theorists for postmodernism

Jacques Derrida proposed that a text cannot belong to no genre, it cannot be without... a genre. Every text participates in one or several genres, there is no genreless text

(Derrida 1981, 61).

Levi Strauss and his theory of 'binary opposites', he also however developed the theory of 'bricolage'.

Baudrillard's idea of hyperreality was heavily influenced by phenomenology, semiotics, and Marshall McLuhan who coined the phrase 'the medium is the message'. By this he means that the manner in which the message is shown becomes more important than the meaning of the message itself.
Some examples are simpler: the McDonald's "M" arches create a world with the promise of endless amounts of identical food, when in "reality" the "M" represents nothing, and the food produced is neither identical nor infinite.

Frederic Jameson sees postmodernism as vacuous and trapped in circular references. Nothing more that a series of self referential 'jokes' which have no deeper meaning or purpose.

Jean-François Lyotard

rejected what he called the “grand narratives” or universal “meta-narratives.”

Grand narratives refer to the great theories of history, science, religion, politics. For example, Lyotard rejects the ideas that everything is knowable by science or that as history moves forward in time, humanity makes progress. He would reject universal political ‘solutions’ such as communism or capitalism. He also rejects the idea of absolute freedom.

In studying media texts it is possible also to apply this thinking to a rejection of the Western moralistic narratives of Hollywood film where good triumphs over evil, or where violence and exploitation are suppressed for the sake of public decency.

Lyotard favours ‘micronarratives’ that can go in any direction, that reflect diversity, that are unpredictable.

Rosenau (1993)
1. Its anti-theoretical position is essentially a theoretical stand.
2. While Postmodernism stresses the irrational, instruments of reason are freely employed to advance its perspective.
3. The Postmodern prescription to focus on the marginal is itself an evaluative emphasis of precisely the sort that it otherwise attacks.
4. Postmodernism stress intertextuality but often treats text in isolation.
5. By adamently rejecting modern criteria for assessing theory, Postmodernists cannot argue that there are no valid criteria for judgment.
6. Postmodernism criticizes the inconsistency of modernism, but refuses to be held to norms of consistency itself.
7. Postmodernists contradict themselves by relinquishing truth claims in their own writings.

david fincher - fight club

Filmography

• Alien 3 (1992)
• se7en (1995)
• the game (1997)
• fight club (1999)
• panic room (2002)
• zodiac (2007)
• the curious case of benjamin button (2008)
• the social network (2010)
• the girl with the dragon tattoo (2011)

The Dust Brothers

inglourious basterds paragraphs

in inglourious basterds there are many different links intertextualities to other films, all of the clothing and setings are spotless, the scene is revealed and so on... all of these elements make the film postmodernism. in the film Aldo's clothing at the end are spotless and he has been dragged on the floor and also sat in the back of a truk that would have been used for trnasporting troops, this would mean that the inside of the truck would be filthy, but when he gets out his suit is spotless and also not a single hair is out of place, this is postmodern as it is not true becuase Aldo's clothes would be filthy and it contrasts to what the typical idea for war is as it is a dirty and mucky job.




the film is mainly a Homage to the war as it does not take the mick out of anyone exept for hitler, who no one likes as he started the war trying to wipe oput all of the jews. Although the film does not follow the direct path of what happened it ends in the killing of hitler.

the storyline of this film seems to be more of a fairytale as it begins with once upon a time and it also has an ending in a forrest, which is stereotypical for a fairytail. this is a nother postmodern element as it is contradiction the typical war film story plot.

inglourious basterds hitler pastiche

the next element of postmodernism in inglourious basterds is when hitler has a big paddy like a child and this is a complete cntrast to what the war is as hitler is acting like a child not getting what they want (this is taking the piss out of hitler)

another example of a pastiche to hitler would be when he gets the red ring of death on his xbox 360

link to youtube film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J_1yEXrWtk

herer is the clip of hitler having the paddy from inglourious basterds:

song in inglourious basterds

Inglourious basterds is postmodern because it has intertextuality in it such as the songs as there is elements of there being spaghetti western songs as shown below:




here is the song in a spaghetti western:



this song that is in inglourious basterds seems out of place and this is a postmodern thing to do as it tells the audience how clever and origional the director is

Inglourious Basterds theory applied

the theorist Fiske could be applied to Inglourious Basterds as the 35MM Nitrate film print is originally used for entertaining an audience, however it is used as a weapon to kill all of the nazis in the cinema and this is taking the original contextual meaning of a nitrate film print and giving it a new meaning, in this case for a weapon and that is one of Fiske's theories.

inglourious Basterds Homage or Pastiche?

although inglourious basterds does not follow the correct path of what happened in WW2 they have followed the main story line and that is that Hitler is killed and his top officers were also killed, this finished the war.

so this means that Inglourious Basterds is a homage, making a tribute to all of the people who lost their lives to hitler and the nazi army, this is shown when the two american jewish soldiers are over killing hitlers corpse as shown below:

this could be shown as their revenge to hitler as you can see all of the anger in the mans face when he is shooting