In what ways can Scott Pilgrim be considered Postmodern?

A main aspect of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World being able to be considered an example of postmodern media is its frequent and dominant use of intertextuality. Intertextuality is part of postmodernism generally, often being explored in films and music videos. The references within the films are to old-school video games and graphic novels.  This relates to the fact that in contrast to modernism, postmodernism explores the past, present and future rather than focussing merely on the future, so the inclusion of existing products supports this. Another aspect that may be significant in its relation to postmodernism is Ritzer’s theory of postmodernism referring to a cultural movement, and within this the emphasis on style rather than content.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a comedy directed by Edgar Wright, based on the graphic novels ‘Scott Pilgrim’, by Brian Lee O’Malley. Since 2010 when the film was released, there has also been a game of it, in the style of ‘old’ video games, as the film refers to frequently. The film starts with the Universal logo and tune being shown, with a twist visually and sonically. The audio is the same sound as how it is in games, being 8bit, as is the game-style logo; with the appearance of pixilation- old-school games did not have the most immaculate appearance in terms of quality. This gives an initial impression of the film being like a game, being a reference to old-school games, supporting postmodernism from the very start. There are regularly references to games throughout the film with smaller things such as images and small audio clips. Throughout the whole film, there are sound effects, however small, that are frequently used in films. An example of this is an image on the front of Kim’s drum kit when it is first shown in chapter one, being a bomb. This is an intertextual to the original Mario game. There are several intertextual references during the film to the game Zelda, such as the music of the computer game playing during the dream sequence in chapter three. Another is the symbol on Gideon’s microchip, as the same symbol is featured on the game. Many words appear on screen frequently, such as ‘FIGHT’. This is important as it refers to old games, where before a fight begins there is a countdown and the fight is announced in the same way. There is also ‘VS.’ featured in chapter six, as in the aforementioned fighting games. As well as this, there is game sound effects often played during the fight scenes. In old-school fighting video games, the figures flash when they are losing life, building up to the end of the fight, which is why the characters flash red in the film during a fight scene. A few of the many game references during the film are Pokémon, Tony Hawk, Zelda and Mario. Lastly, another dominant feature of video/computer games being intertwined with the film are the use of points/coins, which serve as a reward to Scott. This is important as a typical feature of video games is the use of rewards, making it seem as though there has been progress throughout. For example, when Scott knocks Gideon down in the final chapter, he earns $7,777,777, this amount because he was the final and most important to destroy, and also the seventh evil ex, as well as there being 7 numbers in the actual amount.

 The other main thing that Scott Pilgrim makes intertextual references to is graphic novels. The fact that it was based upon one Is significant as it is drawing attention to it and conforming to general themes and expectations of one, rather than merely being a film of a comic-book style, with the general storyline being the same and drawn upon. Firstly, ‘DING DONG’ appears on screen when the doorbell rings in the opening chapter, straight away referring to graphic novels, as phrases like these are always used in them. This is therefore self-reflective; emphasising the fact that the film is based on a collection of novels. Similarly, there is the use of split screen when Scott is on the phone to his sister, again what is a recurring aspect of graphic novels, showing multiple characters and/or settings at once.  As well as there being phrases/words appearing on screen which are intertextual references to games, the same is true for comics, with words such as ‘KROW’ often being featured in scenes of attack or fighting.  When there is a flash back to Ramona and Matthew’s past and their relationship, it is presented in a comic book style, like a story, with the picture-style rather than moving image flashbacks as there would usually, generally be.

 Hyperreality is a significant way in which the film is presented; it is not presented as a film would usually be, with only fans being able to identify certain intertextual references within. Many of the references are clearly made to be difficult to spot; being based upon or featuring things that are extremely ‘geeky’ that not everyone will know. However, there are the obvious intertextual references, such as Harry Potter, ‘She Who Shall Not Be Named’ and the game-style of the opening Universal title. The hyperreal aspect of the film is emphasised, as the exaggerated graphic novel and game style makes it clear that the film is not supposed to be real life. Usually, films containing characters of super-power ability are made to be as realistic as possible, but Scott Pilgrim has been made to appear like a game, life the extra lives and ‘pee bars’ and coin rewards.

Using Summer Camp and an artist of your choice, explain how some artists can be called post-modern.

Along with Summer Camp, the artist that I have chosen to evaluate in terms of postmodernism is David Bowie, who is widely regarded as a postmodern artist and the founder of the mixture of genres within popular music. For various reasons, both of these artists are postmodern, using many postmodern aspects such as hyperreality, irony and the lack of consistency within the music, all of which will be elaborated on. For example though, each of David Bowie's albums has an entirely different genre and style, with many themes being intertwined. Likewise, within Summer Camp's individual songs alone there is this aspect of postmodernism evident, as you can pick out various different genres in a single song.

Postmodernism is a movement that confronts what modernism does not, rejecting the idea of it. It deals with blurring the boundaries within genres, cultures and conventions within media, art, fashion, etc. In doing this, postmodernism creates something new, wanting to use both past, present and future and mix things together, rather than excluding the past, which is what modernism does. Postmodernism is aware that if the past did not exist, then neither would the future, so everything that has happened inflicts what is to happen, whether it is realised or not and to whatever extent. This explains how creators of music videos, for example, are not consciously aware that they have taken something from another music video, but have still used it as inspiration. Not only does postmodernism reject the boundaries of genres, but it does so generally. There are therefore no clear limit of purpose or meaning, due to people different things that they like and mixing it up, rather than sticking to a certain type of something, for example the genre of rock, or abstract art. Dan Black signifies this in his song ‘Symphonies’, by intertwining many existing ideas and styles from other things, reinforcing the idea that inspiration can be taken from everything and so things are gradually watered down and mixed up. This relates to Kirby Ferguson’s idea of everything being a remix, which is particularly relevant in music; you may often find that there are many artists of a genre that you can’t define due to it being many. Dan Black doing this was an example of Pastiche, as it uses existing styles in a mocking tone, pointing out the folly of how things have become to be created. The flip-side of pastiche is homage, which is a kinder and respectful way of using existing styles. Lastly, another main aspect of postmodernism is the idea of the audience being educated enough to understand things such as the intertextual references, whereas in modernism the audience is passive and potentially unaware of any messages, though that is not to say that there are none.

 Summer Camp are a duo, consisting of Elizabeth Sankey and Jeremy Warnsley, who use many aspects of postmodernism in application to their music. For example, they use found footage, which is already existing footage which has been reused to create something new, and add it to their music videos. For example, their videos for both ‘Round the Moon’ and ‘Ghost Train’ are taken entirely from videos already existing. The videos would have only been edited for the song, potentially changing the meaning of what they were originally. The relationship between the couple in the ‘Round the Moon’ video, for example could have been portrayed in an entirely different way to that of how it could have with a different song. This video is also a remix of the 1970 Swedish film ‘En kärlekshistoria’. The fact that Summer Camp also take styles from the 70s/80s is relevant to postmodernism due to the aforementioned aspect which confronts the past as well as the future. Summer Camp clearly does this as they directly use things from a different time. The fact that the video originates from a rather obscure place supports the idea of the audience needing to be aware of the reference and have a high knowledge of it. A large part of Summer Camp being postmodern is also their use of hyperreality as they create a hyperreal representation of themselves; in the ‘Round the Moon’ music video it leaves the audiences under the implication that both Elizabeth Sankey and Jeremy Warnsley are to star in it, yet the couple are clearly not the duo themselves. However, after this seemingly false representation and upon seeing who they actually are, this leaves the audience to believe that they do not look like themselves. This again is blurring the boundaries, not conforming to typical traits of an artist or their music videos. Through their website they further develop the hyperreal world, appearing again as two high-school students in America, even creating diary entries and background stories of the personas, as well as others. The way in which the website is constructed also allows the audience to interact, which postmodern music artists often do, which is easily accessible to them in this time, through the use of social networking sites such as Twitter, as well as interactive media, such as their own website. Along with the music itself, Summer Camp’s music videos do not stick to the conventional structure, which would be expected; they don’t always star in them, one video consisted entirely of gifs, use of footage from another time etc. Lastly, the postmodern ‘uncool’ aspect to the duo is ironic, as it is taking things that used to be cool that would now be uncool in order to make it cool again-though the attempt at being cool ultimately makes it ‘uncool.’ Lastly, Claude Levi-Strauss spoke of addition, deletion, subtraction and transposition, which Summer Camp uses. An addition used by them is the style from different generations that they use in their music and how they present themselves. They delete the typically modern aspect of the music industry and what is expected from an artist. They substitute their own footage by using found footage and replacing themselves by other characters in the video ‘Round the Moon.’ The way in which they transpose is how they shift things that don’t appear to ‘naturally’ be paired and interlink them, such as the different styles; 80s, retro etc.

David Bowie is an English musician, record producer and actor who is highly regarded as one of the most influential artists in music, as well as being an innovator. Firstly, the most dominant aspect of David Bowie being postmodern is the fact that he has dabbled in various different styles of music, with each album having an entirely different concept and genre. Bowie’s use of this is rejecting modernism, as postmodernism does, by not conforming to the general expected structure of an album and an artist having fluidity and consistency in their music. Though there is not always a mixture of genre within every song on an album, each album is clearly different to the last. For example, Space Oddity is psychedelic folk/progressive rock, whereas Black Tie White Noise is in the genre of soul/electronic. Due to this, Bowie is not only an important and influential artist of a specific genre, such as rock, but is influential upon all genres, making his music almost indefinable, linking to postmodernism as there is no clear boundary. Supposedly rather than with modernism, audiences must be able to identify the references made in Bowie’s lyrics; he was influenced by a wide range of things such as politics, love, drugs and literature and used these things in his music. This links to the idea of the audience needing to be of high intelligence in order to understand, such as when Bowie unexpectedly speaks about the decay of society in his songs, “Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats.” David Bowie’s period of 1970-80 is regularly referred to as a breakthrough of postmodern ideas into popular music- such as the way in which he goes through various musical genres and subject matters. As with Summer Camp, there is an aspect of irony; he once said that he does not innovate personally, rather recombines other people’s new ideas in an innovative manner. Lastly, David Bowie is largely known for his persona of Ziggy Stardust, after the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. This is highly postmodern as it is an example of him also using hyperreality, creating a hyperreal iconic persona of himself. 

In conclusion, both Summer Camp and the artist I chose to analyse in terms of postmodernism-David Bowie- are highly considered to be postmodern artists. The reasons for this are that they uphold various specific postmodern aspects, such as hyperreality, pastiche, mixture of genres, blurring of musical boundaries and irony. All of these are ways in which they reject modernism, a main reason for an artist being termed postmodern. 




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David Bowie - Postmodernism

David Bowie

Post-production

Production

• Taking photos for music magazine
• Recording clips for music video
• Writing magazine article
• Taking photos for digipak and poster
• Designing digipak and poster
• Designing music magazine

Post-production

• Uploading pictures, clips and music
• Editing the music magazine and the clips for the music video
• Adding effects
• Adding the music to the clips
• Rendering the clips
• iMovie for editing both the preliminary film and the music video
• Photoshop to edit the photos for the digipak, poster and music magazine

How has your view of editing changed over the two years as you progressed with different programmes?

I gradually got worse with editing over the two years. (Though it is true that I improved from the preliminary magazine to the music magazine, but it was all downhill from there.)

Jonathan Kramer - Postmodern Music Theory

A very interesting aspect of postmodern music theory. This will help you with your next essay.

Media Theorist Jonathan Kramer says "the idea that postmodernism is less a surface style or historical period than an attitude. Kramer goes on to say 16 "characteristics of postmodern music, by which I mean music that is understood in a postmodern manner, or that calls forth postmodern listening strategies, or that provides postmodern listening experiences, or that exhibits postmodern compositional practices."
According to Kramer (Kramer 2002, 16–17), postmodern music":

1. is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension
2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic
3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present
4. challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles
5. shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity
6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values
7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold)
8. considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts
9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures
10. considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music
11. embraces contradictions
12. distrusts binary oppositions
13. includes fragmentations and discontinuities
14. encompasses pluralism and eclecticism
15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities
16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers

Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Connecticut – June 3, 2004, New York City), was a U.S. composer and music theorist.

Active as a music theorist, Kramer published primarily on theories of musical time and postmodernism. At the time of his death he had just completed a book on postmodern music and a cello composition for the American Holocaust Museum.

Discuss why some people are not convinced by the idea of postmodern media.

Postmodernism is a movement that rejects modernism, blurring the boundaries within genres, cultures and conventions within media, art, fashion, etc. In doing this, postmodernism creates something new, wanting to use both past, present and future and mix things together, rather than simply ignoring the past, as modernism does. If the past didn't exist, then neither would the future, so every single tiny thing from the past inflicts the future, whether it is realised or not and to whatever degree. This may explain how creators of things such as music videos may have included something from another music video without consciously being aware, but it has been inspirational and relevant nevertheless. There are no specific, clear boundaries of purpose or meaning within postmodernism, as it is an example of people taking different parts of what they like from things and rejecting the rest of the ideas presented by that particular thing; such as liking a certain aspect, or some aspects, of a certain religion, but not fully believing in the rest of it. This links to Lytard's theory of this, and that it applies to history, politics, science and religion. Dan Black's Symphonies is an example of this mixture of everything- different genres and styles from existing films, reinforcing the idea that  inspiration can be taken from anything and all of these things can so easily be mixed together, so if one thing is just a watered down version of the last, is anything original? Apparently, postmodernism thinks not. Postmodernism also says that in order for the messages within postmodernism to apply, the audience must be 'educated' enough to understand the meaning that it is trying to portray, as well as the intertextual references; to those who don't see what Dan Black did and him using various different things from different genres, all they would see is the average music video and probably assume that all of this was Dan Black's ideas alone.

As a class we have looked at and discussed various different aspects of postmodernism, such as a homage and pastiche. An example of a pastiche- a generally light-hearted and mocking imitation of an existing style- that we have looked at is Dan Black's Symphonies, in which he shows that he can make something good which is the essentially the same as everything else, with him reinventing shots from various different films, such as Donnie Darko, Catch Me If You Can and E.T. An example of a homage, which is a kinder and more respectful way of using an existing product, is Kill Bill, which acknowledges the fact that it uses ideas from other, older films, therefore being respectful to the ones used, rather than mocking them. Another thing that we looked at was the game Desert Bus, which was exaggeratedly boring and repetitive, though this was its aim as it was attempting to be realistic- the game is an eight hour drive from Arizona to Los Angeles. The person playing the game would therefore not be able to pause the game to do something else- you can't pause real life, can you? This is shows a difference to other (better) games such as Bully, as you are taking the role of the character and the time you have is limitless and you get rewards. The only reward that you get from Desert Bus is one point at the end of the long drive, its point being to amplify the fact that you have just wasted eight hours of your life for nothing, therefore almost being a pastiche to other games in which you get many rewards, to simply make you feel as if you have achieved something. Both of these games from a postmodern view would be realistic, as they are both role-play games which realistic graphics.

 Jacques Derrida said, 'The centre is not the centre.' From this he was explaining that naturally the centre doesn't exist, but the concept of it is created by us in order to 'make sense of the world around us', so something that is the focus and needs to be the focus at the time is, but when this changes, something else shifts into its place and consequently the centre is literally not the centre anymore, it is not fixed and could be anything. This has particular relevance to postmodernism, as it explains how there is a constant change and mixture of things such as genre within media.

Due to its many contradictions, I think that the idea of postmodernism may not be entirely convincing; something is 'cool', but then when everyone starts to believe so it loses its coolness and becomes more uncool than it ever was cool, but if a postmodernist believer was to admit this then they wouldn't be postmodern at all, would they? This is the 'death of uncool', so the concept of cool is forever changing, along with the centre, along with everything else. Similarly, the idea of originality is intertwined with this, if you say that you are original then you automatically are not, though in avoiding the subject of originality that, to some, may in fact make you original, as it may not seem as if you are trying to be. But you are, most likely.

Playlist from Shuffle

Here is my playlist that is neither cool nor uncool, nor do I want it to be either:

Pause It and Turn It Up - Biffy Clyro
I Caught Fire (In Your Eyes) - The Used
Glamorous Indie Rock and Roll - The Killers
Listening - The Used
4th Dimensional Transition - MGMT
Diary of Always - Biffy Clyro
Nolita Fairytale - Vanessa Carlton
The Greeting Song - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Cleanin' Out My Closet - Eminem
Stan - Eminem
Disenchanted - My Chemical Romance
Funky Monks - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Greener With the Scenery - The Used
Light With a Sharpened Edge - The Used
Horseshoes and Handgrenades - Green Day

In making this playlist I found that a few of the same artist came up more than once, such as Eminem, Biffy Clyro and The Used. This shows that I listen to certain artists that I like of a similar genre, though it does go from Vanessa Carlton to Green Day. However, this could also be due to the fact that I accidentally managed to delete about 90% of the songs from my iPod, so the results would most likely have been different otherwise.

Brian Eno
Brian Eno basically said that no one in this day and age is interested in one specific genre and that people take different things of what they like until eventually everything is mixed up and there are multiple genres, rather than just a few of what they used to be: rock, jazz, ethnic, pop.

Edit: I am going to continue being stubborn and say that cool does not exist, however maybe at a push I would just admit that to me it doesn't as it isn't something I concern myself with. In that case, I would then simply not know what it is, or for that matter, what uncool is.