Dog Vader

Volkswagon's clever variation on a recent advertising campaign featuring the Imperial March from  Star Wars theme. Definitely post modern!

The Death of Postmodernism and Beyond

Arguments Against Postmodernism

 Dr. Alan Kirby argues that postmodernism is no longer relevant;  he present an argument that "pseudo modernism" makes more sense for people born since 1980 than postmodernism. To understand what he means by pseudo modernism you will need to read Kirby's article from 2006.
http://www.philosophynow.org/issue58/The_Death_of_Postmodernism_And_Beyond

Is "Desperate Scousewives" and its genre the choicest post modern TV of our age?

Desperate Scousewives' Amanda Harrington, et al

It's derivative, vacuous, and often unintentionally funny - possibly the TV series and genre of choice for students studying post modern TV in its latest post modern form.


Desperate Scousewives is positioned somewhere between soap opera and documentary; this TV series' "scripted reality" follows the same popular, hybrid genre as "The Only Way Is Essex" and "Made In Chelsea." The show's representation of  monied "reality" relies on this new format although it is filmed in the "real" city of Liverpool in locations instantly recognised by Liverpudlians. Alan Kirby's "digimodernism"  and the notion of the intersection of "time" and "space" is at work here: its "space" is recognisably Liverpool and it is edited as if it is in "real" time.


Have fun spotting its post modern features, including the playful irony of its derivative title, where unlike its US namesake, none of the female characters are even married! The programme's fakeness in its representation of reality is richly evident. its "constructedness" is ever-present: its stilted, self-conscious dialogue is amusing because it is so prefabricated;  every aspect of its "characters'" appearance, right down to its female players' eyelashes is false. The show's women look, and behave, like Barbi Dolls. Stereotyping between the sexes is extreme: the men "really" are from Mars and the women seemingly from Venus. Their "characters" are as stereotypical as those who used to feature in Striker, a comic strip on a promiscuous footballer from a well-known tabloid newspaper.

Striker used to feature in The Sun

Even though its scripted reality is unavoidably stilted the programme's best scenes take place when its "characters" vent "real" emotions; their dialogue suddenly seems spontaneous and spoken by "real people." Ironically, this then becomes what drama should be - a heightened representation of real life. In a recent episode a conversation between two married, gay characters about one of them adopting children while the other was not yet ready for it, seemed "real" as the felt truly emotional. But can these "real people", forget, even in their most emotional outbursts, that several cameras are recording their most intimate feelings which will later be edited for the pleasure of countless "voyeurs" on TV?


Audience reactions to the show have been strong and therefore interesting. Liverpudlians are often frightened that "it will make a show of them" rather like the stereotypes generated by Harry Enfield. Online many say that they are disgusted that "such rubbish" is broadcast and cannot make sense of the show, or think it doesn't compare with shows in this genre they have already watched.  But many of these would still watch its next episodes! While the Guardian's Euan Ferguson  thought "Desperate Scousewives was so bad it was brilliant" and added, "I think this will be the finest of the formats so far – I'm already hooked."


This was one viewer's reaction who must have a connection with Liverpool:
"EMBARRASSMENT TO LIVERPOOL These idiots DO NOT represent Liverpool. This is absolutely disgusting and should be axed before it is aired. Why do they always find the scummiest people to be on these ridiculous shows? There is no representation of real life. I'm sick of Liverpool getting bashed just because of the scum they drag out to be on television."







As for me, I saw most of an episode and realised it potential as a pomo "text" straightaway!


It seems the show has already created a new fashion trend in Britain - Scouse brows!
http://britrish.com/tag/desperate-scousewives/


I'll post a chart soon to make it easier to compare the modern with the post modern. Remember, however, that post modern TV, films, adverts, etc. have evolved in their forms and features since post modernism began to take hold from the early 1980s. It would be a serious error to see post modernism in a static manner, as the ways of representing versions of "reality" in a world changed by digital technology is itself always changing.

http://www.e4.com/scousewives/

Has Post Modernism Been Killed by The Web?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/sep/15/postmodernism-cutting-edge-to-museum

A taste:

"This is the essence of postmodernism: the idea that there is no essence, that we're moving through a world of signs and wonders, where everything has been done before and is just lying around as cultural wreckage, waiting to be reused, combined in new and unusual ways. Nothing is direct, nothing is new. Everything is already mediated. The real, whatever that might be, is unavailable. It's an exhilarating world, but uncanny too. You look around at your beautiful house and your beautiful wife and you ask yourself, like the narrator of the Talking Heads song: 'Well, how did I get here?" After that, it's only a short step to deciding that this is not your beautiful house and your beautiful wife at all. The world of signs is fast, liquid, delirious, disposable. Clever people approach it with scepticism. Sincerity is out. Irony is in. And style. If modernism was about substance, about serious design solving serious problems, postmodernism was all manner and swagger and stance."

Modernism Verses Postmodernism

The site below is great for understanding the differences between modernism and postmodernism and for identifying these differences in texts. This is just what students need to be able to argue for and against postmodernism. I've noticed that in "True Blood" modernist attitudes and feelings coexist with postmodern ones. In fact the modernists in "True Blood" are pretty extreme. For instance the Reverend Newland and his fundamentalist church in the first few episodes of season 1. Sookie and her Grandma are at the other extreme, in the live and let live category.

http://nmc.loyola.edu/intro/postmod/table.htm#

True Blood - The Making of the Opening Credits

Modernism and Postmodernism compared - reposting link

This is a great page on postmodernism as it is defined and compared. Scroll down for the chart where modernism and postmodernism is compared.
http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/pomo.html

The Road To Coronation Street - Updated Resource for G325 post modern media: television drama

I've updated the study resources in this link for G325 Post Modern Media: TV Drama. The whole of The Road To Coronation Street is now there alongside the original scene from the Coronation Street's first episode from 1960 in which Elsie Tanner (played by Pat Pheonix) challenges her son, Dennis, over two shillings missing from her purse. The scene is  pastiched in The Road To Coronation Street where Pat Phoenix is auditioned for the role of Elsie Tanner by production staff from Granada Television.

The Road To Coronation Street Study Resources

Argument against postmodernism

The link to this post.
http://asanda2mediastudies.blogspot.com/2011/01/arguments-against-post-modernism.html

Arguments against post modernism

A really good study guide. It has everything you need about this topic! Scroll down to find arguments against. Some of its films suggested for study are somewhat dated. You should focus on modern films for your examples such as "Inception", "Kickass", etc.
http://media.edusites.co.uk/files/Postmodern_Media.pdf  .
Postmodernism: What is it and what is wrong with It?   http://goinside.com/01/1/postmod.html
http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/cultures/cultures.php  (Scroll down arguments against postmodernism)

Interesting points, clearly argued, for and against, here:
http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/postmodernism.htm

Patrick West accepts that post modernism exists. He cannot bring himself to accept the abstract advertising in The Cadbury's Gorilla:
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/4088/

http://asanda2mediastudies.blogspot.com/2009/11/arguments-against-jean-francis-lyotards.html

"Kick Ass" reviews which discuss its POMO features

A great discussion on the British Film Industry in this last video.

.filmcritic.com/reviews/2010/kick-ass/

http://scifimafia.com/2010/04/kick-ass-is-matthew-vaughns-post-modern-love-letter-to-superhero-movies/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/26/kick-ass-comics-film-adaptations - Very useful for postmodernism.

Phillip French guardian.co.uk/film/2010/apr/04/kickass-film-review  He thinks it's "ersatz".

Peter Bradshaw guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/31/kick-ass-review-film  Loves it but feels he "shouldn't."

blogcritics.org/video/article/movie-review-kick-ass1   Some interesting ideas
The Californian Literary Review  Balanced, with readers' comments added.

scifimafia.com/2010/04/kick-ass-is-matthew-vaughns-post-modern-love-letter-to-superhero-movies/

filmschoolrejects.com/features/culture-warrior-deconstruction-and-difference-in-kick-ass  Quite technical, theory-wise!

http://www.illinoistimes.com/Springfield/article-7203-kick-ass-is-only-half-right.  Good on parody

zoemedia.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/kick-ass

guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/apr/02/kick-ass-bad-language

Roger Ebert's scathing review  He does focus on the film as post modern, but as something dark and disturbing.

filmthreat.com/reviews   Another reviewer with mixed feelings about this film.

Is "The Road to Coronation Street" a post modern text?

In what ways is "The Road To Coronation Street"  postmodern? on Prezi

A comedian's view of postmodernism

Postmodernists reject any notion of grand "truth",  such as say belief in God or the narratives associated with God. Similarly,  the idea or narrative that science is going to improve our lives is rejected also. Indeed any grand narratives are held suspect. For postmodernists "truth", if it exists at all, is all relative and may only be found in little stories or micro narratives and experiences of ordinary people and those living on society's fringe. No one religion has the answer as each faith group has its own beliefs - and "may" have some "truth" on its side. The main French theorist who advances this idea is Jean-Francois Lyotard (1924-1998).

Of course, you do not need to believe in any of this, as this comedian makes clear. And in any case, to argue that there can be no "truth" is somewhat contradictory as one is trying to advance a grand "truth" that there is no "truth"!

Revision for the post modern media

                 Don Draper's "Carousel" pitch to Kodak on "The Wheel".

This is the chief examiner's advice on how to write an an exam answer. It's for "Media In The Online Age" but the approach is transferable. Note also his advice for question 1b for the five areas. 
http://petesmediablog.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-to-do-exam-answer.html

• Audience

• Narrative

• Genre

• Representation

• Media Language

Most of you did this in class, but there were a few absences. It is certainly easier to argue that the texts you studied are post modern rather than being not. However you still need to be aware of counter arguments: it has all been done before and the arguments are not new - Plato's "Allegory of the cave" (see the earlier post) and arguments from other websites on this page: http://asanda2mediastudies.blogspot.com/2009/10/arguments-for-and-against-post.html
 and on this one: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/4088/


What you need to revise to write about in the exam ( if you answer on post modern media )
Each of the four texts we studied in class lend themselves to being labelled "post modern" in different ways. Sometimes these ways overlap, sometimes, not. For revision you should use the key concept guides you have been given for key terms and your own notes and understanding to help you create a table which identifies four or five key, post modern features of each text. Then be able to ARGUE FOUR detailed examples from at least TWO selected areas in the exam.  Remember that you will only have to answer on two post modern media texts and not all four! 

You studied advertising, AMC's TV drama,  Rockstar Leeds's video game GTA IV and from film, Paramount's The Truman Show (1998)


As an alternative, Dave did "Contemporary Media Regulation" with you. The post modern media texts that you studied with me were:

• TV drama - AMC's Mad Men 2007-2009 (Mostly early episodes from the first series).
• Video games - focusing mainly on Grand Theft Auto IV
• Advertising - The Cadbury's Gorilla and Sony's TV adverts
• Film - The Truman Show (1998); some of you also worked on Fight Club and The Matrix (1999)

Go over the key concept glossaries that you have been given so you can identify the ways in which each text can be identified as post modern.  For instance, "Mad Men"'s  opening sequence has extensive intertextual references that provide plenty of post modern food for thought. Go over your notes on this and watch it again. Freeze frame it to make detailed notes. You should also use Check out You Tube for key clips from Series One: good ones are The Kodak scene in episode 12 on nostalgia and an earlier episode in which Don Draper takes identity tag from a dead officer in the Korean war - and later lives a new life as this man. The programme's non linear narrative is notable post modern feature. Historical events, attitudes and behaviour  are filtered through fictional characters for whom few people can have sympathy. See this post: http://asanda2mediastudies.blogspot.com/2009/10/post-modern-texts-their-themes-and.html


 Click on this link to see Jefferson Robbins' brief, but excellent video essay on the programme at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBhw9mul9II    It's great for how the programme blurs genre boundries between TV and the Cinema ( another post modern feature ) and for the show's 'visual grammar' and how historical and intertextual/filmic influences and references were assimilated into this TV drama.

Don and Betty Draper try out "Connie" Hilton's hotel in Rome (Series 3)

The programme has also been pastiched and parodied extensively on the Internet, examples of which can be found on You Tube. Consider also the motifs within the programme which are also post modern: the characters' names, i.e. Don and Betty Draper. Don has draped a new identify over his old one as Dick Whitman and Betty Draper once modeled clothes in Italy.  Identity is a key issue for post modern media. It could be argued that when we immerse ourselves in in the spaces found in video games we usually lose our identity and assume that of another. ( An avatar.) There again, when people immerse themselves on the hyperreal world of the Internet they also lose track of time and what we take as the "real world".


Go over all the post modern posts on this blog as you will get reminders and prompts from several posts on each area studied to help you with your arguments.


Don't forget to revise the main theorists and know how you can apply their arguments to the texts that you have studied! (Baudrillard and Lyotard) You might even look up Guy Debord as well as his ideas on "Spectacle" were very similar to Baudrillard's for simulacra.


Dave has sent you revision material by post for the five areas in which you could be expected evaluate your productions from AS and A2. You will find information for Todorov on this site.


This is a link to  generic questions for this part of the paper: http://asanda2mediastudies.blogspot.com/2009/10/mad-men-essay-questions.html


All the best for the exam

"Breaking Bad" - technological convergence and exchange

This is not a film yet the cinematography, editing, mise-en-scenes and great acting sets this exceptional TV series apart from every other. You could do worse than analyse scenes from this series from YouTube for TV drama. British TV drama is light years away from the quality offered by Breaking Bad. The programme is also one of the darkest, funniest, strangest and most humane programmes ever to air.


Here, you can see an example of EXCHANGE in which YouTube's contributor, Politely Homicidal, has edited together extracts from the programme and scored it with a song which features in one of the episodes. Of course, anyone (with the necessary editing skills) could do this by using digital technology in a laptop with decent editing software, and then uploading the result through the Net in YouTube. This is one of the great upsides of technological convergence. Ironically, the song is very significant for Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling high school chemistry teacher with many family issues because White turns to cooking crystal meths after he is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. The song is by Mick Harvey and its called, "Out of Time Man".



Here's a good example from the series:


And another, although this one plays around with the part after the explosion:

"The Cult of Sincerity" - Postmodernism and Sincerity

Is it possible to live our lives without being ironic, sarcastic and . . . postmodern? A character in this offbeat comedy aims to find the most sincere message he can produce on a T-shirt. The film seems to have slipped under the radar of most reviewers in the media because if was the first film to be fully premiered and distributed on YouTube before being pulled to be distributed as a three dollar download. It's now also available as VOD (Video On Demand) from Amazon.

Here's three interesting scenes. All of them are about how none of us can escape being postmodern and the main character's uphill struggle against the irony, sarcasm and relativism of our postmodern age.

Reality and Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

The film is an old one, but Plato's theory of forms is presented by Orson Welles in one of the clearest ways available on the Net. The video is particularly useful for discussions on postmodernism, advertising, reality, truth, pastiche, Jean Baudrillard's simulacra, or films such as The Truman Show , The Matrix, etc.

Cadbury's Gorilla 2007

Taken with the adverts that it influenced what is post modern about this TV advert?

It was created by Argentine-born, Fallon Advertising's creative director Juan Cabral, who had created the immensely successful Balls and Paint spots for Sony's BRAVIA line of high-definition television sets, wrote and directed the piece, acting as creative director, art director, copywriter and director.

Read this article in which the writer critises this advert and post modern adverts like it. Make a note of some of his arguments. Do you agree or disagree with them?

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/4088/

And now, the pastiche or "remix" using the same gorilla?



And the parody?

More information:
Articles on the advert
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla_(advert)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/dec/11/cadburyschweppesbusiness.advertising

Arguments for and against Postmodernism

Here are a few links to articles which consider the pros and cons of the theories and arguments of post modernism.

POSTMODERNISM AND ITS CRITICS

This is very helpful, particularly with arguments against post modernism

http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/Faculty/murphy/436/pomo.htm

Post Modernism: what is it? And what is wrong with it?

http://goinside.com/01/1/postmod.html