Postmodernism is essentially not a philosophy, it is a way of
analysing things; it is a critic of what we assume is real. He says that
postmodernism argues that there is no truth and that the whole thing we watch
and hear is social constructed. Social construction includes genders, power and
class which means that they are real and fixed however postmodernism argues
back that none of these are “absolute” truth and it is something we have all
created as a society and now we believe that these are the truth. Postmodernism
wants to break down the idea of Good + Evil and the binary of Male + Female
through the typical conventions of postmodern texts and these are: parodies,
pastiches, intertextual, bricolage, hyperreality, virtual reality, simulacra
and alterity within the media.
My chosen music video by Robin Thicke is a summer hit -
‘Blurred Lines’ (feat. T.I. and Pharrell) which has been evoked many parodies
within the media, particularly through the popular e-media platform, YouTube.
The American musical show ’Glee’ has taken over the hit
whilst keeping it very similar to the original yet showing intertextuality,
this being a type of respect however it is used to fit in with the show’s
narrative. Similarly, YouTube have videos of countless covers of the song
‘Blurred Lines’ such as acoustic covers, country covers and even beat boxing
covers; these focus primarily on the music rather than the hype surrounding the
video, showing pastiche by doing something different but by still using the
element from the song.
However, there is major controversy surrounding the lyrics of
’Blurred Lines’ which some audiences interpret as being suggestive of drug
abuse and assault, as well as the body shots. In the video being heavily
voyeuristic of the female models wearing very little clothing in order to
attract the male gaze - this is called Hegemonic Norms. The video itself has an
alternative video in which the roles are reserved, so the men are wearing
little clothing instead. One parody uses the pun #TANLINES in comparison to the
iconic red text in the official video (e.g. #BLURREDLINES and #THICKE), where
females are worshipping tanned males in juxtaposition to the official video. Whilst
this doesn’t seem very serious, some audiences were unimpressed by the female’s
representation in the music video.
Another music video named ‘Defined Lines’ (feminist version)
has used binary opposite where the females are wearing formal clothes whilst
the men are dancing around them.
