Discuss why some people are not convinced by the idea of postmodern media
Postmodernism is a movement which was created as a rejection to the modernist movement. Modernism involves art, films, songs etc. which have a clear meaning and purpose and clear genre boundaries. It also claims originality for most of its creations, whereas a postmodernist does none of these things.
Some people may not be convinced by the idea of Postmodern media. There are many reasons for this: firstly, a postmodernist believes that there are no boundaries. In such a case, there would be no genres for songs and so Jay-Z would be just the same as Beethoven. However, a Modernist would see the distinctive lines between these genres and have quite a linear outlook. Some people who may not be convinced by the idea of postmodern media are unaccepting of nowadays music artists, as they make a pastiche from older styles as Postmodernists believe we should “look to the future and keep one eye on the past” (Beniton). However, a person who is convinced by postmodern media would see a pastiche as a good thing as we are acknowledging our past and poking fun at what may have been serious at the time. A modernist would see the past as worthless and try to move the society forward, but a postmodernist would use the past in order to move forward. Examples of this are people like Elvis in 1960s, he did not look at the past, he just wanted to push the society forward and introduce something new, whereas DJ Dangermouse paid homage to The Beatles “White Album” and created 99 problems with Jay-Z. Similarly, in Avatar, Cameron did not want to pay homage to previous films, he wanted to create something completely new and interesting which had never been achieved before (quite a modernist feature) whereas Kill Bill is the complete opposite, the intention was to use intertextuality throughout so that it paid homage to numerous other films and showed how it had used them with great success. Without Postmodernism, we do not look back at our past like we should do, because the past has happened for a reason, so Postmodernism must have too.
It is argued by Jameson that Postmodernism is one big self referential joke that nobody knows the real meaning to. With this idea in mind, Dan Black has created the song and video ‘Symphonies’ which is a Pastiche of many existing materials. Dan Black’s sole purpose was to prove that musicians and film makers of today are not ‘original’ at all, but simply continuously remixing each other’s ideas. He then went on to having a rapper rap over the top of his remixed song to form another remix and then allowed virgin media to use his song in a serious manner for a family advert, ironically making his Pastiche become serious. The future for Postmodernism is simple, more remixes will happen as they are so easy to create. Dubstep, for example is mainly artists remixing other artists songs and spinning them off for their own at live concerts and tours.
In conclusion, some people may not be convinced by the idea of Postmodern media as it is contradictory of itself in many ways uses the past to shape the present in what could be considered to a negative way. The internet has had a huge impact on postmodernism with the likes of Youtube and facebook as it has allowed millions of people to create spoofs and pastiches of other people’s works and in doing so are being recognised for their ‘talents’ such as ‘The Midnight Beast’. The real question that may make people unconvinced of the postmodernist media is: Is there any point in this one big in joke? And if there is one, what is it, and why are we doing it?
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