Postmodernism

List of Postmodern music videos for analysis

• Sia- Elastic Heart
• Sia- Chandelier
• Justin Bieber- What do you mean?
• Yung Lean- Hurt

                   List of Postmodern Films for analysis

• Monty Python and the Holy Grail
• Taxi Driver
• Blade runner
• Pulp Fiction
• Fight club

List of Postmodern Videogames for analysis

• Grand theft auto V
• Bioshock infinite
• Call of Duty: Modern warfare

List of Postmodern TV for analysis

• Family Guy
• GoggleBox
• South Box
• Arrested Development
• Breaking Bad

https://soundcloud.com/jack-herbert-386124469/postmodernsdfsfds

Lady Gaga- Paparazzi. Directed by Jonas Akerlamnd

Lady Gaga has quickly become one of the most successful female artist winning multiple awards for her recognisable uniqueness. Before rising to fame for her performances and music videos; Lady Gaga was signed to the record label Interscope and was imidiately appointed to write songs for artists such as the Pussycat Dolls, Fergie and Britney Spears. Lady Gaga's up tempo dance song 'Paparazzi' was the last song to be released off her debut successful album 'The Fame'. The song is written by Lady Gaga as she expresses her struggles with her quest to fame. Post Modernism has become very common in music videos. 

Lady Gaga’s- Paparazzi, uses many characteristics of post modernism such as; pastiche, homage and blurring of the boundaries. In this Textual analysis I will give evidence of this. The music video opens without music, which is unconventional as it a music video. Also at the beginning of the music video there are title credits stating the performer (lady Gaga) and the director (Jonas Akerland). The typography of the title credits is a pastiche/homage of classic Hollywood movies. Some of the early opening shots a establishing as they set the scene for the music video. The shots are of a house in Los Angles- Sunset Bulavard. 

This is an example of intertextuality In the following scene after Lady Gaga has been pushed off a balcony, the image swiftly changes to her falling with a background of swirling of white and black circles. This is a pastiche/homage of Alfred Hitchcock’s film Vertigo. Lady Gaga respectfully imitates the artistic work of Alfred Hitchcock. When the music begins Lady arrives outside if the mansion, where she is pushed down a purple carpet in a wheel chair; subverting the stereotypes of a purple carpet. Although the music video subverts conventions of music videos, the video also confirms some conventions such as dancers/performers, which is also typical in many of Lady Gaga’s other music videos. As she arrives Gaga is dressed in a robot like costume. This is an example pastiche/homage as the metallic outfit is a reference to the film 'Metropolis'. This is known as blurring of the boundaries between humans and robots. 

They are also known as binary opposites. Later on in the video we see Lady Gaga in a costume that we typically find unconventional but it is a part of Lady Gaga’s unique image. The costume has many features of the Disney character Minnie mouse. Gaga’s costume is yellow with black dots, which symbolises the face of Minnie mouse. She also wears black lipstick that represents Minnie mouse. This is an example of intertextuality representing popular culture, making it recognisable to Gaga’s audience. In the final scenes of the music video Lady Gaga is arrested after confessing to the murder of her boyfriend. 

As the police takes her away the paparazzi crowd her trying to get a statement from her and constantly taking her picture. Here another key element of post modernism is used as boundaries between fiction and reality are blurred. The fiction being Lady Gaga being arrested for murder, and realty, her being photographed by the paparazzi. The music video for paparazzi is also a prequel for a later song Telephone by Lady Gaga featuring Beyonce.

 In conclusion Lady Gaga’s paparazzi posses many features of a postmodern music video. This helps to make her video unique and memorable. It also helps Lady Gaga to form her unique image, which she frequently shows in her work. She also makes reference to her idols or artists that have influenced her work and music.

Postmodernism

Post Modernism – The theory Postmodernists claim that in a media-saturated world, where we are constantly immersed in media, 24/7, on the move, at work, at home, the distinction between reality and the media representation of it becomes blurred or even entirely invisible to us. We have come to the stage where we are copying copies and reality and identity is becoming blurred. In other words, we no longer have any sense of the difference between real things and images of them. The theory suggests everything now has been made and all we can now do to find glimpses of originality is to mix two old things together. Post modernism is also blurring the object to time identity.50’s 60’s The present 70’s.

Post Modernism representation of reality Now that reality is only definable in terms of the reflections of that mirror. It is no longer a question of distortion since the term implies that there is a reality, outside the surface simulations of the media, which can be distorted, Now we are copying copies and representing hyper reality as reality and thus being influenced by a fake reality, the actual reality seems to have been lost, so what is reality now?‘Pure’ reality is thus replaced by the hyperreal where any boundary between the real and the imaginary is eroded. What we see on television, we see as the real and thus copy it within our lives, so the real is being lost unconsciously. This influenced the film the Matrix.

Types:

Intertextuality

Is the relationship which are forged between different texts. This could be classified simplistically as a texts influence. The concept of intertextuality reminds us that each text exists in relation to others. In fact, texts owe more to other texts than to their own makers. A television program, for instance, may be part of a series and part of a genre, thus some of the text is already created before it begins. 

Texts provide contexts within which other texts may be created and interpreted. @Youtube How does Stellar add value to their product?

Post Modernism is helping us deconstruct texts• In order to make sense of the Absolut Vodka advertisement you need to know what to look for. Such expectations are established by reference to ones previous experience in looking at similar advertisements. Once we know that we are looking for the shape of the bottle, it is easier to perceive it. Modern visual advertisements make extensive use of intertextuality in this way. Sometimes there is no direct reference to the product at all. Instant identification of the appropriate interpretative codes serves to identify the interpreter of the advertisement as a member of an exclusive club, with each act of interpretation serving to renew ones membership.

 Parody/Pastiche

Parodies are not media in themselves but copying copies like "scary movie", they imitate a particular style of a director, writer, artist or genre with deliberate exaggerations of comedy.

Hybridity 

(the mixing and sampling of different kinds and levels - of hip hop music, of material in television ads, films, etc.). Hybrid forms are said to level hierarchies of taste. It is said that all distinctions between high culture and popular culture, have gone, or become blurred. Postmodern texts 'raid the image bank' which is so richly available through video and computer technologies, recycle some old movies and shows on television, the Internet etc. Music, film and TV provide excellent examples of these processes.

Bricolage 

This is used to refer to the process of adaptation or improvisation where aspects of one style are given quite different meanings when compared with stylistic features from another. Youth subcultural groups such as punks, with their bondage gear and use of swastikas were eclectic as they took clothes associated with different class positions or work functions and converted them into fashion statements 'empty' of their original meanings. A more recent, feminised example would be the combination of Doc Martens and summer dresses worn by girls.

 Simulation 

The blurring of real and ‘simulated’, especially in film and reality TV or celebrity magazines. Simulation or hyperreality refers to not only the increasing use of CGI in films like The Lord of the Rings films and Avatar, but also in the use of documentary style in fiction such as In This World or in the narrative enigmas of science fiction such as The Matrix or Blade Runner.

'Is it human or artificial’?

Disjointed Narrative Structures 

These are said to mimic the uncertainties and relativism of postmodernity in films like Pulp Fiction as contemporary narratives often won’t guarantee identifications with characters, or the 'happy ending' or meta narratives like the Defeat of the Enemy, which have traditionally been achieved at the end of films. They often manage only a play with multiple, or heavily ironic, perhaps 'unfinished' or even parodic endings, Similar to Memento and Fight Club . Narratives can also be disjointed in time and space – see modern / retro films like Blade Runner.

 Blurring of boundaries

It's easy to spot how boundaries between 'high' and 'low' culture have been eroded. This idea is alluring because of the democratic implications - there's no such thing as bad taste; you can enjoy, consume, shop for what you like - all class hierarchies have disappeared. However, paradoxically, for there to be any thrill in transgressing boundaries, like those between 'high' and 'low' forms in Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet or Shakespeare in Love (1998), those boundaries need still to have some meaning — and indeed they do, if you think of the huge industry still associated with the status and name of Shakespeare and his continuing cultural importance. 

1. Postmodern media rejects the idea that any media product or text is of any greater value than another. All judgements of value are merely taste – a state of relativism.

 2. The distinction between media and reality has collapsed, and we now live in a world defined by images and representations - a state of simulated or hyperreality. 

3. All ideas of ‘the truth’ are just competing claims - or discourses - and what we believe to be the truth at any point is merely the 'winning' discourse.