Connor Priest

Explain how certain types of media can be defined as postmodern

Compared to modernism (The movement in western arts, architecture and

design which rejected the past and created a new within the present art.)
Postmodernism is a label which relates to or is characterized by; especially in
being self-referential. This label reacts to the assumed certainty of scientific
efforts to explain reality. Im going write about how certain types of media can be
defined as postmodern, for my examples I have chosen a film called Deadpool
and I have chosen the music artist Dr Dre to use as an example.
As a hyper spectator, its easy to see that Deadpool is a perfect example for how
a film can be viewed as postmodern. The film follows a charismatic mercenary
called Wade Wilson who has recently found the love of his life. After his world is
turned upside down by cancer, he decides to get help from a shady organization
that in the process disfigures him whilst giving him self-healing abilities. When
Wades love interest is kidnapped, he must chase her down from the one guy
who can solve his disfigurement.
The film is full of self-referential jokes. Celebrities like David Beckham, Hugh
Jackman and even Ryan Reynolds himself are mentioned as parts of jokes that
are made by Deadpool. The character Deadpool also refers to many items that
can be intertextual. Items like the adventure time watch, the transformers ring
and the Wham! Album are all sued throughout and are an insight towards Wades
personality.
Deadpool likes to break the fourth wall a lot; breaking the fourth wall is when an
actor or character addresses the audience directly. There many scenes and
moments that show Wade breaking the fourth wall and for a split second, enter
our own universe. Examples of these can be when he narrates over the film and
describes how this isnt a superhero film, but a romantic film. Or during the post
credit scene where he pays homage to the end of Ferris Buellers Day Off, he
does this by copying the scene but adding the movies own context to it. There is
also a scene where Wade breaks the fourth wall, whilst in a fourth wall break,
with which he proceeds to make a joke about breaking 16 walls.
John Fiske believes that certain life events only make sense in relation to all of
the others that we have seen, even though we may have not experienced them
in reality we see them this way through types of media. This can be related back
to Deadpool, the car crashes at the start of the film can be a great example of
this. Car crashes are pretty rare, and the possibility of being involved in one is
slim. At the start of Deadpool the over-exaggerated car crashes can lead people
to actually believe this is how car crashes may happen in real life.
Dr Dre is postmodern because he as an artist uses intertextuality. Dr Dre uses
intertextuality because he refers to other artists in his songs, artists like Eazy E,
Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Tupac are all mentioned. Dr Dre also likes to
use different methods that can put him on a postmodern level. For example, in
the majority of his songs; Dre likes to use and remix different samples of songs
from many different eras and genres. Dre has sampled from artists such as Led
Zeppelin and James Brown. This is an extreme use of bricolage.
Connor Priest

As well as the use of bricolage, Dr Dre often pays homage to certain people; like
his deceased brother in The Message. Dre also pays homage to his break-out
group called NWA, he often refers to them in his songs. The use of Homage is
another postmodern element. He is also intertextual but it is hard to narrow it
down to just one prominent reference because Dre seems to be more of a
bricolage artist rather than a precise series of intertextual references. Talcott
Parsons believed that if roles were not fulfilled or changed then the structures
would adapt. Its clear the Dre challenged this as he had two sorts of roles
throughout his career, he mainly started off rapping and being a clich looking
rapper, but in his later years he drifted away from the stereotypical rapper look
and focused more on producing. This was Dres way of entrenching new roles.
The future of postmodernism is already written in my opinion. Without a doubt
though, the future of Cinema will be full of Pastiches/Bricolages. Films will get
remakes, sequels and reboots. With the ever-growing capability of technology,
before we know it, we will be able to bring back past movie stars such as: James
Dean, Marlon Brando, River Phoenix and Heath Ledger. This is already technically
in use as Carrie Fisher was made younger in Star Wars: Rogue One. Grand Moff
Tarkin was remade in Rogue One, as actor Peter Cushing had passed away prior
to Rogue One being made. This is only the start as people will love the feeling of
seeing cult legends of film being brought back, these icons have fan-bases
around them which will only help to draw in more money for the studios making
these films. For the music side, songs will be remixed, mashed-up and sampled
from. It will be a repeating process that lives on forever. All of which refer back to
postmodernism.