Post Modernism

Theorists englishhhh from emily_allenx

POST MODERN DEFINTION

Postmodern media rejects the traditional movement of modernism, a movement that occurred in the late 19thcentury. Postmodern media often opposes the traditional “grand narratives” that associated itself with totalising forms such as love, politics and religion used to ‘understand’ reality. Instead, postmodern media often subverts and disregards conventions such as time, space and narrative to create a deliberate distortion of reality to create a ‘hyper reality’. Rather, it adopts referential techniques such as bricolage and pastiche with the intention of being read by a literate audience

WHY MUSIC VIDEOS ARE POST MODERN TEXTS?

Music videos are post modern in a variety of ways; they can go against society’s idea of normal and incorporate different forms of media. However there is no real consensus to what post modern actually is , so if a music video is claimed to be post modern it is usually a reflection of personal choice.

BLACK MAGIC LITTLE MIX INSTITUTIONAL INFORMATION & ANALYSIS

In this essay I shall be discussing postmodern and how it is shown through the 2015 music video Black Magic by Little Mix, directed by Matt Read an American director who has worked with a variety of artists. Post modernism is the theory that there is no meta-narrative and that all perspectives are to be held with equal merit, it is also said to reflect modern society’s feelings of alienation, insecurity and uncertainties concerning identity. This music videos intention was to show the movement of girl power to the younger generation.

Post modernism can be seen in music videos through a variety of factors, those include, irony, this is the expression of ones meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite typically for a humorous effect, plays with conventions, this means it doesn’t go against the stereotypical music video, intertextuality which is the relationship between texts, black humour which makes light out of a dark situation and pastiche.This is when an artist’s imitates another person’s work. There are a variety of postmodern artists with the most famous being, Radio Head, Green Day, The Beatles and Little Mix.

Black Magic, by Little Mix is postmodern through its use of black humour, the video makes light of a dark situation as it is focused around a group of girls who are unpopular at school and aren’t viewed as society’s idea of normal and therefore are signalized. However throughout the video the girls start to do weird unusual things that in the video are seen as the right thing to do as it is a virtual reality world but in everyday life would be frowned upon. The video ends up with girls becoming the most liked girls in the school setting so therefore the black humour is shown as the postmodernfactor is made very clear from the beginning till the end.

Additionally in the video feminists would argue that this video is progressive for it highlights how woman can be represented differently to how a patriarchal capitalist system wishes them to be. Rather than being portrayed provocatively and as subservient to a system they are shown to be innocent young school girls which doesn’t benefit the males as the woman aren’t viewed sexually which according to other media sources such as newspapers is what men enjoy. Black Widow is another video in which female protagonists are emphasised as being dominant. This is intertextual because it makes a significant link to other forms of media.

Another part of the music video that makes it postmodern is the fact that it plays with the typical conventions because the video is made into a narrative through the use of the short film as it has an opening title and credits at the end making it similar to a film layout. This music video tells a story about how a group of girls start of being the protagonists of the school but eventually end up being able to fit into the school through the use of magic which again is not a typical convention of everyday life as it relates to witches which is not contained to our perception of reality. The use of witches could potentially relate to the idea of witch craft which many people within society are against so the video could be an attempt to change people’s perceptions.

Additionally in the video the girls start off as small geeky ugly school girls but towards the end are shown to be pretty and popular as they begin to use their witch craft correctly, this is post modern due to the idea of hyper reality as it shows how the distinction between media and reality has really collapsed and we now live in a world where there are so many different images and representations of ourselves with some being viewed positively and others negatively.

The video is also post modern due to the relationship between the lyrics and visuals as the video follows a narrative as it creates a story. Although the relationship between the lyrics and visuals is discrete the story is still shown via the shots of the artists singing / dancing / acting part of the story element.

Black magic is post modern as it has intertextual references to the film Princess Diaries which follows the same story line of a girl going from geeky to popular. Another intertextual reference would be Freaky Friday, as this is film where a mother and daughter use magic to swap lives and soon begin to appreciate one another once they’ve lived in each other’s show. This reference to the film takes the element of the band using magic to transform their characters making them realise how life is from a different perspective, from both a “geek” and a “popular girl”.

Additionally, the playfulness of the whole music video is a key reason why the musicvideo could be considered to be postmodern. From the colourful setting of the school and the stereotypical school costumes to the theme of the music video surrounding the school theme which engages the young target audience, it clearly illustrates the feature of playfulness.

 To summarise the music video “Black Magic” by Little Mix could be argued to be post modern due to the multiple examples of the conventions of postmodernism which are clearly shown in the music video including intertextuality, playfulness and hyper – reality.

HOW DID THE AUDIENCE FEEL ABOUT THE VIDEO?

The audience overall belived the song was fairly standard and extremly pop like. The lyrics however tell a story about how girls have the power to make males fall in love with them, the lyrics are said to suppourt the feminism movement showing woman to be equal to men. Additonally the lyrics from this song are quite basic in compariosn to other chart singles, however by having them this basic it allows younger girls to understand the lyrics and the point they are trying to get across.

This music video is not a marketing tool apart from selling the brand of “Little Mix” itself , there is so marketing techniques used in this video.

This music video is not provocative at all it is the complete opposite as the girls remain fully clothed and dance child like throughout the whole performance, this is due to the girls have a young target audience. This video caused some controversy as there was a clip of a girl farting in the video and then everyone looking disgusted as she did so, this created controversy as ,many people thought it was wrong that this was frowned upon as it is a “natual occurance” that is part of human life. Little Mix had to apolgise via social media because this certain clip had created such an uproar.

To conclude I believe post modern texts to generally be something that uses hyper-reality and has a selection of interlextual references. I do however belive that all music videos are post modern in their own way. The music video I have chosen shows post modern in a very clever way.

Postmodernism from anniapple

Above is a resource I found online, this will be useful when I revise as it has all the neccessary information on post modernism including the key theorists.

Post Modernism in Media from dannybh

Postmodernism for Beginners from New College Nottingham


Modernist vs post modernist conventions

Modernist:
- Master narratives and meta narratives of history and culture
- Faith and personal investment in big politics
- Heir-achy, order and central control
- Focus on broadcast media
- Mass culture and mass consumption


Post Modernist
-  Rejection of toatalizing theories
-  Loss of centralised control
- Trust in micro politics
- Play, irony and challenge to official seriousness
- Demassified culture

This is a slide share on my chosen tv programme "The Inbetweeners" , this just describes how one of the episodes was post modern and how.

Inbetweeners from EmilyHinds

This is me discussing my post modern film case study.