5 days to go!

I decided to have a look at the media magazine website last night and litterally jumped with joy (oh god, how sad!) when i found this article about PoMo within the mighty boosh!! it has some wonderful examples! and i will deffo be giving boosh a mention in the PoMo question as a 'real media text'! just incase you can't log in i'll post the whole article for you to read! and do read it all, it'll be worth it :)


Postmodernism – the Mighty Boosh

The term postmodern has been gratuitously splattered about more times than Rocky’s face but ask someone to give you a definition and you may be met with a chilly stare and gritted teeth. Richard Smith has found the perfect example to tell you everything you need to know about postmodernism – The Mighty Boosh.

It seems that we media folk love to bathe in postmodern paradise with its intertextual delights and its playful self-referencing (we’ll move on to those momentarily) but we rarely have any examples that go beyond a Tarantino production or Craven’s over-analysed Scream (1996). What we forget is that the perfect playground for postmodern television is within the realms of the situation comedy: this is where the imagination can run riot without the massive financial loss from a possible failure.

Postmodernism defies easy definition; dictionaries do not do it justice but it generally comprises of a set of core ideas and key concepts that work collaboratively to shape it. The more of these ideas and concepts it embellishes, the more of a postmodern text it becomes. Enter The Mighty Boosh (BBC, 2004): two zoo keepers, one owner, one shaman and a gorilla. The BBC3-born surrealist sitcom gives Spaced (C4, 1999) a run for its postmodern money with plots revolving around trips to monkey hell, a granny of death and kangaroo boxing to name but a few. In an attempt to define the Boosh’s playful postmodern form, let’s consider some of the factors involved.

1. Eclecticism

A wide range of influences, contributions and techniques

Take your personal DVD collection. Being media enthusiasts, I could almost guarantee you have a wide variety of genres, directors, mainstream movies and independent movies. This eclectic mix of taste shines through postmodernism: an array of identifiable influences are used to the extent that you can never quite pin down the one genre it is committed to. The Boosh slide from Fantasy (‘Welcome to mirror world!’) to Eighties Pop (‘I am electro boy...’); from Science Fiction (‘I come fully equipped with a papoose!’) to Romantic Comedy (‘Her teeth are like hard, shiny, pegs of cream’.).

Eclecticism also shines through the varied characters they portray and the range of musical styles they adopt. Put simply: you just never know what you are going to get.

2. Intertextuality

An author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text

The Boosh openly borrows, mimics and adopts the traits of a multitude of styles, clichés and conventions that the knowing audience can directly relate to. Take the Tundra Rap: all the conventions of a trashy music video with Howard and Vince rapping direct to camera, cutting to the beat, erratic camera techniques and all complemented by the generic lyrical gems that make rap so distinguishable. A single character like the Spirit of Jazz can also reference a multitude of other people like Papa Lazarou from The League of Gentlemen, The Black and White Minstrel Show (BBC, 1950s) or even Slash from Guns and Roses. Parallels are regularly made between The Boosh, Monty Python, Spaced, The Goodies and The League of Gentlemen with their individual brands of surrealist humour and sporadic happenings. It is this recognition and familiarity that appeals to the active audience.

3. Parody

A humorous or satirical imitation of a text

The epitome of a film devoted to parody would be a spoof like Scary Movie (2000) or Not Another Teen Movie (2001). This works on the basis that the knowing audience will recognise an imitation of style, character, scenario and/or technique and enjoy the process of recognition and familiarisation. Commonly associated with politics, satire can be described as parody with teeth; compared to parody with its playful mimicking, satire has more of a statement to make by ridiculing and criticising individuals or issues as evident in 2D TV (ITV) or the political satire Spitting Image (ITV, 1984-1996).

The Boosh is scattered with parodies from the generic (see Mutants for a take on the Sci-Fi, Horror genres), musical (see hard rock parodied in Bollo’s Monkey Hell) or textual (see ‘The Nightmare of Milky Joe’ for a take on Castaway). It is this soft imitation which gives the audience a frame for reference evoking familiarity and appreciation.

4. Bricolage

A technique where works are constructed from various materials available

One criticism of postmodernism is the fact that it represents a decline in originality, an era where we can bring nothing new to the cooking pot but simply recycle old formulas. The Boosh can be viewed as a bricolage of many already tried-and-tested formulas but does this make it less original? A musician won’t play a note that no one else has played before but it is the way the notes are played and the order they are played in that makes it a unique musical piece.

5. Acts against modernism

Postmodernism embodies scepticism towards the ideas and ideals of the modern era, especially the ideas of progress, objectivity, reason, certainty, personal identity and grand narrative

Postmodernism is best viewed as a gradual and progressive reaction to the modernist movement; thus there are qualities that can be shared by each. Postmodernism, after all, embraces playful imitation so modernism can be evident as an intentional ironic reference. The mere definition of each movement can be a subjective playground for analytical minds but they can be best illustrated as two spheres interlocking where similarities meet.

So, even though a postmodern text can be constructed from already tried-and-tested genres, techniques and stock characters, it can still be as forward thinking as a modernist text (Pulp Fiction being a prime example).

Postmodernism acts against reason, orthodoxy and logic to bring us a text that is rich with surrealism and unpredictability. The Boosh exhibits this at every given opportunity to articulate their idiosyncratic humour: a talking gorilla, a Mexican jazz-fusion guitarist with a door in his afro, a man made of cheese. You learn to accept the fact that there is no justification or reasoning behind actions or characters. They exist because they can exist; it is a celebration of the medium of television that allows The Boosh to pick and choose from a long history of tried and tested formulas. These familiar formulas ironically combine to create something that is an original breath of fresh air.

6. Nostalgic

Celebrates the past and bathes in its glory

Whereas modernism looks forward to push the medium into the next phase, postmodernism looks back, borrowing from others to construct a text rich with references.

7. Narcissistic

Fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity

Postmodernism is obsessed with itself, acting like a child in a sweet shop, jumping from shelf to shelf snatching what it can, gobbling the goodies and charging towards the next jar. This narcissism is predominantly evident in the character of Vince Noir who has a fascination with his appearance and a burning passion to become a front man (his idol being Mick Jagger). His vanity and rebel status reflects a spirit of the movement that echoes in the words of Al Gore:

It’s the combination of narcissism and nihilism (total rejection of established laws and institutions) that really defines postmodernism.

8. An active audience

The assertion that meaning and experience can only be created by the individual, and cannot be made objective by an author or narrator; an assumption of an intelligent and active audience

With a text packed full of treats its aim is to recognise that the audience are an all-knowing media-saturated entity. Why attempt to create something never seen before when you can give the knowing nod to an audience at every twist and turn within the postmodern playground?

In this unpredictable, surreal and unreasoning postmodernist world, the audience has no choice but to be an active and aware participant ready to follow whatever twist and turn the text decides to take. It acts as a media puzzle waiting to be pieced together by the individual decoder who gains much satisfaction from it.

9. Hyper-conscious

Aware of itself

This hyper-consciousness allows the text to dissolve that fourth wall and highlight the awareness of the medium it is playing with. This allows JD in Scrubs (E4) directly to reference the soundtrack which is intended to be diegetic or Peter Griffin in Family Guy (BBC3) playfully to reference the fact that the programme was cancelled twice by HBO before they realised that it was one of the biggest selling DVDs of all time.

The Boosh team cleverly use this at the beginning of each episode with Vince and Howard standing in front of stage curtains introducing the show with direct references as to what to look out for. Their live show also uses this technique, much to the audience’s delight, when they break in and out of ‘scripted lines’ to address the audience providing us with a postmodern mix of stand-up, improvisational and theatrical styles.

The Mighty Boosh provides us with an effective framework for postmodern deconstruction and is bursting with its characteristics from the music, costumes, characters, design, mise-en-scène and dialogue. It provides its active audience with a contemporary variety show that is all knowing, highly aware and above all, a celebration of the medium of television.

Glossary

Eclecticism: A wide range of influences, contributions and techniques.

Intertextuality: An author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text.

Parody: A satirical imitation of a text.

Bricolage: A technique where works are constructed from various materials available.

Acts against modernism: Postmodernism embodies scepticism towards the ideas and ideals of the modern era, especially the ideas of progress, objectivity, reason, certainty, personal identity and grand narrative.

Nostalgic: Celebrates the past and its glory.

Narcissistic: Fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity.

An active audience: The assertion that meaning and experience can only be created by the individual, and cannot be made objective by an author or narrator. Assumes an intelligent and active audience.

Hyper-conscious: Aware of itself.

Richard Smith is a Film, Media & English Teacher at Herne Bay High School, Kent. He is also a doing an MA in Education.

from MediaMagazine 22, December 2008