Lady Gaga Paparazzi Task

12341 Poems

Appropriation
borrowing objects
adding to it
making it your own
Reworking

Baroque
1600-1750
Western Art Music
Derives from Portuguese word
Barroco

Bricolage.Constructed from
From Various Materials 
Available or on hand
Upcycling?

Postmodernism Essay

The Oxford English Dictionary refers to Postmodernism as ‘a style and concept in the arts characterized by a distrust of theories and ideologies and by the drawing of attention to conventions.’ Postmodernists claim that in a media – saturated world, where we are constantly immersed in media, 24/7, and on the move, at work, at home – the distinction between reality and the media representation of it becomes blurred or even entirely invisible to us. In other words, we no longer have a sense of the different between real things and images of them, or real experiences and simulations of them. Postmodern media rejects the idea that any media product or text is of any greater value than another. All judgements are merely taste. Anything can be art, anything can deserve to reach an audience, and culture ‘eats itself’ as there is no longer anything new to produce or distribute.

Postmodernism means after Modernism. Modernism is a style which came just before postmodernism and means things just fulfilling their purpose, not being fancy and being practical. Post modernism is a theory in which nothing is absolute and nothing is completely right, a post modernist think would think about the grand narrative, and they would question it.

Post modernism isn’t modernism, but at the same time, it is following on from it. Many ideas have emerged from Postmodernism. An example of a Postmodernism building is the AT & T Tower in New Yorkwhich borrows elements and references from the past and reintroduces colour and symbolism to architecture. Another example of a postmodernism building would be the Manchester Trafford Centre Food Court. This is because there are lots of different elements and cultures in one place. For example, there is a Chinese quarter, a New Orleans quarter, Italian quarter and also Indian quarter. The State Gallery of Stuttgart is the epitome of Postmodernism. Built in the year 1984, it is described as a masterpiece of postmodern architecture.

The Mighty Boosh is an example of a Postmodern Text. The show is postmodern in many ways. It is completely based around fashion and the celebrity culture. Vince (one of the main characters) is very much postmodernism, even in the clothes he wears. A postmodern text is easily defined or rather identified by considering 9 factors or characteristics; these factors are Eclecticism, Intertextuality, Parody, Bricolage, Acts against Modernism, Nostalgic, Narcissistic, An Active Audience and Hyper Conscious. The Mighty Boosh demonstrates some of these 9 factors.

Eclecticism shines through the varied characters they portray and the range of music styles they adopt. You never know what you are going to get.

Intertextuality – The Mighty Boosh openly borrows, mimics and adopts traits of a multitude of styles, clichés and conventions that the knowing audience can directly relate to.

Parody – The Mighty Boosh is scattered with parodies from the generic musical or textual.

Bricolage – The Mighty Boosh can be viewed as a bricolage of many already tried and tested formulas.

Acts against modernism – The Boosh exhibits this at every given opportunity to articulate their idiosyncratic humour: a talking gorilla, a Mexican jazz-fusion guitarist with a door in his afro, a man made of cheese. You learn to accept the fact that there is no justification or reasoning behind actions or characters. They exist because they can exist; it is a celebration of the medium of television that allows The Boosh to pick and choose from a long history of tried and tested formulas. These familiar formulas ironically combine to create something that is an original breath of fresh air.

Hyper Conscious - The Mighty Boosh provides us with an effective framework for postmodernism deconstruction and is bursting with its characteristics from the costumes, characters, design, mise – en – scene and dialogue.

Pulp Fiction Task/Lady Gaga Task

Consider the ways in which postmodern media challenge conventional relations between audience and text. Refer to at least two media forms in your answer.

Pulp Fiction

As Pulp Fiction does not have a clear narrative, it challenges a linear structure and smooth flow. As show below, the story line doesn't happen in a straight line. It moves from different events in time throughout the movie.

(Image 1)

The start of the film begins with two characters sitting in a diner. They talk about robbing a bank then talk about robbing a café/diner. They then get their guns out and tell everyone in the diner to cooperate with them whilst they are trying to rob the diner.

(Image 2)

At the end of the movie, they again get their guns, just like in the beginning of the movie (image 2), and the clip is then shown again. This time however, we have more of an idea why they want to rob the diner and also what goes on whilst they try to rob the diner and after they try to rob the café.

As shown in Image 1, many of the film aren’t in chronological order. Many of the events we see happen earlier in the film actually happen later on. This makes it hard for the audience to understand at times. Some of the events that happen later on in the film happen earlier in time. Again this makes it harder for the audience to realise what it happening.

Pulp Fiction makes you feel less secure and sometimes it’s not easy to identify the genre. Pulp Fiction’s genre is hard to identify, this is because there are many different genre’s Pulp Fiction. The first scene suggests that it could be a Crime Thriller, but throughout the film, it also suggests many other different genres’s including Drama, Thriller, Fiction and also Comedy.

 (Image 4)

Pulp Fiction makes the audience regularly and frequently wrong footed. This is because of the storyline throughout the film. As I have already mentioned, the storyline isn’t in chronological order, which makes the audience wrong footed because at times the audience don’t get what is happening or what will be happening.

 (Image 5)

In Pulp Fiction, we think about Jameson’s ‘flattering of affect’. We have emotional sympathy for Mia, one of the main characters. When Mia snorts some heroin, and she O.D’s, Vince give her a shot of adrenaline to the heart to bring her back to life. We feel sympathy for her because she could potentially die. Although it was her own fault for snorting this, we feel sympathy towards her in case she does die.

 (Image 6)

Pulp Fiction follows more postmodern conventions making it a postmodern film. This is because, audience don’t gain security from knowing the direction of the narrative. Pulp Fiction also doesn't have a familiar narrative which audience get swept away into. Pulp Fiction also doesn't have a clear story line. This is why Pulp Fiction is more postmodern rather than conventional. 

Lady Gaga – Born This Way

Like Pulp fiction, Lady Gaga – Born This Way is also very postmodern.
Reasons you can tell this is because the music video is very hard to identify a genre. There are many different genres, for example, electronic rock and techno but also on a broader level, heavy metal, disco and rock and roll. You can tell the music video is these genres because of its lyrical topics of sexuality, religion and individuality.

There is not a clear story line to the music video. The video challenges a linear structure and smooth flow. The story line does not always make sense and there are certain parts that most of the audience could be unsure about and could get confused.

Gaga’s videos are often postmodern and Lady Gaga herself is postmodern. 

Hot Fuzz Essay

Explain how Hot Fuzz could be described as Postmodern Media.

Hot Fuzz, which was released in 2007, was directed by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg. Hot Fuzz is one of the three films to feature in the Ice Cream Trilogy. The Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, also known as the Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy is a series of films directed by Edgar Wright and written by Simon Pegg. The first film to feature in this series was Shaun of the Dead. The second film to feature in the series was Hot Fuzz, and the third film, The World’s End. Each film is connected with a Cornetto Ice Cream Flavour. In ‘Shaun of the Dead’, a red strawberry flavoured Cornetto, which signifies blood and gory elements features in the film. In ‘Hot Fuzz’, the blue original Cornetto appears. This is to signify the police element of the film. The World’s End will feature the green mint choc-chip flavour. This will signify a Sci-fi movie. The use of the three flavours and colours of the Cornetto is a reference to Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colours Film Trilogy, which is a French Film.


For my essay I will be looking into Intertextuality used throughout the film, Conventional vs. Postmodern Film and also challenge to text and audience relationship.

The first thing I will be looking at is the Intertextuality in Hot Fuzz. There are many different examples of intertextuality throughout the film. Intertextuality means that there is a text inside a text. In this movie, Nick Frost, who plays Danny Butterman, references many different films inside the film Hot Fuzz. Danny makes references to films such as Die Hard, which is a film about a police officer, Bad Boys 2, which is also about cops and police officers, Silent Rage, which is again about a police officer. Lethal Weapon is also referenced and the theme in this movie is police. Supercop is also referenced in Hot Fuzz; again the main theme running throughout this film is police.
I think these references have been used for a comedy and parody affect. As all these films are about police and police officers, this could be done for parody effect. We see Danny watching and talking about these films throughout Hot Fuzz, this could be because Danny maybe aspires to be the people in the film, or thinks of Simon Pegg, who plays Nicholas Angel, when watching these films. Danny Butterman is a huge fan of Action films and cops, which is what Hot Fuzz pays homage to.

Hot Fuzz could be described not only as Postmodern, but could also be described as Conventional. Hot Fuzz could be described as Conventional because of the following points. We gain security from knowing the direction of the narrative. In Hot Fuzz, we know what direction the story is going in, and we gain security from knowing the direction unlike in other films such as Pulp Fiction. There is also a largely familiar narrative and the audience gets ‘swept away’ in the narrative tide. The film Hot Fuzz has a beginning, middle and an end to the film. This makes it easier for the audience to understand what is happening, rather than moving the end to the start and moving the beginning to end, the directors of Hot Fuzz have decided to keep it simple and easier for the audience to understand. Hot Fuzz also provides a clear storyline which moves towards a resolution. This clear storyline is provided throughout and moves towards a resolution throughout the film. In the film Hot Fuzz, many different people die because different people murder them, although we don’t know who murdered these people, this is resolved at the end, and we find out there is a group of people that murder people that they don’t like, or may be jealous of. 

However, Hot Fuzz can also be referred to as being Post Modern. Hot Fuzz could be described as a Post Modern text because characters address us directly and graphics appear on screen mid scene. At the beginning of the film, Nicholas Angel addresses us directly, and states his name and also holds his Police ID card to the screen. He addresses us directly because it is an important part of the film. By addressing us directly, it suggests that he might be a lead role and of some importance. Hot Fuzz could also be a postmodern text because; we have emotional sympathy for the characters. Danny Butterman finds that his father is behind the group of people who are murdering different people the live in the town he is policing. We feel sympathy for his when he finds out this and is forced to kill his father, as every other person in this group of people is to be killed, so that no other murdering takes place in the town.  

Audience Interpretation and Hyper Reality are key factors to the movie ‘Hot Fuzz’. When watching Hot Fuzz, you have to bring something to it. You have to have watched the spoofs and understand them to understand Hot Fuzz. On the other hand, when reading Wuthering Heights, you don’t have to bring anything to it, unlike when watching Hot Fuzz.  

In conclusion, Hot Fuzz could be described as Postmodern because the film makes lots of intertextual references. For example Die Hard, Silent Rage and Bad Boys 2 and Hot Fuzz pays Homage to these films. We also have emotional sympathy for certain characters, such as Danny Butterman when he is forced to kill his father. Hot Fuzz could also be described as Postmodern because the characters address us directly.