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.