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

Postmodern media has brought about large debate and argument within the media world with the support and criticism of the properties it brings to industries, for example in film or music. Post-modern media involves an array of different theory’s, which attempt to explain its effect on the audience and what the media text is trying to achieve. Intertextual References is one of these, Julia Kristeva’s theory could be mostly associated with the film ‘Inglorious Basterds’ Directed by Quinten Tarantino in which includes many references to other films which have been shaped to fit within the genre of his film (in this case war), without obvious recognition. Jameson criticises this and his overall opinion of poster-modernism is defined by ‘vascous and trapped in circular references’.

Inglorious Basterds uses the theme of spaghetti western font and music throughout but this seemingly fits with the drama even though taken from a different genre. Kirby Ferguson’s theory of “Everything is a remix” would support this type of film making as it attempts to copy then transform and combine existing material, however Jameson’s point and opinion becomes noted within media text like the film “Hobo With A Shotgun”. The film takes a comedic shape of references from 80’s films and does this so to be deliberately bad.  The screenplay and acting differ in quality compared to Inglorious Basterds yet both pieces select and re-use pieces of other films but differently as Inglorious Bastards references are presented subtly trying to be not as easily noticeable whereas Hobo’s are made the main (most important) feature. In conclusion Inglorious Basterds receiving success and high reviews.

The argument that Hobo with a Shotgun is suppose to be bad does hinder Jameson’s point, however the film Scott Pilgram Vs. The World directed by Edgar Wright suffered at the box office after one of its main features was the use of inter textual references. The film was aimed at teenagers and young adults but the majority of references were taken from the 80’s, including games, music videos and other films including music by ‘The Doors’ in which the audience weren’t familiar with and therefore found no preferred reading of the parody/imitation scenes within.

Some people are unconvinced of post-modernism because of its relationship with modern technologies, for example social networks sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. These along with games e.g. The Sims, allow people to live reality lives away from there own in a digital world, were they can create aspirations and do things virtually they can’t in there own. When achieving these aspirations they feel the same feelings as if they had done it for real, this links to Baudrillard’s theory of ‘Hyper Reality’ were there is an inability in the conscious to distinguish between reality and simulation. This idea of games maybe extreme but this is common within many media advertisements, for example in Nikon's S8000 camera advert, they portray a marriage, holiday to Egypt, nightclub party and more scenarios and the audience have feelings of happiness, joy etc. for the people within which they then relate to the product. These people are however actors, the scenes are staged and the audiences have never met, got to know (establish relationships) or interact with these people and yet feel emotions towards them, this conforms with the theory of people struggling to distinguish between reality and virtual/simulation.

The music industry has changed allot due to post-modern development. The increasing amount of patents and copyright infringements has duplicated in number in the new century. This is because it has become easier for the audience to analyse and research into the history of different media texts and therefore it has become much harder to hide the sources artists uses to create there music. Albert Einstein believed “To be creative, you must no how to hide your sources” alluding to how people use existing conventions. The argument with this are people like Kirby Ferguson who think things have always been copied and that originality is impossible think things won’t progress with legal things like this. However for the artist themselves they are of the majority of time very angry and annoyed when what they see as their own material is copied and they are not rewarded or credited. For example one of Green Days biggest hits ‘American Idiot’ revived their career and gave them global success, but it however came apparent to a small majority of audience that the songs main riff was almost exactly the same to the ‘Dillinger’s Four’ song ‘Doublewhiskeycokenoice’. This shows how songs have been transformed to be iconic to a new audience (of different time) whilst also having the context changed (linking to Levi Strauss Bricolage Theory). The argument is that what we believed to be original and at the time (song tabloids saying the song was just like old punk) was because it was original, but original no more.

The complexion of this shows again that the audiences are almost sold a lie and that post-modernism allows the un-creative to be creative with existing media. This may have a huge effect on future media texts, as anything the audience will see will never be new, it will always be a copy that is transformed or developed into different contexts and the original meaning and artist will be lost, and this is one main reason many or unconvinced of post-modern material.