Define Post Modern Media With Examples

Postmodern media is the idea that anything can interpreted and valued equally; nothing can be judged as negative since anything can be art. Kirby Fergusson comments that 'everything is a remix' and argues that originality is impossible and that creativity relies on the ability to copy, transform and combine. This is evident  in Quentin Tarentino's film 'Inglourious Basterds' in the soldier line up scene as it is identical to a scene in ‘The Dirty Dozen’ where the soldiers are being recruited to attack; they are stood in the same formation and location. This demonstrates how the film takes scenes and then changes them slightly but not so much that the audience doesn't recognise the original source, and then integrates them into the new film; thereby following Furguson's suggested rule of 'copy, transform and combine'

Postmodern media often takes copy, transform and combine too far and end up supporting Jameson's theory of depthlessness. For example, the film ‘Apocalypse Now’ uses the music ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ to criticise US foreign policy, using the music to carry across racist connotations. British Gas however, have created an advert that uses flying service vans, (perhaps replicating the helicopters in ‘Apocalypse Now’) and have the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ music playing over the top; this music has been put so out of context that it has ended up carrying no racist implications across at all, British Gas have simply created an entertaining advert using a piece of music that has lost its original meaning.

Pastiche and Homage are used in postmodern media. Pastiche links with the idea of parody and how the original source is mocked and become humorous. This can be seen in 'Hobo With A Shot Gun' where it attempts to replicate gruesome death such as decapitating a man by attaching his head to a car, however the film tries too hard to evoke emotion that it creates bathos and the audience cannot take it seriously.The film in itself is based on a trailer for a film that never existed; it was designed to be purposely bad to be good but then ended up just being bad. The sole aim of the main character in the film is to save up to buy a lawn-mover, this completely pointless life aspiration reflects the pointlessness of the film as a whole; again linking back to Jameson's theory of depthlessness. Opposing this, there is Pastiche where a film is respectful when copying another. For example in 'Inglourious Basterds', the audience feel the pathos aimed at them and they sympathise with the characters.

 However, many people criticise companies for advertising their products using simulacra; creating copies of copies of copies of something that never existed in the first place and making people aspire to a lifestyle which doesn't exist. For example the Nikon S8000 advert aims to 'remind' people about their unique experiences however, the experiences shown do not exist, the company is merely projecting aspirational life events that the audience may want and consequently, will ‘apparently’ experience with the purchase of this camera.

Postmodern media is constantly in production. So many films take ideas from other films and manipulate them to make the audience think they are watching something new therefore we are perhaps watching postmodern texts without even realising. Due to technical advances, we are able to view these texts on TV or online, 24 hours a day.