Discuss why some people are not convinced by the idea of postmodern media.

Discuss why some people are not convinced by the idea of postmodern media.

Postmodernism is a rejection of modernism or a response to it, which already gives people a reason to criticise it. Postmodernism is a broad term to describe many forms of disciplines such as Art, Architecture, Philosophy and Music. Modernists want to look to the future and forget about the mistakes of the past in order to progress, where as Postmodernists argue that it is not possible to only look to the future and not look to the past because you would be reciting the mistakes, which then stops progression. Postmodernists tend to create texts by chance for fun rather than design them for a purpose and to serve as a use. All the text will regularly go in contradiction of media conventions, mixing genre and dismissing the traditional narrative structures, like Jean Francois Lyotard's Narratives. By using existing real media conventions from previous media texts it gives Postmodernists the ability to produce something new either to respectfully pay homage to it or to mock it for comedic value as a Pastiche. Furthermore, a criticism of their use of intertextual references is that the audience has to know the source or understand the reference given otherwise they won't understand the context of the joke. Many view it as a negative due to it replacing classical concepts especially in Art and Music. An example of a postmodernist displaying intertextual references in this way would be comedy programs like Family Guy or The Simpsons, these are constantly making intertextual references to other existing texts such as Star Wars. The criticism is that this makes it less accessible to various audiences because it won't connect to the people who don't understand the references given. This is one reason why some people are not convinced by postmodernism. Some Artists and writers etc. such as Quentin Tarantino also seem to be given this bad stereotype due to their inclusion of various different postmodern elements within their work due to being accused of “stealing” an original idea and manipulating it to then call it their own.

A further reason why some people are not convinced by the idea of postmodernism is that the use of intertextual references have reached an extent to where there are no more and therefore modernists believe that postmodernist are copying what has already been done. A reliable example of this is Kanye West’ song ‘Diamonds from Sierra Leone’, this song uses various samples from ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ by Shirley Bassey. From examples like this and many others within existing conventions some people are concerned that originality will be stretched so much that it will become completely lost and t postmodernism we will be reusing the same references and sources throughout generations over and over again.

Understanding an existing media text a post modernist will watch a film/program etc for example and pick out bits where the director has paid homage or taken inspiration from. For example if a post modernist watched a film with many intertextual references in such as ‘Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World’ they would be able to find the references and apply them to wherever they were taken from. Again, modernists disagree with this due to the fact that anyone not knowing the origin of the references is not included.

Continuously, Post modernist also like to see things for what they are, René Magritte once did a painting of a pipe and labelled it as ‘this is not a pipe’ which to someone not understanding or to someone that has a misunderstanding of post modernism would find abnormal, moreover a post modernist would make sense as it is not a pipe but a painting/image of a pipe. Some modernist’s object to the fact that some video games include postmodernism, this is because they are surreal in a sense as some are set in space etc. Some games allow us to manage a football team; others give us the ability to have numerous lives or making us invisible such as  ‘Call of Duty’, they object to these things due to the fact that these activities are literally impossible for us the achieve. 

The postmodernist game ‘Desert Bus’ is different in aspects, this is because it takes 8 hours to finish and once completed you receive only one point (unlike traditional games giving us numerous thousands of points). The game doesn’t allow you to pause at any stage just like reality, not only this but if you stop or fall in a ditch you are towed right back to the start no matter how close you are to completion, this also shares a strong link with reality. People play this game because it is one of the most accurate and realistic games that has been made. Some people would disagree due to the fact it being “pointless”, this is because the whole point of hyper-reality in games is to release yourself from reality and become someone else who can do things that a normal person can't such as a solider, a rock star or a manager of a football team.

Post modern media texts and post modernists challenge traditional texts due to what you watch, read, play or look at actually an original or a copy of something that already exists? The probability is that yes, it may well be a copy of an existing convention. In a few years time the whole meaning behind post modernism will have changed again which makes modernists think, what is the reason in learning the meaning to postmodernism?