Website to help with examples of postmodern texts (films and TV).
http://www.onpostmodernism.com/movies/default.aspx
Monday 19 April 2010
Wednesday 10 March 2010
Notes from lesson
Soap doc - Mockumentry - e.g. The Office
Holding a mirror to the audience. Hyperreal. e.g. Big Brother
Playing with identity - guest stars, playing themselves or a character.
Production <-> Reception (audience) <-> referent (signifiers) <-> Production
media starts representing the media.
Postmodern media -
cultural identity - self referential, global media, effects everyones identity, facebook identity.
online media - only 20% of the worlds population have access to the internet.
Democracy - political apathy, moral panic, we media, hyperreal.
Holding a mirror to the audience. Hyperreal. e.g. Big Brother
Playing with identity - guest stars, playing themselves or a character.
Production <-> Reception (audience) <-> referent (signifiers) <-> Production
media starts representing the media.
Postmodern media -
cultural identity - self referential, global media, effects everyones identity, facebook identity.
online media - only 20% of the worlds population have access to the internet.
Democracy - political apathy, moral panic, we media, hyperreal.
Tuesday 26 January 2010
Summary of POSTMODERNISM
Postmodernism can be explained as the distinction between reality and the media representation becoming blurred. The representation gets remixed through pastiche, parody and intertextual references; they make no attempt to be realist. We now live in a reality defined by image representations being hyperreal, which are self-referential, they represent media reality instead of reality. E.g. TV representations of 9/11 – The Matrix and Blade runner.
Baudrillard offered a version of postmodernism, he states that ‘Thruth is what we should rid ourselves of...’
His most controversial claim was that the gulf war never happened. Or rather, that it, and 9/11 can only be understood as media events. As we recall the footage seen on TV, which has been edited, replayed, mixed with commentary etc. So their experience was electronic and hyperrealised the real.
The film Blade runner can be viewed as postmodern in its style, reception and subject matter. StYLE – The city depicted is Los Angeles in the future, which in itself is a pastiche of our ideas of the East, the West and future. Reception – The Los Angeles of Blade runner has been discussed as a vision of the postmodern city – huge advertising images promoting an off world colony and the idea that everyone has fled the ‘real world’ for a more active virtual equivalent.
Subject matter – A dying replicant in the final scene delivers the line, ‘all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain’, and (like in many postmodern film) we look at the way in which the ‘modern’ world is constructed through a set of binary oppositions – truth/lies, reality/fiction, human/machine, life/death etc.
Michael Winterbottoms films e.g. ‘A cock and bull story’, ‘24 hour party people’ and ‘The road to Guantanamo’, all share an interest in blurring the boundaries between real events and fiction, which is a defining principle of postmodernism. In ’24 hour party people’, Winterbottom to some extent mocks postmodernism, by having characters so explicitly discussing to the camera the film he is appearing in. Although this approach is also in keeping with postmodernism with its disregard for realist conventions and the playful approach to the construction of the text itself.
The Coen brothers are also filmmakers labelled postmodern, creating a body of work that consistently demonstrates postmodern techniques. They are famous for their view on the importance of intertextuality, which is demonstrated in many of their films, ‘Fargo’, ‘The big Lebouski’, ‘Miller’s Crossing’ and many more.
In ‘Fargo’, perhaps the most obvious postmodern element is that new characters are often seen watching TV shows. Also the film claims to be a representation of a true story however there is no evidence to support this claim.
The Mighty Boosh – Smith identifies 9 elements of postmodern media which can be located in the Mighty Boosh . These features include an eclectic mix of conventions, influences and genre traits which makes it impossible to situate the product in any one style. The amount of intertextuality references and parody imitation of other media that the audience will recognise. Smith uses the term ‘bricolage’ to describe the remix of existing formulas, explaining how the show demands a more active audience response.
Ricky Gervais’s, The Office and Extras are postmodern for their self-reflective approach and the way they parody the convention of the genre. The office – situation comedy using docusoap conventions. Without our awareness of this genre the humour wouldn’t work (ordinary people behave in such ways).
Extras – the postmodern in the way that it deconstructs itself – a situation comedy about an extra who becomes a situation. The famous Christmas special, in which he rejects the vacuous trappings of celebrity from The Big Brother House, one of the best examples of Postmodern pastiche – made even more successful as it was achieved within the format of a highly successful format show itself – making it self – reflective, hypereal media. Also Gervais got celebrities to appear as themselves within the show. The audience is sometimes force to respond to a deliberate decontextualisation: wondering whether the celebrities are acting or playing themselves in the show.
Baudrillard offered a version of postmodernism, he states that ‘Thruth is what we should rid ourselves of...’
His most controversial claim was that the gulf war never happened. Or rather, that it, and 9/11 can only be understood as media events. As we recall the footage seen on TV, which has been edited, replayed, mixed with commentary etc. So their experience was electronic and hyperrealised the real.
The film Blade runner can be viewed as postmodern in its style, reception and subject matter. StYLE – The city depicted is Los Angeles in the future, which in itself is a pastiche of our ideas of the East, the West and future. Reception – The Los Angeles of Blade runner has been discussed as a vision of the postmodern city – huge advertising images promoting an off world colony and the idea that everyone has fled the ‘real world’ for a more active virtual equivalent.
Subject matter – A dying replicant in the final scene delivers the line, ‘all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain’, and (like in many postmodern film) we look at the way in which the ‘modern’ world is constructed through a set of binary oppositions – truth/lies, reality/fiction, human/machine, life/death etc.
Michael Winterbottoms films e.g. ‘A cock and bull story’, ‘24 hour party people’ and ‘The road to Guantanamo’, all share an interest in blurring the boundaries between real events and fiction, which is a defining principle of postmodernism. In ’24 hour party people’, Winterbottom to some extent mocks postmodernism, by having characters so explicitly discussing to the camera the film he is appearing in. Although this approach is also in keeping with postmodernism with its disregard for realist conventions and the playful approach to the construction of the text itself.
The Coen brothers are also filmmakers labelled postmodern, creating a body of work that consistently demonstrates postmodern techniques. They are famous for their view on the importance of intertextuality, which is demonstrated in many of their films, ‘Fargo’, ‘The big Lebouski’, ‘Miller’s Crossing’ and many more.
In ‘Fargo’, perhaps the most obvious postmodern element is that new characters are often seen watching TV shows. Also the film claims to be a representation of a true story however there is no evidence to support this claim.
The Mighty Boosh – Smith identifies 9 elements of postmodern media which can be located in the Mighty Boosh . These features include an eclectic mix of conventions, influences and genre traits which makes it impossible to situate the product in any one style. The amount of intertextuality references and parody imitation of other media that the audience will recognise. Smith uses the term ‘bricolage’ to describe the remix of existing formulas, explaining how the show demands a more active audience response.
Ricky Gervais’s, The Office and Extras are postmodern for their self-reflective approach and the way they parody the convention of the genre. The office – situation comedy using docusoap conventions. Without our awareness of this genre the humour wouldn’t work (ordinary people behave in such ways).
Extras – the postmodern in the way that it deconstructs itself – a situation comedy about an extra who becomes a situation. The famous Christmas special, in which he rejects the vacuous trappings of celebrity from The Big Brother House, one of the best examples of Postmodern pastiche – made even more successful as it was achieved within the format of a highly successful format show itself – making it self – reflective, hypereal media. Also Gervais got celebrities to appear as themselves within the show. The audience is sometimes force to respond to a deliberate decontextualisation: wondering whether the celebrities are acting or playing themselves in the show.
Wednesday 2 December 2009
Tuesday 24 November 2009
Postmodernism!
Class notes on postmodernism:-
- A rejection
- Death of the author
- Breaking of the 4th wall
- Difference from the norm
- self referential
P A I N P I P E S
P layfulness - doesn't take scenes seriously.
A esthetics - The way they look. Looking similar to or different to other productions.
I ntertextual - Reference other texts to enable meaning to be made to the audience.
N ihilistic - Rejection of established laws and institutions.
P arody - A text that mocks another text to create humour.
I rony - Presenting something in a different way to how it appears on the surface.
P astiche - Imitating the style of another text. (E.g. Leone camera shot)
E clectism - Convergence of contrasting genres.
S elf-referential - Reference to themselves.
Hyperreality - When you can no longer distinguish between reality and fantasy. (The Matrix - Bullet time).
Postmodernism - Lack of values.
Michael Winterbottom - 'A mighty heart'
Coen Brothers - 'Intolerable Cruelty'
Moral panics
Processual model-
Emergence- when a form of behaviour comes to be perceived as a threat.
Media inventory- an explanation of the threat articulated primarily through the media (strategies include exaggeration/ distortion, prediction and symbolization).
Moral entrepreneurs- groups or organisations speaking out on the nature of the problem and solutions.
Experts- socially accredited experts who pronounce their diagnoses and solutions.
Coping and resolution- reaction of the media, moral entrepreneurs and experts contain ideas about the required measures. If current legal powers are insufficient demands for legal reform will follow.
Fading away- the condition disappears, submerges, or deteriorates and becomes more visible.
Legacy- a moral panic may have little long term lasting effect, or may produce big changes in, for example, social policy, the law or society's view of itself.
The Attributional model-
Concern- a heightened level of concern manifesting itself in measurable ways such as opinion polls, public commentary in the form of media attention, proposed legislation, social movement activity etc.
Hostility- increased level of hostility toward the group or category. Members are collectively designated as the enemy of respectable society and their behaviour seen as harmful or threatening to the values, interests, and even existence of society or at least a sizeable proportion of society. These groups (called 'folk devils' by Stan Cohen in his study Folk Devils and Moral Panics 1973) are constructed through a process of stereotyping and are essential to a moral panic.
Consensus- a substantial segment of the public must see the threat as real, serious and caused by the wrongdoing group members.
Disproportionality- where public concern is in excess of what is appropriate if concern where proportionate to objective harm.
Volatility- the idea that moral panics are volatile by nature, erupting quickly and often subsiding just as quickly. A moral panic might build on previous ones, but each episode cannot be sustained for long.
Emergence- when a form of behaviour comes to be perceived as a threat.
Media inventory- an explanation of the threat articulated primarily through the media (strategies include exaggeration/ distortion, prediction and symbolization).
Moral entrepreneurs- groups or organisations speaking out on the nature of the problem and solutions.
Experts- socially accredited experts who pronounce their diagnoses and solutions.
Coping and resolution- reaction of the media, moral entrepreneurs and experts contain ideas about the required measures. If current legal powers are insufficient demands for legal reform will follow.
Fading away- the condition disappears, submerges, or deteriorates and becomes more visible.
Legacy- a moral panic may have little long term lasting effect, or may produce big changes in, for example, social policy, the law or society's view of itself.
The Attributional model-
Concern- a heightened level of concern manifesting itself in measurable ways such as opinion polls, public commentary in the form of media attention, proposed legislation, social movement activity etc.
Hostility- increased level of hostility toward the group or category. Members are collectively designated as the enemy of respectable society and their behaviour seen as harmful or threatening to the values, interests, and even existence of society or at least a sizeable proportion of society. These groups (called 'folk devils' by Stan Cohen in his study Folk Devils and Moral Panics 1973) are constructed through a process of stereotyping and are essential to a moral panic.
Consensus- a substantial segment of the public must see the threat as real, serious and caused by the wrongdoing group members.
Disproportionality- where public concern is in excess of what is appropriate if concern where proportionate to objective harm.
Volatility- the idea that moral panics are volatile by nature, erupting quickly and often subsiding just as quickly. A moral panic might build on previous ones, but each episode cannot be sustained for long.
Monday 5 October 2009
The boat that rocked - Richard Curtis case study
1) Who are the target audience for the film and how do you know? The target audience for this film would be mainly adults, both male and female. The humour in the film may attract a younger/ teen audience but the plot would mainly attract adults as they would understand it more.
I don’t think there is a specific audience for the film ‘The boat that rocked’. The humour in the film can be aimed at a wide audience. However I think the main target audience would be those who remember and lived through the times of the pirate radios like ‘Radio rock’. The first offshore radio station was broadcasted in 1964. Those who were around then would remember pirate radios and the events that followed. These individuals may find the film more interesting than others, although others learn the story of pirate radios (although its not represented in the exact way it occurred) and find it interesting.
2) How does the film rely on stereotypes?
There are many stereotypes within the film. The main stereotypes being the ‘pirates’, being portrayed as frequent drug and alcohol abusers and defiant to the laws surrounding radio stations. Others that are stereotyped are the government officials who all walk around in suits giving out orders. Those who make the law and those who break the law are stereotyped in a specific way. The way these characters are portrayed however makes the audience vote in favour of those who disobey the law opposed to those who are creating the law.
3) Explain the film making process from concept to culmination in 150 words or less
(will do this question but cant remember how to get onto the PowerPoint thing on our documents???).
I don’t think there is a specific audience for the film ‘The boat that rocked’. The humour in the film can be aimed at a wide audience. However I think the main target audience would be those who remember and lived through the times of the pirate radios like ‘Radio rock’. The first offshore radio station was broadcasted in 1964. Those who were around then would remember pirate radios and the events that followed. These individuals may find the film more interesting than others, although others learn the story of pirate radios (although its not represented in the exact way it occurred) and find it interesting.
2) How does the film rely on stereotypes?
There are many stereotypes within the film. The main stereotypes being the ‘pirates’, being portrayed as frequent drug and alcohol abusers and defiant to the laws surrounding radio stations. Others that are stereotyped are the government officials who all walk around in suits giving out orders. Those who make the law and those who break the law are stereotyped in a specific way. The way these characters are portrayed however makes the audience vote in favour of those who disobey the law opposed to those who are creating the law.
3) Explain the film making process from concept to culmination in 150 words or less
(will do this question but cant remember how to get onto the PowerPoint thing on our documents???).
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