Huslte As A Postmodern Piece Of Text

Here i have filmed a piece of footage from Huslte.



Eddie

The Pacific is a ten part movie which is based on the events of the U.S Marine corps operations in the Pacific Ocean during World War Two, involving many of their conflicts with the Japanese military forces. The film was produced by Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzmanin association with HBO Films, Playtone, Dreamworks, and Seven Network.

Much of the films content is presented as a conventional War film with little to comment on in terms of post-modernity. There are however several significant factors in which I believe the film can be seen as postmodern.
Firstly the form of the film can be taken in to account. The Pacific is a ten part film which is being aired on sky movies premiere. This can be considered unusual considering stereotypically films nowadays are premiered on the big screen and are shown for a period of time before being brought out on DVD and then eventually getting a television premiere which normally comes last in the case of The Pacific it seems that This process has been thrown out of the window as it has gone straight to TV for several reasons the main one being you don’t really want to have to sit through eight hours of film in a cinema.

Most films nowadays average at about 2 hours in total playing time. By the end of the series The Pacific will have accumulated a run time of nearly eight and ah half hours this shows a cross over between media forms as The Pacific can be considered a film as well as a television series.
Another factor which could be considered post modern is that the start of every episode there are interviews with real marines which actually served in the war, the purpose of this is to give an overview about what the episode is going to be about intending to create an impression about how accurate the production is. During this opening sequence we also see actual archive footage from the marines operations during World War 2. Cross over between film and documentary?

Useful powerpoint presentation!

Here is a powerpoint presentation I came across on slideshare when researching how Second Life is postmodern, It talks about theorists quite a lot, which is really interesting! and also gives varied examples of PoMo texts...some we have looked at at some new ones (such as the Matrix) that will be useful to mention in the exam :)
I hope you find it useful!
Lorna

Postmodernism

View more presentations from anniapple.

Postmodernism checklist - not definitive!

Fragmented structure/non-linear narrative

Challenging of meta-narrative (Lyotard and Strinati)

Playing with time and space (Strinati)

Self-reflexivity

Emphasis of style over substance and context (Strinati)

Challenging cultural imperialism and mass production

Conventions of genre challenged/subverted

Breakdown of distinctions between high art and pop culture (Strinati)

Asks questions not giving answers, allowing audience interpretation

Juxtaposing old and new to make new meaning (bricolage)

Intertextuality

Multiplicity of meanings linked to audience interpretations

Post WW2-war being a catalyst for postmodernism

Parody and pastiche – creating something new through imitation, homage (tribute)

Web 2.0 and new technologies allowing people to become producers/celebrities outside traditional/mainstream methods

Instantaneity – accessibility now

Culture is no longer viewed as art mirroring life but a reality in itself (Strinati)

Experimentation with new forms – not necessarily the ‘glossy’ Hollywood approach

Meaning and purpose holds more significance than the skill involved in making it

Photoshop movement changing how we see reality

Cult of celebrity – celebrity obsessed society – style over substance

Truth is created and doesn’t exist in any objective sense

Text goes beyond what it is and comments on society

No single definition – open to interpretation – concept crosses art, media, literature, architecture, music, society

States of hyper reality (Baudrillard and simulacra)

YouTube as a Postmodern Text

You Tube As A Postmodern Text

Researched and created by Adam Goss.

Social Networking Sites as Postmodern Texts

Social Networking Sites As Postmodern Texts

Researched and created by Emily Tatum and Ellen Welsh

Second Life as a Postmodernist Text

Second Life As A Postmodern Text

Researched and created by Lorna Buckle, Jess Gladwell & Hannah Ridyard.

Family Guy

Family Guy can be seen as very postmodern as it is full of references from popular culture. The title 'Family Guy' is said to be a reference to the popular television culture of family sitcoms. Family Guy builds itself on postmodernism by always having references from other popular medias and makes fun of itself whenever it can. Their introduction theme tune is a mickey take on modern television. Lois says "it seems today that all you see is violence in movies and sex on TV." Peter then sings in reply "where are those good old fashion values on which we used to rely? ... Lucky theres a Family Guy." The audience know that although Family Guy is saying that we should reply on the show for better family values, we know that it is going to be the complete opposite just because we know what the show is like. That already gives viewers their own inside joke.



The whole show is full of blantent intertextual references. In one episode, Peter Griffin, the main character is feeling upset. Brian says he knows a way to cheer him up, leaving the room, then returning in a banana suit to dance to the 'peanut buttter jelly time' music, an popular online clip. This humour can only be found funny if the audience is well tuned with not only their televisions, but also to their computer screens and possibly all digital media. Family Guy is constantly using references from other shows and movies and the interent. Like in this case, they usually show the intertextuality so blatantly, the audience automatically knows what it is just because they are so "media savvy."









For Family Guy, the only way for it to work and be viewed as comical is that the audience is up to date with their televisions and computers enough to get all the smallest happenings in the world and media so they can get all the random jokes. This also links to the idea that 'Postmodernism will eat itself' idea, as its all just regurgated pop culture. Every media aspect that is popular is covered, especially in Youtube and readily avaliable digital media.

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Tarantino's Pulp Fiction is well known for it's postmodern attributes including it's irregular narrative course and it's many intertexual references.

The first example of postmodernism in the cult film is Tarantino's disregard for a chronological narrative. Instead he split the film into three stories, "Vincent
Vega and Marcellus Wallace's Wife", "The Gold Watch" and "The Bonnie Situation." This fits in with Lyotard's theory of the declining meta narratives over
time, along with the increase of "mini-narratives".

Not only does this follow Lyotard's theory but also one of Strinarti's five, confusion over time and space, as the audience have to think hard to work out where the narrative actually began if it were chronological. The demand for more audience participation is yet another example of postmodernism, as gone are the days where directors are simply presenting to a passive audience.

To present these small chapters within the film the director has used title cards. This immediately reminds the audience that the film has been
constructed, something Tarantino obviously didn't find damaging to his film. Such awareness of self-construction is a common element in postmodern
films, and was included by Winterbottom in 24 Hour Party People & Road To Guantanamo.

Within the film there are scenes in which so-called "natural" conversation has been used, for example when Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules
Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) are talking about how Mc Donalds names it's burgers differently all over the world. This creation of hyper reality is
something Baudrillard felt strongly about, arguing it was a prominent aspect of postmodern media.

Something I didn't personally pick up on, but learnt when researching Pulp Fiction, was Tarantino paying homage to classic films when picking up
different "tools" to defend himself with.
Hammer - The Toolbox Murders (1978)
Baseball Bat - Walking Tall (1973); The Untouchables (1987)
Chainsaw - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974);[164][165] The Evil Dead II (1987)
Katana (samurai sword)— many, including Seven Samurai (1954);[164][165] The Yakuza (1975);[164] Shogun Assassin (1980)
By incorporating these intertextual references it makes those audience members feel included in the "in joke" which Tarantino is making. Such features
also provides something to pick up on during second viewings, with their subtle inclusion making them harder to find.

Anamanaguchi

I feel like I should divert from the norm that has been film so far and focus my postmodern knowledge towards a band. As you might be able to tell from the title of this post, that band is called Anamanaguchi.

First off, a little background information on them. The band itself is comprised of 4 members: Lead songwriter Peter Berkman, bassist James DeVito, guitarist Ary Warnaar and drummer Luke Silas. They are all music tech students at NYU and have been in the band for about 3 years now. They play a form of music called 'Chiptune', which is basically where you hack an old video games console and use all the sounds from within it to make a song. But it doesn't stop there. They aren't making a song with just old console noises, they are playing drums and guitars over the top as well. So in effect, they are merging two different 'types' of music together.

Here is an example of what their music sounds like.

They aren't the first band to have done this but are definitely one of the most popular around. You might say that they have gotten the whole Chiptune scene up and rolling. People reading this will probably be thinking that it is just a load of "geeks" that have too much time on their hands, sitting in their rooms making plinky plonky noises from old games. But this couldn't be further from the truth these days. In late 2007, timberland used a sample from a chiptune song for a backingtrack in a Nelly Furtado song.

In my opinion, there are many many different reasons for why this band and genre of music is extremely postmodern. There are influences from all over the place in some of the songs, even to the extent of doing covers of some well known songs such as Holiday by Weezer.

Simply the idea of making music from old, unused games is postmodern, this is what you would call bricolage. This is where a piece of work has been created using a variety of different other ones. So the fact that the creation of the music was all made possible by using someone elses past work is a clear indication towards bricolage.

Here is a good interview that I found that should help you understand what it is that they do and how they go about it.

Twenty Four Hour Party People :)

Whilst studying this film in class I was incredibly interested in the Postmodern conventions it held. So much so that I bought my own copy of the film to watch at home to see if watching it outside of the 'analytical' situation at school might make me brush over thie bluntly obvious Postmodern aspects within the film. However, it did not.

From this I therefore felt it would be a great example to share further with everyone as I am sure that not all of us have picked up the same notes on this film.

Firstly Twenty Four Hour Party People is a British film about Manchester's popular music community from 1976 - 1992. The film largely follows the career of Tony Wilson who is head of Factory Records. The film was distributed by Pathe (UK) and United Artists (USA) and released in the UK on 5th April 2002.

The film's most recogniseable Postmodern feature is lead character Tony Wilson's direct address to camera. This use of self reflexivity is an ongoing Postmodern theme, in which we see Tony address the fact that "he's one of two bonafide geniues in this story, he will later try to kill me" This use of Self Reflexivity is part of the reason why Twenty Four Hour Party People is one of my favourite Postmodern films. I enjoy the fact that the lead character is aware he is in a story and also informs the audience of this.

Furthermore the film relies heavily on Intertextuality; which is also a key feature of a Postmodern text. Continual reference is made to the music genre, for example the band Joy Division, who are involved in the dramatisation of the true events. This can also be a hyper-reality, further enforcing itself as a postmodern text by supporting the postmodern theorist Baudrillard.

Twenty Four Hour Party People also blurs the boundaries of Genre by encorporating media technologies, such as graphics on screen to inform the audience of the name of the band on screen at that time for example New Order. This is another example of the films self refexivity but in a more subtle way.

In some ways Twenty Four Hour Party People takes Postmodernism to the next level. Many argue that it is in fact 'the ultimate Postmodern text'. It's use of self reflexivity and therefore awareness of it's own narrative pushes the conventions of Postmodernism. Therefore, do we think it's possible to ask: Does Twenty Four Hour Party People challenge Postmodernism because it's too Postmodern? I think the confusion is why I enjoy the film so much :)

Jess

500 Days of Summer directed by Marc Webb is my cup of tea; a romantic comedy film starring a very good looking male lead actor. However, as the film progressed I realised that I was actually processing the film and what was being said, rather than being part of the passive audience around me. Due to the shift in push and pull media, this aspect of the film makes it very post modern in itself because I was choosing to interpret the film in my own way.
On to Strinati, one of his 5 post modern concepts is the confusion of time over space. This is a key element of 500 Days of Summer. The film is a non linear narrative telling the love story between a couple over this time period. The narrative skips from day to day for example from day 5 to day 370 and then back to day 100. This brings confusion over time and space into the film.
500 Days of Summer tries to break the conventions of traditional “RomCom” films through the use of the main woman protagonist being a “manic pixie dream girl” which is an immature woman, the ending not being “happy” as such and the couple realising they are not right for each other, but in turn find true happiness. This break of code conventions is also highly post modern; being new and fresh (the renaissance period that prompted post modernism – the era of change) Marc Webb, the director commented on how he perceives the film to be unconventional “most romantic comedies are more loyal to a formula than to emotional truth. It's about happiness, and learning that you'll find it within yourself, rather than in the big blue eyes of the girl in the cubicle down the hall. I wanted to make an unsentimental movie and an uncynical movie. In my mind, I wanted it to be something you could dance to”
I think the concept of manipulating time within the film and introducing each day with a plain slide, not only highlights the construction of the film but also adds something different to the film rather than the simple storyline of boy meets girl.

Even if it is not seen as a movie classic, it cannot be denied that it is diverse and unique which is appealing and enjoyable.
It is most definitely in my list of postmodern favourites :)

This is the full trailer which gives a taster of the style of the film and the content :)
Danni

Romeo and Juliet on Twitter :D

Just thought I'd write about this Twitter adaptation of Romeo and Juliet that I heard about recently and thought was pretty postmodern, called "Such Tweet Sorrow". Basically the Royal Shakespeare Company have decided to put together a "play" on Twitter based on the events of Romeo and Juliet that will consist of tweets as if the events are actually happening in the present day. The tweets will be updated by the six actors playing the parts of the characters. I now follow all the characters of the play and here is some examples of the sorts of things they're tweeting.

As you can see the subject matter of the tweets give an indication of whereabouts in the story they are, showing the hatred between the fictional Montagues and Capulets.

Theres so many reasons why this adaptation is postmodern but here is just some of them :D

Bricolage - using the very well known and regarded Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet and incorporating it with new technology such a Twitter. Using social networking as a medium to tell a story breaks down the conventions of a play, whereby a physical audience is necessary.

As the Twitter audience can interact with the characters this shows a postmodern society whereby the audience's relationship with the text is changing, they are now becoming active rather than passive.

The play also conforms to Baudrillard's similacra. It is a hyper reality on many levels as we know the events are fictional but they are presented to us as though they are. Also each character has a different viewpoint therefore portrays their own similacra of "reality" through their tweets. For example their differing viewpoints on the Montagues and Capulets.

The adaptation is an homage to Shakespeare in that it shows the story can still be relevant and entertaining in a modern context and through any medium.

Intertextual references are made to both real life and Romeo and Juliet itself. For example Romeo refers to playing Call of Duty and the film The Mummy. However the characters also make mention of events and people from the play itself eg. Tybalt and the trouble he causes. The title of the adaptation is in itself a play on the quote "parting is such sweet sorrow". This allows for many layers of understanding for the audience, the more they know of the original play, the more they can understand from the implications of the character's tweets.

Strinati's ideas are also followed. For example confusions between time and space. The medium of Twitter means that the "play" follows a non linear narrative, with the characters tweeting whenever they want, within the guidlines of the script, whereas in a play certain words would have to be spoken at specific points. The breakdown between high art and pop culture is also shown here with a well renowned piece of literature such as Romeo and Juliet being portrayed on a social networking site such as Twitter.

Those are only some of the ways in which the Twitter play is postmodern, but here are some articles to explain what it actually is much better than I did lol

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-news/7571639/RSC-launches-Romeo-and-Juliet-on-Twitter.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/apr/12/shakespeare-twitter-such-tweet-sorrow

Lots of loove, Hannah :D xxx

Hot Fuzz

My favourite postmodern text is Hot Fuzz which was directed by Edger Wright and Simon Pegg in 2007. Hotfuzz is the second film in a trilogy in which ‘Shaun of the Dead’ was the first and the third is ‘The World’s End’ which is yet to be released. However this trilogy has been named the ‘ice-cream trilogy’ as each film represents a flavour of ice-cream. ‘Shaun of the Dead’ was red for horror film, ‘Hot Fuzz’ was blue for police film, and ‘The World’s End’ is going to be a sci-fi film which is green. Also each film has the corresponding ice-cream in the film usually a Cornetto so far therefore it’s extremely likely that the mint Cornetto is going to be in the last film somewhere.

What makes it postmodern is that it is a mixture of genres for example it's primarily a cop movie however it's also a comedy and thriller. This makes it postmodern as it becomes a genre hybrid. Furthermore it pays homage to certain movies by either copying a whole genre’s conventions or by scenes out of it. For example in the scenes near the end in the gun fighting PC Nicholas Angel is riding horseback into the village with ammunition belts and chewing a toothpick. This is very conventional of the western genre, but also in the fight scene there is a direct shot out of bad boys 2 where PC Nicholas Angel flies through the air shooting his pistols. This was also an earlier reference to the director John Woo who used it in his films. This makes it post-modern because it is intertextual of other films and it shows it not in a down-grading way but in a love of these films way.

‘Hot Fuzz’ also make tonnes more references to films such as ‘Trainspotting’ with the shoplifter chase and also reference to ‘Shaun of the Dead’ with reversing lines between Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and ‘Hot Fuzz’ and even going as far as putting the ‘Shaun of the Dead’ DVD in the clearance basket in the superstore when Nick Frost is looking through. Another reference is when PC Nicholas Angel spits out his toothpick in reference to Clint Eastwood. Furthermore there is reference to the film ‘Leon’ and the Japanese Peace Lily. More references can be found at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425112/movieconnections

I like ‘Hot Fuzz’ because it is funny to watch and you can recognise some of the shots from other films in it and what it is referencing too.

GTA IV

“It's a second life, it's a different life from what you lead. You get the stress of life, so you just take it out on the game. I'm not hurting no-one.”

A game which has had a massive effect on our society, multi-tiered, postmodern self-awareness of today's art-loving gamer, yes it is Grand Theft Auto.

This game is seen to be a cultural and marketing event, cultural, because of the number of people around the world who care about it and marketing because it’s creators Rockstar who have always been brilliant at marketing.

Parody is used a huge amount in this video game. GTAIV is set in ‘Liberty City’ also as we know it ‘New York’, the statue of liberty is a very popular sculpture, for Rockstar Games they have turned it into a pastiche or a parody of what we think is a masterpiece. In the game the statue of liberty is holding a coffee mug instead of the famous flame. Could they be showing us the explosion of Starbucks Coffee taking over the world or is it just something for the gamers to find funny?

This game definitely goes under Strinati’s five, ‘An emphasis on style at the expense of substance and content’. As you know you drive around manically in any type of car you want, the amount of radio stations that there are in the cars is unbelievable, it just shows how much work goes into this game. They use music from reality into their game that shows a massive intertextual influence but also Baudrillard sense of ‘Hyperreality’, what is real and what is not. Grand Theft Auto can be seen as a second life. The setting is enormous, to every single detail there is always something that your character can do.

Confusions over space and time are a huge importance in GTA, the cheats that people use in this game to complete the game quicker, people find it annoying that you have to drive from one part of the island to another, so they use cheats to have a helicopter suddenly appear in front of you instead. It just shows how we have changed into a postmodern society, how we have become impatient in our surroundings and finding anything possible to shorten our time to get to one place to another.

Bricolage is used in this game, there is a narrative but it is jumbled. You do not follow a certain story, there are different missions with different people and it is you choice whether you want to do the missions now or decide to go and run over all the pedestrians on the ‘sidewalk’. There is no time limit in completing the game, you have the choice in what you want to do. This can be seen as postmodern as people have their own choice, this game has no boundary’s!

Grand Theft Auto is ‘art’! It breaks down the distinction between high and popular art, with it’s detail packed pop culture pastiche and ghettoized by it’s allegiance to, the geeky area of sci-fi and fantasy. With its globalization of success it is merging into reality with extreme shows which have gone one step further with Moscow’s TV show ‘Interception’ – that has members of the public trying to steal a car without being arrested. If they are not caught they keep the car.

Another postmodern aspect is narrowcasting, it is targeted for mainly males, the game is an alpha male simulator for media-addled introverts and so profoundly of it’s time. It is filled with ‘pornoviolence’ which attracts the males attention and for some it has been thought that it is one of GTA’s main appeals.

Futhermore Grand Theft Auto has the sense of escapism. People get to control these characters and make them do whatever they want, they can escape from reality and relieve their stress, enter a new world ‘Get some car’s, get some gels, get all the fings every man would want in life’.

It’s entertainment and as long as any media text is entertaining they know straight away that it is going to be a big hit. So the question is will there ever be a line? Or will creators keep making media texts to keep us entertained?

Personally I think they will and the influences of GTA will have a massive effect in our society.

Logorama

Here is how Adbusters describes this incredible film...how might it reflect a postmodern society?


An Oscar-winning mindbomb … An entire universe made out of corporate logos, replete with car chases, shootouts, wild animals and natural disasters, Logorama is a tour de force of graphic design. The film’s producer, Nicolas Schmerkin, said after its Oscar win that the film “is not about America. It’s about our modern Western world … It’s about the way we live and the way we react to these logos. The brain can register 14 logos in less than one second. Making the logos characters with sets and props is about what we’re living.”

Logorama from Marc Altshuler - Human Music on Vimeo.

Useful mo/pomo powerpoint from slideshare

Read it!

Modernism And Postmodernism

View more presentations from Rob McMinn.

Easter break task

Create a post about your favourite postmodern media text. 
It should include:

1. Why you consider it to be postmodern
2. What you like about it
3. As much relevant media terminology as possible

Here's one of mine - The Wire - more of a comment on our postmodern society than postmodern in its construction. Compelling viewing, fascinating narrative structure - called a 'visual novel' by its creator David Simon. 

Here's what Simon has to say about it from this article...


"But instead of the old gods, The Wire is a Greek tragedy in which the postmodern institutions are the Olympian forces. It’s the police department, or the drug economy, or the political structures, or the school administration, or the macroeconomic forces that are throwing the lightning bolts and hitting people in the ass for no decent reason. In much of television, and in a good deal of our stage drama, individuals are often portrayed as rising above institutions to achieve catharsis. In this drama, the institutions always prove larger, and those characters with hubris enough to challenge the postmodern construct of American empire are invariably mocked, marginalized, or crushed. Greek tragedy for the new millennium, so to speak. Because so much of television is about providing catharsis and redemption and the triumph of character, a drama in which postmodern institutions trump individuality and morality and justice seems different in some ways, I think."

If you fancy some challenging, brilliantly scripted, thought provoking and intelligent drama then give it a try. Just make sure you give it time to learn the local slang. Truly outstanding television and it gets better and better as the series progresses. Opening from Series one below...

So what is 'the postmodern construct of American empire'? Discuss...