What Is Postmodernism?

If you ask an academic or God forbid, the internet the question what is postmodernism? You will no doubt, come away with a vague answer that includes a ton of new words you will need a dictionary to wade through and a reading list as long as your arm. This article aims to give you a basic understanding of the concept, breaking it down until it s an idea you can hold in your hand, and giving you some pointers on where to look if you want to research it further. Firstly let s look at the slightly contradictory title. Post-modern-ism. Modern, relates to the present and post means after . So how can we have a cultural movement that is after now ? To understand this, you need to have a brief understanding of it s precursor, modernism. If postmodernism is the irreverent teenager, then modernism is the parent having the mid-life crisis.

Modernism as movement came to popularity in the early part of the twentieth century and it can be characterised by a loss of belief in the things we once placed our trust, be it God, society, personal relationships etc. Whilst it s inception can t be traced back to one particular event, it would not be too much of a stretch to assume that the First World War had something to do with this sense of disillusionment. It could also be linked in with Friedrick Nietzche s belief that god is dead and Karl Marx s criticism of capitalist society becoming more widespread. The feelings related to this shift in perspective tend to involve disappointment, a sense of betrayal or even rebellion against many of the establishments that hold society together. As a style, modernism aimed to move away from classical and traditional forms. In literature for example, it resulted in works such as Dubliners by James Joyce, a series of short stories that focus on characters getting their hopes up and then having their dreams shattered and ending in disappointment. In poetry, it resulted in a rejection of existing formats, such as T.S Eliot s The Wasteland a sprawling, free-wheeling epic poem that railed against the futility of existence and refused to be governed by any of the traditional rules of poetry.

If modernism is beginning to question authority, then postmodernism is making fun of it to its face. Postmodernism takes this concept of questioning traditional structures, representations and expectations and takes things a step further. In 1967 the French literary critic Roland Barthes released his essay The Death of the Author . In it he went against tradition when asserted that a writer s opinions, intentions or interpretation of their own work is no more valid than anyone else s. To give a simple example this means, just because J.K Rowling thinks that Dumbledore is gay, doesn`t mean that you the reader have to think this if you don t want to. Readers are free to interpret a work however they choose, irrespective of what the creator thinks. The death of the author is the next step after Nietzche s God is dead statement and with it comes a need to test the boundaries of what a text is. Like modernism, postmodernism can be found in literature, architecture and art. But for the purposes of this article, we re just going to focus on postmodernism in film and it s closest cousin, television. It s also no good if we don`t try and identify at least some of the aspects commonly associate with it. Here are just a few to get you started:

Metatextuality

Metatextuality is where a text draws attention to the fact that it is a text. It draws attention to the process of its own creation. Let s take an example from a fairly recent film, I Tonya . At various different points throughout the film, characters comment on the mechanics of the film as they re happening by addressing the audience directly. In the trailer, Margot Robbie in the titular role explicitly rejects the idea of an objective truth. The haters always say Tonya, tell the truth. There s no such thing as truth. Everyone has their own truth . The film then goes on to show events as told by the different parties, with them disputing the veracity of those events as they happen. At one point, Robbie s Tonya chases a man out of a house, whilst firing a shot-gun at him. Whilst changing cartridges, Tonya looks straight at the camera and says I NEVER did this . This is a brilliant example of metatextuality. The character in the story is disagreeing with the story as it happens. This links very closely with the death of the author by making us question the reliability of the narrator. We as an audience need to trust the story-tellers in films or else we run the risk of rejecting the whole thing. Other examples are where texts play with the narrative conventions we take for granted in films.

In the hugely underrated 2006 film, Stranger Than Fiction we start with Emma Thompson narrating the life of Will Ferrell s character, Harold Crick. In a shot where we see Harold brushing his teeth Thompson s voiceover says when other s minds would fantasise about their upcoming day, Harold just counted brush strokes . Harold then stops brushing, spits the toothpaste out and says alright who just said Harold just counted brushstrokes ? In this story, we have a character who breaks a narrative film convention by showing his awareness of the narrator. The film then goes onto follow Harold as he tries to find the apparent author of his life and try to get her to change the ending! It s a film that is metatextual because it lets the protagonist know he is in a story and draws attention to the potential absurdity of non-diegetic voiceover. As you can see, metatextuality forces the audience to examine, and in some cases question the very form of filmmaking and the assumptions it brings with it.

Intertextuality

Intertextuality is simply the process by which one text refers to another text. The Martian Sean Bean, council of Elrond. Clueless, 10 things I hate about you Family Guy

Blurring of time periods

High art and low art mix together.

Self-reflexivity

The nature of reality

This is a frequent pre-occupation in postmodern texts. As stated earlier, postmodernism tends to reject most aspects of authority, meaning as Jean Francois Lyotard put it The Postmodern Condition: the grand narrative has lost its credibility . It is easy to see how some institutions are questioned. Religion as an institution has historically lost followers over the last few centuries when faith has become too much for many people. In addition to this, secular ideologies such as Marxism have been seen to fail the majority of people when put into practise. Whilst capitalism in the form of The American Dream and its promise of a land of opportunity for people irrespective of race, colour or creed has been shown to let people down on countless occasions. What happens when this scepticism is applied to another far reaching institution, such as the media? It would be impossible for any one person to witness many of the key events in the world first hand so we are forced to rely on media institutions to give us a picture of the world we live in. As media audiences have gotten more sophisticated over the years, we realise on some level or other that the images we see are mediated, controlled to not necessarily give us the whole story. This has led to an anxiety over what is real and what is not. As the key postmodern thinker Jean Baudrillard put it in 1994 the distinction between what is real and what is imagined is continually blurred and meaning is systematically eroded . In terms of films, this anxiety over what is real and what is not starts to get reflected in films such as The Matrix , The Truman Show and Inception . All of which feature characters trying to escape an imaginary world in pursuit of an objective truth. But what happens when your central character is too attached to the simulated world? What happens when, as Baudrillard puts it. the simulations of reality end up becoming more real than real . That s when we start to get texts that start to question what it means to be a real person. Cornerstone postmodern films like Bladerunner all the way through to new TV shows like Westworld start to question the nature of something being alive or life being simulated. A growing trend is to position the audience with the artificial life forms, be the replicants , cylons or hosts , allowing us to feel sympathy for characters that in earlier sci-fi would have been little more than calculators on legs.

The problem with postmodernism is, it is so broad and can be interpreted so widely, that if you`re not careful, you can start to see it everywhere you look, even in extremely disparate texts. Star Wars: The Force Awakens can be seen as postmodern in that it is essentially a remix of New Hope, and the implicit intertextuality draws the audience s attention to the artificiality of the text. On the opposite end of the scale, The Last Jedi has a completely original story but the entire theme of it is based on questioning the validity of the Jedi. That film questions authority figures so much that you can practically see Barthes death of the author essay encoded into its DNA. Then we have other films, that seem to jump across the postmodern line like an aggressive game of hopscotch, such as Deadpool, whose metatextual quips and intertextual references leave the film practically groaning with postmodernism. And yet, the film still centre on a charismatic hero that gets powers, fights bad guys, and rescues the girl. You couldn t get much more traditional of a storyline if you tried!

As you can see, working out exactly what postmodernism is, is not easy. Study enough of it and over time, you ll know it when you see it. But until then, repeat after me: postmodernism is a cultural movement that distrusts all authorities and established philosophies and frequently experiments with the medium it is presented in. You will sound dead smart I promise!