Music Video: Postmodernism in music video

 Media Magazine Theory Drop - Postmodernism

Create a new blog post called 'Postmodernism in music video: blog tasks'. Read ‘The Theory Drop: Postmodernism’ in MM66  (p26). You'll find our Media Magazine archive here - remember you'll need your Greenford Google login to access. Answer the following questions:

1) How does the article define postmodernism in the first page of the article?

Postmodernism takes this concept of questioning traditional structures, representations and expectations and pushes things a step further. ‘postmodernism is a cultural movement that distrusts all established philosophies

and frequently experiments with the medium it is presented in’.

2) What did media theorist and Semiotician Roland Barthes suggest in his essay 'The Death of the Author'?

he said that a writer’s opinions, intentions or interpretation of their own work are no more valid than anyone else’s.

3) What is metatextuality?

Metatextuality is where a text draws attention to the fact that it is a text. It points to the process of its own

creation.

4) What is the repeated phrase on the cartoon on postmodernism on page 28?

post modernism is a cultural movement that distrusts all establish philosophies and frequently experiments the medium it is in

5) How does postmodernism link to media representations and reality?

People may view the media as more real than the actual event, for example people may view what happened in Deutschland 83 as more real than the actual cold war this is an example of both hyperreality and historical deafness.

Music video CSPs and postmodernism

Now apply postmodern ideas to our music video CSPs by answering the following questions:

1) How does the music video for Ghost Town incorporate elements of postmodernism?

Intertextuality - references the horror movie M through the shadow of the car on the wall

Pastiche - imitates the hammer horror genre 

Hyperreality - people may view the 80s in london through the video rather than what it was actually like

2) What film genres are alluded to in the music video for Ghost Town? Which scenes in particular created these links?

The shadow of the car on the wall references the horror film M

The chiaroscuro lighting references hammer horror movies as well as crime movies

The costume and slow moving car also alludes to a crime movie 

3) How does Old Town Road use postmodern elements in its music video?

The experimenting with time and space through the past and present and the tunnel

Bricolage - past/present

Pastiche - a western movie 

Intertextuality - the tiktok trends of the time

Hyperreality - people may view the west 1800s like it is presented in the music video

4) How does the Old Town Road music video reflect technological convergence and modern digital culture?  

Its success started on tiktok through a trend which propelled its popularity leading to the music video on youtube, convergence of genres (country and rap), it contrasts the wild west with the present for example the horse and the car.

5) What do YOU think Lil Nas X was trying to say about reality and American culture in the music video for Old /Town Road?

I think that he was trying to show that people of different races get along well and that there shouldn't be things that separate them since many people did not originally accept the song as country because of his race, he shows that it can actually bring people together rather than divide them.

A/A* extension reading: Medium article

Read this Medium article on the Postmodern Pop Artist. Do any of the ideas in this article apply to Old Town Road or Ghost Town? How? 

"On the other hand, there are musicians and artists pushing the boundaries set in place or providing music that questions established norms."

Lil Nas X pushes the boundaries of country music and creates a hybrid genre by combining both hip hop and country which many people originally disagreed with.