Postmoderism Essay

Define postmodern media, with examples.

In order to attempt to define/identify what postmodern media is, one must first understand the origin of postmodernism. Its predecessor was Modernism; this era existed dominantly during the late 19^th and early 20^th century and can still be seen existent in society today. Modernism is a movement, which moves “towards modifying traditional beliefs in accordance with modern ideas”. Shortly after World War 2 is the time period where many theorists believe that postmodernism originated. Postmodernism became the product of a historical period whereby information technology became dominant in society. Postmodern media rejects the ideas, conventions and “truths” of modern media by opposing the idea of Grand Narratives. Which are totalizing forms, such as religion, science and war that have been used by many to understand the world we live in. Postmodern media defies definition and thus, cannot be attributed to one strict sentence of definition. However in order to help define the term postmodern media, I can group together texts in the form of films, music and television shows, that can be considered postmodern media texts, such as Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds and Musical artists from across the Hip/Hop genre. These media texts all contain similar elements, such as hyper-reality, simulacrums and bricolage. These aspects are what enable us to label, for example, a film as a postmodern text. These elements can be used as homage, pastiche or parody to evoke audience emotion, to carry fourth important ideas in to media texts, or to pointlessly/importantly offer a platform for self-reference/self-reflexivity.

An example of postmodern media is a film by Quentin Tarantino called Inglorious Basterds. This film is a fictional representation of WW2. In Nazi-occupied France, young Jewish refugee Shosanna Dreyfus witnesses the slaughter of her family by Colonel Hans Landa. Narrowly escaping with her life, she plots her revenge several years later when German war hero Fredrick Zoller takes a rapid interest in her and arranges an illustrious movie premiere at the theatre she now runs. With the promise of every major Nazi officer in attendance, the event catches the attention of the "Basterds", a group of Jewish-American guerrilla soldiers led by the ruthless Lt. Aldo Raine. As the relentless executioners advance and the conspiring young girl's plans are set in motion, their paths will cross for a fateful evening that will shake the very annals of history.

One element that enables this film to be classed as postmodern is Tarantino’s use of self and intertextual references. An example of this is when introducing the first scene and chapter of the film; Tarantino uses the text "Once Upon a Time... In Nazi-Occupied France.” This is a traditional opening to a fairy tail. Tarantino uses this to immediately outline to the audience that this film is going to be a fictional narrative, and not a traditional “factual” based war film. Another intertextual reference within the first scene of the film is one to “The Sound of Music”. The setting in the hills and the mise en scene of the opening scene has clear comparisons to the 1965 cult classic’s opening scene. Here Tarantino uses this simply as homage to the film. This is the start of a film where Tarantino has a lot of fun with self/inter-textual references.

Both of these references are self-reflexive, in the fact that Tarantino uses them to immediately let the audience know that this film is not intended to be realistic or historically accurate. But instead is trying to create a statement about existing war films and their historical inaccuracies, which I shall discuss further on in this essay. The interpretations of such intertextual references are reliant upon the audience’s cultural capital (a body of knowledge) of the topic. So, such references will only be noted by the more intellectual viewer, which have a high level of cultural capital and understand the semiotic landscapes and codes of Tarantino’s work. This is an example of a theory by Jacques Derrida, a postmodern critic, whereby he believes that Postmoderism requires a highly literate audience, or else references like the ones Tarantino includes in Inglorious Basterds can be either mis-interpreted or missed entirely. Furthermore, a suspension of disbelief from the audience is necessary to watch this film. What I mean by this is that the audience accepts the story and events within the film regardless of them being historically inaccurate and sometimes farfetched. This can be related to Bahktin’s Carnivalesque theory. Whereby he states that the normality’s of behaviour and the socio-cultural hierarchy of existence are suspended during the carnival, or in this case the film (Inglorious Basterds).

The second storyline of the Basterds, a bunch of American-Jewish Nazi killers, and in particular the second chapter “Inglorious Basterds”, takes its inspiration from the Robert Aldrich 1967 war movie, a self reference to, “The Dirty Dozen”. This is a further Homage to the film, which Tarantino is clearly a big fan of. In chapter 3, “German night In Paris” The American actor Samuel L. Jackson narrates the scene. This is an intertextual reference. Tarantino has Samuel L. Jackson starring in some way in almost every single one of his films; this is homage to Samuel L. Jackson. And also this gives members of the audience with notable cultural capital and knowledge of Tarantino’s film the quiet nod, Tarantino uses this reference as a way of interacting with his cult fans. Also S L. Jackson is used as the narrator in order to create an ironic statement. Here Tarantino has a black, overly American voice giving commentary to a film set in WW2 France, this creates controversy and irony, again the audience’s recognition of this reference will defend of their cultural capital.

During Chapter 4 “Operation Kino”, In a Tavern basement in a small French village, British soldier Lieutenant Archie Hicox blows his cover whilst conversing with a German officer. And a Mexican stand off occurs between himself, the German officer and a fellow Basterd. This is a reference to Spaghetti Western films, Tarantino Is paying Homage to this genre, as it is a personal favourite of his. Here he uses Bricolage, by placing a Mexican stand off out of context of its origional genre, a Spaghetti western film, and placing it in a WW2 film. Due to Tarantino’s combination of genre’s the text is given a new meaning. Again The interpretation of such intertextual references rely upon cultural capital (a body of knowledge) of the topic, so they would only be picked up by the more intellectual viewer that has a high cultural capital and understands the semiotic landscapes and codes of Tarantino’s work.

In Chapter 5 “Revenge of the Giant Face” Tarantino further uses bricolage by playing David Bowie - 'Cat People' whilst Shosanna Dreyfus puts on her 'war paint' in preparation for her revenge. This places a song from the 1980’s, in to an era before it’s time, a war film set in the 1940’s. The lyrics sound “Putting out the Fire” this is ironic as she is about to burn down the cinema. In an interview with Billboard, he’s quoted to say that he literally looked through his record collection to find which songs he would use in Inglorious Basterds and could envision this song being used. Tarantino further challenges traditional war film convention here, by including a song from the 80’s era in a WW2 film. 

The shoe sequence between Hans Landa and Hammersmark is taken from Cinderella; this is also a reference to Tarantino’s ‘foot fetish’. Here he references a low culture text in the supposedly high culture context of WW2. Such a reference is an example of opposing Critical theorist of postmodernism called Frederick Jameson. He critiques the breakdown between high and low culture in postmodern society. Here Tarantino who is a postmodernist is saying that all spectrums of culture whether that be high or low, can be viewed equally.

Tarantino takes the grand historical narrative of WW2 and Hitler, dresses him in a cape and tells his death in a cinema. He uses low Culture references such as that to spaghetti westerns, Fairy tales and Blaxploitation films along with the distortion of historical truths, to reject the Grand Narratives and “truths” of traditional war films and to highlight falsehoods of existing/traditional war films. He makes the point that If in traditional war films, you can see people getting shot to pieces with minimal bleeding and sound from guns, and If there can be people jumping out of cars and getting up and walking off, and If films like Pearl Harbour convey that America won the war. Then I (Tarantino) can fill Inglorious Basterds with intertextual and low culture references, twist historical facts and truths and what makes that any less realistic than all of the existing traditional war films. Tarantino does include many ‘realistic’ aspects such as the use of German and French dialogue rather than English. This correlates with a postmodernists viewpoint that they reject the idea of high and low culture references and view everything as equal and even.

This is Critiqued by Jameson, an anti-Postmodernist theorist, a modernist that claims that postmodern media and postmodernism is completely depthless. Jameson would argue that Inglorious Basterds would be depthless, that it has no Grand Narrative and references a load of low culture media meaning that there are no truths and morals projected by the film, as that the surface of what you can see is depthless. In some cases he is right, for example some of the random references Tarantino includes. However Tarantino also uses postmodern conventions and references to question a deeper thought, the authenticity of traditional war films. This is not depthless. Thus making Jameson’s theory paradoxical, as he states that all PoMo is depthless, however in the example of Inglorious Basterds sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t.

Postmodern media is not limited only to the realm of films, but also musical artists can be considered postmodern. An example of this would be Hip/Hop & Rap artist “Drake”. One-way Drake can be seen as a postmodern artist is by his use of intertextual/self references and sampling. His song called “Marvin’s Room” Is a reference to Marvin Gaye, and he even recorded that track in Gaye’s old studio. This is Drake showing homage towards one of his role models and an artist that has massively influenced his current musical direction. Also Drake’s most recent album “Nothing Was The Same” has a number of references and samples of Hip/Hop pioneers Wu-Tang Clan, his song “Pound Cake” samples almost word for word Wu-Tang’s 1993 classic “C.R.E.A.M”. This could be interpreted one of two ways, Drake is obviously paying Homage to Wu-Tang, but also it could be concluded that he pastiche’s them, by creating an inferior copy of the origional, which results in this song being controversial, which is a key theme throughout postmodern media.

Drake’s number one hit “Take Care” was a word-by-word copy of Gill-Scott Herons song “I’ll take care of you”. This is an example of a postmodernism theory from Kirby Ferguson, whereby he claims that ‘Everything is a remix’. He believes that nowadays, in order to produce something new: something is copied, transformed and combined. This can be applied to Drake’s Take Care song, as he copies the lyrics of Gill-Scott’s song transforms them to match a hip/hop beat and combines the vocals of pop artist Rihanna. This technique is prevalent predominantly in the hip/hop genre, and the Internet allows for the distribution of remixes and samples to the masses. This is also an example of bricolage, whereby Drake takes the song from the Soul/Jazz/Blues artist of Gill-Scott Heron, transforms this with rap lyrics and adds pop vocals from artist Rihanna. This is a further characteristic of postmodern media.

Another attribute that makes Drake a postmodern artist is his created persona. His real name is Aubrey Graham, he is Jewish, and he was raised in Canada in a relatively wealthy middle class family. However his created stage persona “Drake” reflects a much different image. He regularly raps about the struggle of growing up in rough neighborhoods (‘The Ghetto”) portrays the image that he is a “Gangsta” and refers to cities such as Memphis and Dallas as his ‘home’ despite never living there. This creates a hyper-reality, whereby even Drake’s own fans cannot distinguish between his real life and simulation. This can be related to Baudrillard’s hyper-reality and consumer culture theory whereby he states that due to us being constantly immersed media, we can no longer differentiate between reality and the simulation of it.  

In constantly evolving world, the boundaries and existence of postmodernity and postmodern texts are bound to change over time.

It may be argued that, due to the large number of texts that will be created, whether it be consciously or subconsciously, that everything thing will become a complete or part copy of something pre-existent. Henceforth, it may be that no matter how much supposed originality or creativity a producer puts in to making a text, due the volume of texts being/been created previously, In the words of theorist Kirby Ferguson “Everything will become a Remix”, and thus become Postmodern.