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 19th
and early 20th 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.