Essay question

Discuss two or more Postmodern texts and why you would give them this label

Charles Jencks was an architectural theorist who is credited with inventing the term Postmodernism. Perhaps one of the most difficult –isms to define Postmodernism can be described as a n umbrella term with a vast spectrum of meanings. The most obvious being that it stems from Modernism, literally translating to ‘after now’ or after modernism.  One of my favorite definitions of Postmodernism is that it is in fact an attitude rather than a movement. It’s something to be expressed rather than theorized about.  Over the years many artists have tried to emanate the Postmodern attitude within their work. Lady gaga is, arguably, one of such artists.

Her song Telephone was one of her most critically acclaimed successes, her 6^th consecutive number one on the Pop songs chart in 2009. The music video is perhaps widely known for the singer’s brash costumes and parody-like work nevertheless hundreds of essays have been written on the exploration of postmodernism within her work. The Video is extremely long for a conventional Music Video at 9:31 and therefore is actually considered to be a short film.  The opening sequence features Gaga walking through the female prison as some kind of celebrity. The leather jackets and bare minimum of clothes are worn and everyone appears to be dancing are all suggestive themes more commonly related to Exploitive/Blue films. This mocks the censorship boards as more and more music videos are being declared too outrageous and many have been banned in countries. The performances seen within the prison play into a sense of Hyperreality. The theory, first discussed by Baudrillard, claims the world at present is a composition of Simulacrum-models/copies of the originals. As an actual prison would require prison uniforms and strict discipline it appears that he may be right in this sense. The copy of the prison in the Music video is more or less an idealistic version of the highly glamorised prison, life perhaps even referencing the prison argument that inmates are given more comfort/luxuries than necessary.

The composition of the Music video relates to Goodwill’s suggestion of the Voyeuristic eye, in which women are treated objectively with shots lingering mainly on the breast and leg area as seen within the video. Pastiche is used heavily with the car referencing Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill –Pussy Wagon. The tone of the music video avoids the humour of parody and instead adopts an almost respectful tone as a way of paying homage to the famous director. The telephone headdress worn by Lady Gaga is a nod to acknowledging the highly materialistic society we live in, suggesting postmodernism truly is a ‘by-product of late capitalism’-Fredric Jameson.  One of the in-mates is also heard saying ‘see I told you she didn’t have a dick’, this references the fractured aspects of a Postmodern society where sexuality is no longer split between a number of different kinds rather than the traditionally two-split heterosexuality.

As in Telephone, the difference between the real and unreal, fiction and non-fiction is explored similarly in Run Lola Run, another Postmodern short film, directed by Tom Twyker and released in 1998. The subversive structure of Run Lola run defies the codes and conventions of a short-film and is used to emphasise on the Hyperreal aspects of the film. Time is shown to be a fickle yet important aspect of reality. The Butterfly effect demonstrates this through the change of events in each run as Lola acts differently, the events change in response to her actions e.g. Lola talks to the ambulance driver and he crashes into the sheet of glass. Lola’s life becomes a race against time, an impossible challenge; she must save Manni in 20 minutes by finding 100,000 Dutch Marks. The repetitive narrative structure is likened to that of a Video game by many critics from start to finish. The introduction is like the challenge given to the gamer at the start of a new level and people who Lola affects are like the obstacles put in place to prevent her from winning. The money bag signals the beginning of a new level and therefore gives Lola and Manni the chance to complete their goal in the form of a new ‘life’. Each Run becomes a simulation of the first realistic run, where she fails to succeed and they block out the mistakes of the previous level. In the second Run Lola learns from her mistakes and remembers how to use a gun-information she retains from her first attempt. Lola’s abnormal reserve of strength is almost a special power/ability bestowed upon avatars chosen by video-gamers. She manages to keep running for over 80+ minutes, highlighting the alternate reality within which she lives. In fact this point is especially stressed upon when the camera zooms into the TV Set showing Lola running down the stairs in animation form. The flashbacks and flash-forward shown reinforce the ‘mistrust and suspicion’ with which Postmodernism views meta-narratives, hence the relaying of changes within each person’s life during the changed runs.

In general Lady gaga appears more relevant to current media topics, whereas Run Lola Run represents Postmodernism as applied to a certain time period. Lady Gaga’s approach to a postmodern text requires explicit, complicated intertextual references whereas Run Lola Run relies more heavily on Reception theories forcing the audience to think deeply and philosophically in order to understand its narrative.