Post Modernism

Postmodernism is a term which describes the postmodernist movement in the arts, its set of cultural tendencies and associated cultural movements. It is in general the era that follows Modernism. It frequently serves as an ambiguous overarching term for skeptical interpretations of culture, literature, art, philosophy, economics, architecture, fiction, and literary criticism. It is often associated with deconstruction and post-structuralism because its usage as a term gained significant popularity at the same time as twentieth-century post-structural thought.

Postmodernism

The Compact Oxford English Dictionary refers to postmodernism as "a style and concept in the arts characterized by a distrust of theories and ideologies and by the drawing of attention to conventions".

Postmodernists claim that in a media-saturated world , where we are constantly immersed in media, 24/7. Postmodern media rejects the idea that any media product or text is of any greater value than another. All judgements of value are merely taste. Postmodernism is also said to reflect modern society's feelings of alienation, insecurity and uncertainties concerning identity, history progress and truth, and the break-up of those tradition like religion, the family or perhaps to a lesser extent, class, which helped identify and shape who we are and out place in the world. 

Writes on postmodernism (such as Baudrillard and Jameson) argued that recent economic changes produced particular 'structures of feeling' or a 'cultural logic'. Typical assertions include claims that, mostly thanks to television especially MTV in particular, we now live in a 'tree-minute culture' (the length of most people's attention spans, it is said) or that we are part of an over-visual society.

This has implications for realist forms of media, since our sense of reality is now said to be utterly dominated by popular media images; cultural forms can no longer 'hold up the mirror to reality', since reality itself is saturated by advertising, film, video games, and television images. Moreover the capacity of digital imaging makes 'truth claims' or reliability of images tricky. Think about the use of Photoshop in magazine and advertising images. Advertising no longer tries seriously to convince us of its products' real quality but, just shows us a fake about the product.
TV Show
Community title.jpg
Community (TV Sitcom/Show)
Community as a Postmodern TV Show:
Postmodern Episode:
- Season 1 Episode 7 (Day of the Dead)
- Season 1 Episode 23 (Paintball Episode)
- Season 2 Episode 23/24 (Reoccurring Paintball episode)
- Season 2 Episode 1 (15 min in - comment on the TV show themselves!)
- Season 2 Episode 5 (Religion ABED film making)
- Season 2 Episode 14 (Dungeons & Dragons)
- Season 2 Episode 11 (Animated Episode)
-Season 3 Episode 5 (Abed scores NORMAL on a test, everyone else is weird!)
-Season 3 Episode 20 (Game style episode)
-Season 4 Episode 8 14min in (Refereeing Film)
-Season 4 Episode 9 first 5 minutes (Muppets)


Examples also on prezi:


Po-Mo Articles/Videos on Community:
Also use two powerpoints.


Music
Rihanna S&M

Why is music videos postmodernism?
Music videos are very conventional, themes consist of more comical elements like parody's or playfulness, or they're more deep and meaningful with themes such as paranoia. Music videos are considered post modern due to the cross between advertisement, and art. It is partly advertisement due to the music video trying to sell a product. The artist.
Music television is exploratory, and as it crosses over ideas and styles already available, which therefore makes it post-modern. The viewer discovers new music, which can be post-modern, as there are no narrow typologies and music videos are encouraged to be more and more out of the ordinary. It also contains new sources of inspiration and stimulation, using new ideas by combining genres already around, to excite the viewers. This makes the music video post-modern as it challenges stereotypical views of music, and television, which could be considered art.

What is postmodern about your music video?
On the release of Rihanna's S&M which was uploaded to YouTube on the 31st of January 2011 has been dubbed as one of the most controversial music videos of 2011. I feel that this music video is the definition of a post-modernism music video which represents the social constructs and objective truths but at the same time it exemplifies the sadomasochist movement/ideologies. Rihanna highlights the pleasure she takes in the infliction of pain or humiliation upon another person (whereas masochism is pleasure taken in receiving the pain) a comical parody (to other music videos such as Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" and many other pop women singers) of the codes and conventions of music videos of the 21st century. Throughout the video, Rihanna delivers pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from inflicting or submitting to physical or emotional abuse. 

The media portray Rihanna in a certain way, this is the objective truth throughout the video. You can see that there are many negative words written about Rihanna throughout the video which demonstrates the media trying to brainwash the audience to believe everything they say about Rihanna. In this video Rihanna illustrates to everyone her dominance over the media and basically telling her audience to not listen to the media as they are creating a bad image around her. Throughout this video, there are words that are written on her outfits and on walls. All of these words represent what the media has been saying about her in the press and how the media is portraying her to be. Some of the words that I was able to spot out are “Bad Boys”, “daddy issues”, “sex tape”,” princess”, “Illuminate”, “slut”, etc. These words have to do with events that have been going on through out her life. However this is where the media come in and begin to twist words and create words about the situations, the media use the fine details which they have of Rihanna and make assumptions. All this is done in an attempt to destroy her career.

The video as a whole seems like a parody of the conventions of postmodern movement. There seems to be a "Me vs them" idea that seems to represent her relations with the media. Rihanna(“Me”) is acting as if she is dominant of the media (“them”) and confronting the press about what they have circulating about her. Rihanna is portraying herself as the master and disconnecting herself as “them”. She is not letting herself remain a slave to her own image, which is how the media is trying to make it seem. In one of the scenes in the video, Rihanna is tied and being forcefully held by men in black suits. They are forcing her to be in front of the reporters, forcing her to reveal herself to them, and forcing her to just cooperate. This scene alone represents her uproar with the media.

Lets take a look at the scene with Perez Hilton a little closer. For those of you who are not familiar with Perez Hilton, he has a well-known website that focuses on celebrity news. He is mostly known for completely bullying celebrities on their everyday life's. In Rihanna's music video she is physically holing Hilton on a leash. This mainly represents the master vs. slave imagery, in this scene Rihanna is being portrayed at the more dominant force. She is using a more prominent figure in media, which make the argument stronger, this is a perfect example of intertexuality. There are two different forms being merged together. This scene shows that Rihanna is manipulating the press and showing that she is in control of the media and the media is not in control of her. Barthes speaks about the “grain” of the music. In this scene, I took my self away from the lyrics for the moment and focused on the meaning behind the image. The image of Rihanna holding Perez Hilton is a mere representation of how she feels she can control the media. That image alone means more than the actual lyrics.This adventurous and fearless leader in music refuses to conform to the stereotypical artist. She always says that she does not want be a role model. She is just living her life day to day and will do what makes her happy. This scene is also hold a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.

This video is post modern as it is almost suggesting that music videos are now overly sexual. The reporters and journalists also wear conventional clothing associated with the sadomasochist movement. There are multiple sexual props such as whips and tape to really provoke that sexual theme which runs throughout the music video. Rihanna's aesthetic is promiscuous where most of her outfits are revealing, or made out of perspex/pvc material which have predominantly sexual connotations, this is an overall look which Rihanna has gone in this music video.

Lastly there is a fantasy feel in some scene which illustrate the surrealism, to help create the theme there is a scene with zebra patterned walls and instead of black and white stripes there pink and white, mostly all the characters in that scene are wearing bright, boldedpattern costumes which really reinforces that theme, costume go as hair as colouring Rihanna's hair bright red to ensure she is the main focus of the video. Even fine detail like the furniture is used to create an illusion. With the help of editing and the fast paced transitions they feel as if the music video is passing through an illusive and delusional state to reality. The editing style frequently features focusing and de-focusing to create a movement between two worlds.

Film

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