Essay: Explain Why the Idea of 'Postmodern Media' Might be Considered Controversial

Postmodern media rejects the idea that any media product is of greater value than another. All judgements of value are merely individual taste. They can be self-referential, with complete knowledge of the modern that has been surpassed by a new age. This is opposing to modernism, which is concerned with the contemporary or modern, interested in innovation and moving forward. Postmodernism exists in all types of media texts and with this push for postmodern texts comes a level of controversy, especially in media such as film and music in modern times. Examples of postmodern films are The Neon Demon and Deadpool. An example of a postmodern music artist would be Logic.

PRESENT: FILMS (THE NEON DEMON & DEADPOOL)

With Postmodern films, such as such as The Neon Demon and Deadpool, there are several controversial examples can be pointed out. In The Neon Demon shows a number of disturbing scenes which audiences could find hard to watch. They include Necrophilia, Rape and Cannibalism. Although any rape and cannibalism is not show on screen we can understand what has happened and the gruesomeness of it. Nudity and violence appears in both Deadpool and The Neon Demon in extremely graphic amounts. For example, one scene in Deadpool shows him cutting his own hand off. In The Neon Demon we are shown a character who cuts open her stomach with a pair of scissors. Despite showing scenes like these, as an audience we seem to be desensitised to these actions and can watch with little difficulty, which suggests that audiences are emotionally detached from what they see. These features of a film would have been frowned upon in the past, and the films would not be shown in the cinema. However, these scenes would still be uncomfortable to watch in present times, but has become more acceptable to show on screen because of the changes in society and the postmodern approach which came with the abolishment of the Hays/Production Code in the late 1960s. This was an attempt at strict censorship of films that followed three principles including: No sympathy of the audience thrown to the side of crime, Films must show a correct standard of life and Law, natural or humans should not be ridiculed. If the Hays code was still in effect in modern times, Deadpool and The Neon Demon, would be non-existent and so would most modern texts released today. The code was abandoned as the BBFC introduced a new board of film classification. Since being introduced film censorship have become more and more lenient as time has gone on.

The Neon Demon’s abstract style of film making provides an artistic approach which identifies with the early origin of film and its artistic approach. The 2016 film, substitutes the need for much dialogue and instead uses cinematography, lighting and music to emphasis character development and story progression; something that the director, Nicolas Winding Refn, is well known for, stating that ‘Silence is cinema… it makes people very uncomfortable’. For example, there is a scene in which the main character, undergoes a personality shift as she walks her first runway. At the beginning of the scene the music is calm with blue lighting to reflect the character of Jesse, who is shy and kind-hearted. As the scene continues the music becomes harsher and aggressive. This is visualised through the red lighting which represents her transformation to a shallow, vain and somewhat evil character that has been ‘possessed’ by the neon demon that exists in the hyper-real (Baudrillard) world of modelling. Neon Demon is a film which can be appreciated for its artistic value and can be enjoyed by audiences, even if they are unable to understand the text or decipher the encrypted messages that are placed by the director. This suggests that cultural material has become more realistic and audiences no longer concerned with having to understand the text, if it can still entertain them. This is controversial because it differs from the typical structure of a film.

Deadpool is a postmodern film which very much favours the hyper-spectator over the casual viewer. A hyper-spectator, according to Cohen, is a ‘spectator who may have a deep knowledge of cinema, can reconfigure both the films themselves and filmic fragments into new and novel forms of both cinema and spectatorship, making use of the vastly expanded access to films arrived at through modern communications equipment and media’. In Deadpool, there are several intertextual references and jokes which are directed towards hyper-spectators. For Example, a previous Ryan Reynolds role which was mocked was his first time playing Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Fans were outraged by the inaccurate depiction of Deadpool and how his mouth was sewn shut. The fourth wall was broken to take a dig at the movie when Ajax threatens to sew Wade’s lips shut, in reply he says ‘Oh I would do that if I was you’ making an inside reference to the criticism that came with doing so in X-Men Origins.  This is an example of the many references that only hyper-spectators would understand.

Another example in Deadpool is when Colossus captures Deadpool and he says that he is going to take him to Professor X. In response Deadpool say ‘McAvoy or Stewart? These timelines are so confusing.’ This is in address to the timeline of the X-Men universe which has several duel castings for past and present times which has been confusing to many viewers.  These inclusions of parody agree with the Genette’s idea of hypo textuality, in which Deadpool transforms, modifies, elaborates and extends other texts through parody. Also, metatextuality applies to Deadpool as the film consistently provides explicit critical commentary about others.

Intertextuality is ever-present throughout Deadpool and shows many intertextual references in the form of bricolage. Theorist Levi-Strauss developed the concept of bricolage believed that all texts are constructed out of recognisable ‘debris of other texts. Deadpool has numerous examples of this. In the first few minutes of the movie we see Hello Kitty lip balm flying through the air as well as Deadpool wearing an Adventure Time watch under his suit.  Bricolage is also used in Deadpool through referencing a number of different well known movies. For example, the comparison made between Negasonic and Ripley from Alien 3. Also, the film uses the example of the movie 127 Hours to compare it to Deadpool cutting of his hand. The clothing of Ajax and Angel’s crew has similarities to the crew of Blade 2 and Weasel mentions this by mocking them; ‘Have fun at your midnight screening of Blade 2’. Deadpool also compares his relationship with Blind Al to Batman and Robin. The use of bricolage is something to be debated. For instance, many believe that a postmodern film like Deadpool should not even be considered a film and feel that it is just a mash up of pre-existing ideas and jokes based on society and the superhero genre. Theorist Jameson sees Postmodernism as “nothing but a series of self-referential ‘jokes” (something Deadpool is self-aware of). Jameson sees literacy and culture output as far more purposeful. Popular culture would disagree with this, as postmodern texts are predominant and successful. However, fans of the character and the superhero genre will enjoy this humour and the script’s consistent intertextual references and jokes.

PRESENT: LOGIC

Bricolage is a strong feature that is evident through sampling, which is used throughout Logic’s entire body of work. Logic samples music and spoken words from various periods of time and various genres of music. He tends to like sampling mellow instrumentals and vocalisations, such as The Singer’s Unlimited version of ‘Deck the Halls’ which Logic cuts up in ‘Fade Away’. In his latest album, he includes Cassius Clay’s spoken word album ‘I Am the Greatest’ in his song of the same name.  The wide range of influences from various types of films and genres of music agrees with Kramer’s belief that postmodern music includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures. The samples that are used by Logic challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles. The idea of sampling is controversial. This goes back to how theorist Jameson disagrees with postmodern texts for the reason of them not being original and simply a mash up of existing texts. Some can argue that its use as bricolage creates something new and widens the audiences’ range of music culture and heritage, introducing audiences to music that they would not ever heard before. However, going back to Theorist Levi-Strauss who developed the concept of bricolage, sampling is something which should be accepted as he believed that; all texts are constructed with the ‘recognisable debris of other texts’.

FUTURE

CGI in films has become more advanced as the years have gone on and it has become more and more progressive to the point that it looks extremely close to lifelike. One feature is the ability to bring people back to life by digitally recreating them. This has been done in film via CGI recreation and in music using holographic recreations (Elvis, Tupac Shakur, Michael Jackson). Most recently, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story used CGI to bring back an old character where Peter Cushing’s character Tarkin was bought back, after his death in 1994.  However, with these innovations, there have been questions about how ethical it is to bring back dead actors and music artists, and remain respectful. For example, after the death of Carrie Fisher in late 2016, there was a large controversy by large numbers of fans on social media who petitioned to ensure that she was not recreated with CGI for the ninth installment of the Star Wars out of respect. Fans were later insured that her character, General Leia Organa, will not be recreated. 

In regards to music, evolution have occurred with the advancements in technology which have provided new ways of releasing music. As music streaming services, such as Apple Music, Spotify and Tidal have become a primary way to listen to music, artists have adopted this online platform to release their music. The release of Kanye West’s ‘The Life of Pablo’ album was very controversial for a number of reasons besides a number of lyrics included. when it was released Kanye announced on Twitter that the album would be a Tidal exclusive forever, caused a lawsuit to be filed on April 18, 2016 against West, Tidal, and Jay Z for false adverting, in attempt to boost Tidal’s low subscriber number. exclusive to the streaming platform Tidal following. During this time, Kanye made several changes to album by adding songs and tweaking elements. These tweaks were made while on Tidal till eventually he became happy with it. The delayed release on the more popular streaming platforms frustrated audiences, and had many fans download the album illegally. Shortly after the album was released on Spotify and Apple Music. According to Billboard, The Life of Pablo arrives at No. 1 as the first record where “the majority (70 percent) of its units were generated by streaming equivalent albums. The album became the first album to go #1 off streaming alone. This shows the scale of music streaming platforms and the audience that they are able to gather and the debate which comes with exclusivity deals on albums.

CONCLUDE

To conclude, postmodern texts are frequently released in modern times and can be identified in all kinds of media texts by being self-aware and referential of itself and other media texts. As more and more postmodern texts are released there is more controversy that comes with how these texts are created. Whether it be the content including more adult content that the past; especially during the modernism age, or whether it be the use of bricolage and intertextual references. However, despite these controversial inclusions in postmodern texts, it is clear that Postmodernism seems to appeal very much to modern society and so it is clear that it has a future in modern popular culture.