The Characteristics Of Postmodernism In Popular Media

Harold and Maude, a movie directed by Hal Ashby and released in the 1970’s, did not receive much attention and popularity when first released. Since the movie depicted obsession with suicide through a 20-year-old character Harold, the movie received backlash because during the 1970’s there were high rates of suicides among teenagers and college students. However, over time college students found the movie very entertaining, therefore bringing the movie into the lights and making it a cult hit. In Blue Velvet, a neo-noir mystery film directed by David Lynch and released in 1986, received a variety of critical responses from a wide range of audience, but this movie’s unique style earned Lynch his second nomination for Best Director. The idea of innocent getting caught in a web of evil is portrayed through the character Jeffrey Beaumont, who first encounter’s a severed ear in a grassy abandoned field. In this paper I will compare and contrast these two movies that include key actors Bud Cort, played as Harold, and Kyle MacLachlan, played as Jeffrey and include a few key points that have made these movies enjoyable to watch.

With the large variety of interests that flourish within the society, it is no shock that genres exist, especially in film, as the definition of entertainment differs from person to person. A genre is a category of films that are characterised by similarities in the narrative elements and conventions found within the films. Genres are extremely useful to both film producers and audiences as it helps them narrow down the target audience and search for films that are in their range of interests. No one wants to watch a political drama overrun with teenagers or go into a cinema with the intentions of watching a romantic comedy, only to receive blood and gore instead.

Popular genres have changed over the

    Film and literature are two media forms that are so closely related, that we often forget there is a distinction between them. We often just view the movie as an extension of the book because most movies are based on novels or short stories. Because we are accustomed to this sequence of production, first the novel, then the motion picture, we often find ourselves making value judgments about a movie, based upon our feelings on the novel. It is this overlapping of the creative processes that prevents us from seeing movies as distinct and separate art forms from the novels they are based on.

Development and adaptation of the western genre has occurred throughout the twentieth century in relation to the shift in context, this is still relevant. Stereotypes of a western genre and the context are determined by the time in which the film is being produced. The time in which they were produced determine how social construction, gender ideas, values and attitudes, the setting and SWAT codes are demonstrated. I have chosen to present this speech by looking at the film studied in class, and a film of my choice and how the difference in context has changed in the tie of these two films.

The producers will develop a test and the audience will tell the producers whether it is something they want to see or they are not going to see. This can affect the next text to be produced in an attempt to conform to the audience demands. Looking at the development of different types of genres and the development of films within the same genre, it’s possible to look at similarities and differences and identify changes in society and audience ideologies and tastes.

The notion that film functions rhetorically is hardly novel, and, indeed, there is a long tradition of film criticism within rhetorical studies.5 Historically, the rhetorical criticism of film has tended to focus on the representational aspects of cinema, attending to how films compel audiences at a cognitive rather than corporeal level. But more recently, scholars in an array of fields (Kennedy, 2000; MacDougall, 2006; Massumi, 2002; Shaviro, 1993; Sobchack, 1995, 2004) have begun to consider how cinema appeals directly to the senses, how it sways viewers somatically as well as symbolically. Attention to the body corresponds closely to the affective (re)turn in rhetorical studies,6 for conceptualizing rhetoric as embodied necessarily “reflects a merger of reason and emotion” (McKerrow, 1998, p. 322; see also Johnson, 2007). Rhetorical

To support this idea, Bordwell illustrates how art cinema motivates its narratives differently, through two principles: realism and authorial expressivity. Firstly he proposes the notion that art films reflect realism in their characters, space, and time. Psychologically complex characters are present in real worlds dealing with true-to-life situations. Art cinema is concerned with the characters ‘reaction’ to these situations, rather than their ‘action’. Thus it bares an element of psychological subjectivity as the characters survey the world they are in, which aids the realisation of the distress of

Media publications are a great expression of human trends and ideas. Weather movies or music, they all have a societal impact and at least allude to trends of sociology theorists. This is abundantly true in the film V for vendetta. There is a preexisting novel which also made an impact in that culture and it followed the same trends, but the film is being used because of its greater relevance to the modern era of America. The film depicts a post-apocalyptic world that has symbolism and story lines that run with modern events. These depictions can be more readily understood within the scope of Max Weber’s sociological insight and theory more specifically about his understanding on the modern world and it bureaucratization.

Where does truth lie? Postmodernism is a literary movement of the twentieth century that attempts to show that the answer to this question cannot be completely determined. Characteristics of postmodern works include a mixing of different genres, random time changes, and the use of technology that all aid in presenting a common postmodern theme that truth doesn’t lie in one story, place or person. The novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer encompasses these postmodern characteristics combining together show how the truth cannot always be attained.

The star-studded romantic comedy Midnight in Paris is one of Woody Allen’s most recent films which he did both, wrote and directed. It is a film about a man named Gil (Owen Wilson) who travels to Paris with his fiancée’s parents in order to expand his imagination and he ends up embarking on a journey to the 1920s while walking the streets of Paris at night. Not only is this film engaging and witty, but it also manages to provide both, overt and covert examples of postmodernism in film. By analyzing Woody Allen’s 2011film Midnight in Paris, we can identify the presence of many underlying motifs in both the narrative and the characterization of the film when using some of Frederic Jameson and Jean Baudrillard’s concepts on postmodernism.

The media influences how people experience social life. Media such as newspaper, television and film, are important sources of information, education and entertainment. It can be used to learn more about the world and the people in it. In this regard it can be said that the media represent, interpret and endorse aspects of social experience (O’Shaughnessy and Stadler, 2005). The media are also implicated in social regulation, or in other terms, the government of society. The media are implicated in government and politics in an obvious way because modern systems of democracy are conducted through the media. But the media have a bigger role to play in government by structuring how society is controlled and maintained.

By analyzing the historical contexts of these specific movements, we take a deeper look at society's social, religious, economic, and political conditions that existed during a certain time and place. These relevant factors profuse mass influence into a filmmakers decisions while in the production process of a film. Additionally, these components have the role of establishing distinct trends in the film industry. Each movement has its own purpose for creating each film in regards to a stylistic standpoint.

Literary eras are used to classify the time period in which a novel is written. In the novel, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, the literary era postmodernism can be distinguished through its characteristics. Postmodernism began in the late 20th century, where many authors introduced violence, new technology, and counter culture into literature, which reflected history at that time (Writers History, 1). By examining the characteristics of the postmodern literary era, one can see how the novel clearly demonstrates these characteristics by exhibiting intertextuality, techno culture and hyper reality, as well as temporal

The popular culture of music has changed dramatically over the course of sixty five years. Since this time, new genres of music have been introduced, existing genres have changed, and fixed stereotypes have been associated with certain genres of music. Music has become a major part of popular culture, and is portrayed almost everywhere in first world societies, including on television, radio, at shopping centers, sporting events and in every area of popular culture. Music has become a major part of popular culture, and continues to strive and develop into more and diverse areas of culture.