong, I Love You Baby by George Duke and Release the Beast by
Breakwater this produces the postmodern music because its rejecting the grand
narratives of producing their own music and copying others. Daft Punk further
this by how much they have used it, typically bands will only use small
sections to produce their music and it isn’t blatantly obvious, however Daft
Punk completely use sections of these songs with out changing them. This
produces more of §a homage to the artists of these songs by using them and
paying respect to the artists.
The future of postmodern
films is uncertain; this is because the amount of references that films can
make may have reached its limit or is close to being so. This is because films
may start just copying another film which copied or referenced another one.
This produces a relentless cycle of the same ideas. This tires the concept of references
and postmodernity reducing the impact that it has on a film. The future of post
modern films will come through post modern characters, bringing people back to
life in film when they are dead or too old to play this character. This is seen
in the most recent Star Wars Film, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, in which
Tarkin is brought back for the film, Peter Cushing who played Tarkin in the
original trilogy actually died in 1994. So to bring him back they digitally
created him using CGI to produce this character. This was also done with Carrie
Fisher who played Princess Leia she was digitally de-aged to produce her in the
film as she was still alive at the time of production. This produces a
completely different approach to the idea of film that whole characters can be
produced in film who are dead. Furthermore, the future of post modern films is to be
post modern just for the sake of it to be ‘in with the time’ or because it has
been previously done in the series or genre. For example, in the Scream films
and tv series. The first three films are post modern because they are self
aware with the ‘rules of horror’ and references to Friends due to Courtney Cox
playing Gail Weathers. This produces a good quality of postmodern film making
it very effective. However, in the fourth and the tv series which are made 11
years after the first three and during the gap between critics had labelled the
films as postmodern for the reasons so when making the fourth film and the tv
series the creators felt they had to be postmodern by being self aware and
referential very clearly on purpose when it doesn’t fit into the film or
series. This led to the creation of postmodern characters in the texts in which
their sole purpose in the film or tv series is just to reference other texts or
be self aware through doing this. They do this but they have no other purpose
within the text to solidify their meaning apart from being this postmodern
character. This creates a useless feeling to the addition of post modern films
as it shows it is becoming too tired and that its just being done for the sake
of it.
A grade
