TV: Postmodernism and Deutschland 83

Postmodernism is one of the more challenging ideas in A Level Media but fortunately Deutschland 83 provides a brilliant case study as a postmodernist media text.

We need to be able to look for postmodern ideas in the media texts we study - and some of that we've done already in our work on advertising and marketing, intertextuality and genre.

Notes and definitions

Postmodernism: a late 20th-century style and concept in the arts, architecture, and criticism, which represents a departure from modernism and is characterized by the self-conscious use of earlier styles and conventions, a mixing of different artistic styles and media, and a general distrust of theories. (Source: Dictionary definition)

A brief history
Postmodernism is linked to the premodernism and modernism eras.

Pre-modernism: up to late 19th century.
Religion dominates society.

Modernism: late 19th century to mid-20th century
Science dominates; religion questioned; distinct difference between high culture (e.g. art) and low culture; industrialisation.

Postmodernism: mid- to late-20th century to present
Blurring of high and low culture/art and popular culture; media-driven hyper-reality; style over substance.

Postmodernism and the media
Postmodernism is often defined by scepticism, irony, self-referentiality or intertextuality.

What does that mean? The Simpsons provides an example. The structure is a classic family sitcom but the content ridicules authority (including its media conglomerate owner) and is full of intertextual references to other films, TV shows and popular culture.

Further examples of postmodernism
An example in architecture would be Las Vegas; in art, Andy Warhol's pop-art of the 1960s.

Award-winning 1998 German film Run Lola Run (‘Lola Rennt’) is credited with revitalising German cinema with a postmodern take on crime drama that features a repeating narrative and a blurring of genres.

Postmodernism: theory and terminology

Strinati

Dominic Strinati identified five ways to define postmodernism:

1. ‘Media-isation’ of culture – we make sense of reality using media texts
2. Emphasis of style over substance e.g. celebrity, reality TV
3. Breakdown of difference between art and popular culture
4. Confusion over time and space – modern society is built on the instantaneous
5. Decline of meta-narratives or grand narratives (e.g. religion or political theories such as communism)

Key terms
There are some key terms we need to learn when studying postmodernism in media texts:

Bricolage
The juxtaposing of old and new texts, images, ideas and narratives to create new meanings.

Hyper-reality
Jean Baudrillard argued that audiences view the ‘copy’ of reality in the media as more real than the original. Fredric Jameson discussed the idea of ‘historical deafness’ by suggesting the media-isation of history means we only understand historical events through their media representation.

There are some key terms we need to learn when studying postmodernism in media texts:

Pastiche

This refers to media products that imitate the style of another text, artist or time period. Pastiche is an example of intertextuality and takes a positive view of the original source.

In contrast parody is similar but ridicules the original source (e.g. Scary Movie parodies horror).

Fredric Jameson on parody and pastiche

“Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the wearing of a linguistic mask, speech in a dead language. But it is a neutral practice of such mimicry, without any of parody’s ulterior motives, amputated of the satiric impulse, devoid of laughter.”

Jameson suggested pastiche does not offer up comment on society or history – it is simply done because it is ‘stylish’. He marks this as an example of ‘historical deafness’.

Deutschland 83: a postmodernism text

The following scenes of Deutschland 83 provide excellent examples of bricolage, hyper-reality and pastiche:

• Opening scene: 0.00 – 3.00
• Title sequence followed by archive footage: 8.10 – 9.15
• Running/supermarket scene: 17.10 – 18.10 

Postmodernism & Deutschland 83: blog task

Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet #54: Introduction to Postmodernism. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets - you'll need to save the factsheet to USB or email it to yourself in order to complete this at home. Read the factsheet and answer the following questions:

1) Read the section on Strinati's five ways to define postmodernity. What examples are provided of the breakdown of the distinction between culture and society (media-isation)?

2) What is Fredric Jameson's idea of 'historical deafness'? How can the idea of 'historical deafness' be applied to Deutschland 83?

3) What examples and theories are provided for the idea of 'style over substance'?

4) What examples from music are provided for the breakdown of the distinction between art and popular culture? Can this be applied to Deutschland 83?

5) What is bricolage? What examples of bricolage can be found in Deutschland 83?

6) How can the audience pleasures of Deutschland 83 be linked to postmodernism? Read 'The decline of meta-narratives' and 'Media texts and the postmodern' to help answer this.

7) Read the analysis of media concepts and postmodern approaches on page 3 of the factsheet. Choose three of the concepts and write an example from Deutschland 83. Clue: genre, representation, ideology and audience would all be good options for this task.

8) Now look at page 4 of the factsheet. How does Deutschland 83 demonstrate aspects of the postmodern in its construction and ideological positioning?

9) Which key scenes from Deutschland 83 best provide examples of postmodernism? Why?

10) Why might audiences enjoy the postmodern aspects of Deutschland 83? What audience pleasures might elements of bricolage or pastiche provide viewers?

There is a lot of challenging work here - you will have the Easter holidays to complete it but take your time, read around the subject and re-watch the scenes from the first episode on All4 to help develop impressive academic answers to these questions.