Postmodern Society

While society in postmodernism films may look in depression era, the reality has a lot less violence. Some movies tend to be blamed for some criminal acts that happen in the society because some of those movies have plenty of violent acts. However, this has never been taken seriously as the main reason for those criminal acts. Despite that, many movie makers ignore the issue. This is probably because in a postmodern world, the society composed of a wide variety of people.Many different Cultures, languages, nationality, ethnicities, and so on can often be found interacting in one place. Furthermore, all these factors often lead to an open-minded group of people. Which tend to be able to take the content displayed in the movies maturely.

Essay Structure

A rough idea of how my essay going to look like.

Introduction

-General description about modernism and postmodernism

-How they affect the film industry

-Particularly in superhero movies

Body

-Batman movies throughout both eras.
-Kick-Ass as a postmodern movie
-Genette's transtextuality theory

-Kick-Ass questions what is needed to be considered as a superhero.

-Kick-Ass and Batman similarity of having no real power.

-Derrida's deconstruction theory

  >Batman

  >Kick-Ass

-Joseph Campbell's hero's journey theory 

  >Batman

  >Kick-Ass

Conclusion

-Kick-ass deconstructivsm

-How it affect people's thoughts

Annotated Bibliography

Agger B. 1991. Critical Theory,Postsctructuralism, Postmodernism. [online] Available at: http://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/courses/PoliticalScience/661B1/documents/BenAggerCriticalTheoryPoststructPostMod.pdf [Accessed: 7 Aug 2013].          Reading material which gave me further understanding of postmodernism and structuralism.

Beattie T. 2008. The dark (k)night of a postmodern world | openDemocracy. [online] Available at: http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/the-dark-k-night-of-a-postmodern-world [Accessed: 7 Aug 2013].

         Reading material about the movie The Dark Knight

I       Irvine M. 2004. Derrida-Deconstruction-Notes. [online] Available at: http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/Derrida Deconstruction-Notes.html [Accessed: 7 Aug 2013].

        Reading material which gave me further understanding about Derrida's theory

Lanir, L. 2013. What is Transtextuality? How Words and Texts Interact. [online] Available at: http://www.decodedscience.com/what-is-transtextuality-understanding-the-meaning-of-the-words-we-read/28891 [Accessed: 7 Aug 2013].

        Reading material which gives basic understanding about transtextuality.

Sweetman B. 1999. Postmodernism, Derrida and Différance: A Critique. [online] Available at: http://cte.rockhurst.edu/s/945/images/editor_documents/content/ARTICLES%20(PDF)Lyotard,%20Postmodernism%20and%20Religion%20(110kb)Fou/Sweetman-Derrida.pdf [Accessed: 7 Aug 2013].

          Reading material which gave me further understanding of postmodernism and Derrida's theory

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Yahoo! Contributor Network. 2010. Kick-Ass: Postmodern Superheroes + Bloody Action + Major Sarcasm = One Kick Ass Movie. [online] Available at: http://voices.yahoo.com/kick-ass-postmodern-superheroes-bloody-action-major-5840744.html?cat=2 [Accessed: 7 Aug 2013].

         Reading material about the movie Kick-Ass

Genette's Transtextuality

Gérard Genette is a French literature theorist which most well known for his theory of transtextuality. Originally transtextuality has five sub groups. Four of them which are intertextuality, architextuality, metatextuality, and hypotextuality can be applied into films. Genette took the general idea of intertextuality and changed it to the “co-presence of two or more texts”, quotations being the most common example for this. Architextuality refers to the position of the text. Either directly or indirectly into a generic category due to its title, even before the audience has seen the work. Metatextuality is the relation between one text and another, whether the text is clearly cited or just referred to. Finally, hypertextuality refers to the relationship between two which transforms, modifies, elaborates, or extends the hypotext.

The Hero's Journey

In 1949, Joseph Campbell described a pattern known as The Hero's Journey or The Monomyth of many narrative stories around the world in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Image above explains how a hero in a story starts in an somewhat ordinary world and then proceed to begin his adventure after being approached. In Batman for example, the main character Bruce Wayne was used to be a boy from a very wealthy family until one night, both his parents were killed in front of his eyes which represents the "call to adventure" stage of the story. In addition, Batman Begins shows how Bruce Wayne gain his combat ability which represents the "meeting the mentor" stage. Unfortunately, Kick-Ass falls into this category as well. Despite having some deconstructivism elements in the beginning of the movie, the pattern of the Hero's Journey can be clearly seen as the story goes.

Derrida's Deconstruction

Jacques Derrida is well known for his semiotic analysis which is known as deconstruction which often associated with postmodernism. In his lecture "Structure, Sign, and Play," Derrida decenters the idea of structuralism. “The center is not the center. The concept of a centered structure…is contradictorily coherent. And, as always, coherence in contradiction expresses the force of desire.” He believes that the center doesn't exist naturally because people will always have to relate it to something else they recognize. However it is needed to be cleared that it does not mean that the center does not exist at all. Relating this idea into Kick-Ass, it seems that Kick-Ass' unique storyline and postmodern elements are all supporting the idea of deconstruction, but is it a deconstructive movie as a whole?

Kick-Assery

Unlike any other superhero characters, the main character in Kick-Ass, played by Aaron Johnson does not have an actual superpower. In fact, neither any of his sidekicks nor villains have a superpower. Kick-Ass relies completely on his combat ability and physical strength to fight against his enemies. Furthermore, unlike other superheroes, Kick-Ass as a normal person is a stereotypical awkward nerdy teenager. Starring Chloe Grace Moretz as Kick-Ass' sidekick, hitgirl, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse as the villain, Kick-Ass is filled with characters playing as teenagers. However, despite having teenage characters and comical artstyle in the movie, Kick-Ass is rated R for its violent fighting scenes.

Batman's Legacy

Having eight different movies being released since 1989, titled Batman, and the three most recent ones by Christopher Nolan, Batman has evolve from conventional superhero movie into a postmodern movie full of twists. Unlike other superheroes, Batman has no real superpower. His "superpower" comes from his high-tech gadgets, vehicles, and fancy suits which I think has made him fall into modernism category right from the get go. There are some intertextuality here and there throughout most of Batman movies, but the most obvious sign of postmodernism in Batman movies can be probably seen in The Dark Knight, which shows crisis and terror in the society. Which then gave birth to Batman's greatest villain, the Joker. He is notorious for his suicidal terrorism which seems to be impossible to negotiate with as his purpose is basically to cause terror. And from that particular point, came the good ol' saying "Some men just want to watch the world burn."

image source: http://www.vizionvintage.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/the-evolution-of-the-batman-logo-02.jpg

Characteristics of Postmodernism in Films #2

In addition to some of the characteristics that can be found in movies in the previous post, there are a few others. The idea of a whole other dimension of space which created by the technology has influenced films in postmodern era. Movies such as The Matrix, Inception, and The Truman Show show the idea of this hyperreality where technology created "realities" look somewhat more authentic and desirable than the real world. On the other hand, there are movies that captures violence, drugs, and the media which lead to emotionless, unauthentic lives. These kind of movies often has a dark and violent theme. Some notable examples are Fight Club, and American Psycho. Furthermore, the futuristic idea can still be seen in postmodernism. Artificial intelligence and robotic technologies can be found in Avatar, Blade Runner, and Terminator.

Characteristics of Postmodernism in Films

Postmodernism era being the era that came after modernism, both have some similar characteristics. In films, both modern and postmodern films try to break the conventional method of story telling by altering time and space in the movies. However, unlike in modern movies whereby the audience has an idea of the time and space in the movie, in postmodern movies, they are often challenged to figure it out by themselves. A classic example is 12 monkeys, a movie which involves time travels, and Run Lola Run which shows the main character turning back time to solve her problems. In both movies, the audience is never given a clear idea of time and space throughout the movie. There are some other movies which emphasis on challenging the audience to focus and pay attention to the movie in order to figure out what exactly is going on in the movie, but there are also a few more casual movies that can be easily enjoyed which can be categorized as pastiche. 

Pastiche movies often pay homage to other popular movies and create a twist out of those movies. In results of that, these movies offer rich intertextualities in them. Some examples are Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, and Scary Movie.

Characteristics of Modernism in Films

One of the most distinctive characteristic in modern films is that instead of forgetting about the reality just like in classic films, the audience are supposed to be aware the fact that they are watching a movie. There are some very distinctive elements in the movie that can make the audience to have that kind of awareness. For example, just like some of the scenes in the movies in the video above, the characters look directly to the camera as if they are interacting with the audience. Meanwhile, when they look and talk directly into the camera, it will create a scene as if the character is talking to the audience. Some other elements including freeze frame, flash backs, jump cuts in between scenes, and montages. All of these elements can be found in the previous movie that I was talking about which is Moonrise Kingdom. We have a character who in a couple scenes is delivering some sort of a documentary to the audience, jump cuts inbetween scenes, and of course the memorable montages of the two main characters exchanging letters. Considering all these elements can be found easily in the movie,  Moonrise Kingdom may actually categorized as a modern film.