We will be using the ideas of three main theorists: Jameson, Lyotard and Baudrillard.

Frederic Jameson is our first:

Jameson hand out.

This teacher, in a hat, explains it very well!  Mr G – you need to get a hat!

In order to try and understand and locate and recognise how his ideas are apparent in today’s postmodern media, a really easy place to witness pastiche, parody etc are in advertising.

Just look at how Marmite have used an approach to this advertising campaign and cashed in on a whole range of postmodernism:

All of these adverts are examples of how postmodern media manifests itself in advertising and marketing – pastiche, parody, intertextuality, easter eggs and self-reflexivity abound.  You have to be culturally competent to get the nuance.

Parody of Apple Inc.

Pastiche of Marvel Movies.

Homage to Game of Thrones.  You do need to be so culturally competent!

Parody of advertising in general and also mocking advertising tropes – the celebrity endorsement.

Homage to specific films or cinematic styles.

An advert that is deliberately self-reflexive – they are unabashed about selling. This is an advert – so what?

Intertextual references – one advert referring to another.

and finally

Recognise anything?

Don’t be frightened about the term ‘postmodern’.  If the context confuses you i.e. what went before that is not overly important. In fact why not just approach the topic as this is us looking at the media that surrounds us at the moment and we are looking at various criteria that can be used to analyse, critique and review it.

Postmodern is a term used to describe much of contemporary media that surrounds us today! SIMPLES – and is can be analysed, critiqued in reference to various ideas, theories, terms etc.  Various ideas, theories exist that try to describe, explain its form and purpose and the main theorists we will be looking at, all have different ideas about what makes a text postmodern.

However, some of the texts we will look at will be postmodern in their construction/contents and some will also critique the postmodern condition.

Here are the key ideas that encapsulate what postmodernism is all about:-

Postmodernism:

• is a movement from the late 20th century
• represents a departure from modernism
• challenges authority
• rejects the idea of status/ value
• makes fun of existing texts – parody/satire
• is a critique of what we assume to be real
• copies ideas/styles from existing texts
• suggests there is no absolute ‘truth’ – merely socially constructed truths
• gives a skeptical interpretation
• is a reinterpretation of classical ideas, forms and practices
• questions our perception of art
• distrusts dominant ideologies
• mixes styles
• plays with reality
• challenges ‘fixed’ ideologies
• challenges the rebellion of modernism
• it is playful
• blurs reality and representation
• it looks to the past
• is really hard to define

to name just a few things…

Some key terms that we will consider over the coming weeks – pastiche, parody, quotation, intertextuality, loss of historical reality, cultural competence, hyper reality, simulacra, consumer culture, hegemony, grand narratives.