Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator and photographer. He introduced the concept that reality or the principle of the "real" is short-circuited by the interchangeability (the quality of being capable of exchange or interchange) of signs in an era whose communicative and semantic (the study of the meaning of words & linguistic development) acts are dominated by electronic media and digital technologies.
POSTMODERNISM:
Jean-Francois Lyotard - "In postmodernism one has given up the idea of a grand narrative."
The idea now is to accept a number of different perspectives and not exclude any expression or perspective from the culture of information stream. Postmodernism is the philosophical equivalent to New York City: Embracing pluralism, combination and diversity.
Definition from Compact Oxford English Dictionary: a style and concept in the arts characterized by distrust of theories and ideologies and by the drawing of attention to conventions.
TYPES OF POSTMODERN MOVIES:
(P) Pastiche: self-referential, tongue in cheek, rehashes of classic pop culture
(F) Flattening of Affect: Technology, violence, drugs and the media lead to detached, emotionless, unauthentic lives
(H) Hyperreality: Technologically created realities are often more authentic or desirable than the real world
(TB) Time Bending: Time travel provides another way to shape reality and play "what if" games with society
(AS) Altered States: Drugs and technology provide a darker, sometimes psychedelic, gateway to new internal realities
(MHTH) More Human than Human: Artificial intelligence, robotics, and cybernetics seek to enhance, or replace, humanity
LIST OF POSTMODERN MOVIES:
- Pulp Fiction - P
- Scream - P
- Scary Movie - P
- Austin Powers - P
- Fight Club - F
- Apocalypse Now - F
- Matrix - H
- The Truman Show - H
- Dark City - TB
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - AS
- Robocop - MHTH
- Blade Runner - MHTH
DEFINITIONS:
- Ironic: dry; humorously sarcastic or mocking
- Nostalgic: Unhappy about being away and longing for familiar things or persons
- Narrative style: the story that is created in a constructive format.
- Intertextuality: the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. Refers to another author's borrowing and transformation of a prior text.
- Parody: Make a spoof of or make fun of, a composition that imitates or misrepresents somebody's style usually in humorous ways
- Self-referentiality: referring to oneself or itself