Postmodernism in films

Run Lora Run

Run Lora Run is a German movie was produced in 1998. Lora, the leading character in the movie, has to collect 100 thousand Mark in 20 minutes to save her boy friend. Otherwise he is going to be killed by his boss, a drug dealer. The context of the story described in the three ways is not too difficult to understand. Different way has a different consequence. The director used postmodernism expressive method in the movie presents different perspective, the first run, she is killed by a police officer after her boy friend and she robed a supermarket; the second run, after Lora robed her father’s bank with a gun, she arrived the place on time that her boy friend and she suppose to meet but unfortunately while she meets her boyfriend, he is killed by a accident. So Lora stars her third run, this time she does not try to get any money from her father and keep running. She goes to casino, buys a 100 single mark chip and bets number 20 on a roulette table. By dramatically consecutive wins she earns 129 thousand Mark that is enough to rescue her boy’s life while her boy find the beggar who took his money in the beginning of the story, and gets his money back. Lora’s hysterically screaming, vivid color and fast-paced narrative method, as postmodernism elements arranged by director‘s purpose made this movie as a classic postmodernism works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmrHq_EYH0o&feature=related

Po Mo in the Movies

Rachel Ju

Nov. 15. 2010

Postmodern movies prevail in most of the world in multiple style, eye-catching images and hi-technological skills. But it's not easily to describe what the characteristics of postmodern movies are, because they don't have certain forms and patterns.

“Fight Club (1999)” is an example that contains strong colorful and take “dead” as a main theme. This is a different way to describe a movie. The theme of “Fight Club” is not only express violence, but also describe the society full of pressure. The story is about an office worker who tried the bore and pressure environment. As a result, that cause he changed his personality in order to relieve pressure. But, he became violence and not able to stop.

This movie caused polarization in that time. Some people like it others don’t. However, this is one of the postmodern films to express that “you are the one to represent yourself.”

Po Mo in the Movies--A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange

This film presents a dystrophy examination of ultra-violence, social conditioning, free will, and post-industrial alienation.

A Clockwork Orange is a societal work. The first half is a romp through the youth crimes but the second half focuses on the human rights he lost once imprisoned and cured. The shift takes the audience away from direct contact with such an impulsive character. It comforts the audience because they know the film didn't donate to the ideals of its horrific leading character.

It definitely targets human nature, which destabilize the moralities of transitional line.

It no any distinction between culture and society, besides confuses over time and space. For that reason, "A Clockwork Orange" is a wonderful illustration of postmodernism film.

 Cecilia

Postmodern

Group 4:

"A master narrative is a framework that purports to explain society, if not the world, in comprehensive terms. Religion, science, Marxism, psychoanalysis, Enlightenment myths of progress, and other theories that each set out to explain all facets of life are master theories or master narratives."

Lady GAGA with her modern style

Lady gaga wore a “meat dress” on MTV video Awards in 2010. “Fears that human will be treated as meat, which has no rights in the eyes of the law” Lady gaga said. Most of her modern style is not really acceptable for some people in the common society although it may become one kinds of subculture.

In the past, most of the people will not accept this kind of modern style; however, people have changed their ethic rules because influence from media. We honestly, do appreciate her sense of creativity, but this meat dress has taken it to a whole new level. She isn’t standing up for animals rights at all. PETA, an animal rights activist group doesn’t do this kind of thing to support animal rights, they do go to the extreme but they don’t wear suits of animals to show people what animals are goingthrough or wear human skin for human rights. Humans have plenty of rights that are why we are taking animal rights away so Gaga can shove it. Just like us against people wear mink coat, because it is endanger animal.

Forrest Gump was a successful critique master narrative movie that was directed by Robert Zemeckis in 1996, starring Tom Hanks, Gray Sinise and Robin Wright Penn. The story basing on America history of late 20th century describes several different period of time in Forrest Gump’s life. In the story Gump is counted in a subnormal refused goes to primary school when he was a kid. Although, when he grows up, he is not only a hero in college football team but also is a hero in Vietnam War. As a successful feature, Gump undergoes most of America history events, meeting historical figures, involving popular culture, and attending the ping pang games. An average intelligence person gains most of desire that most people cannot reach; the whole life of Gump as a postmodern critiques conventional concept is dramatic.

Chapter 7

1. What is the commodity self and commodity culture? Find an example of the commodity self or commodity culture used in a movie, a television ad or an internet ad. Explain the commodity culture that the ad/movie targets.

Commodity self means a product can be trade bought and sold. Commodity culture argues society is in a way shaped by the resources, which in the case, commodities, that are available to us. We may think people select the merchandises, but in fact our identity is constructed in part by the limited selection of commodities around us. People start to identity

a person with the commodities one associate with. As a result, the real self of a person became irrelative defining a person.

http://art8amby.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/victorias-secret-online-ss-2010-alessandra-ambrosio-erin-heatherton-lindsay-ellingson-aminata-niaria-candice-swanepoel-and-rosie-huntington-whiteley.jpg

http://thataintkosher.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/victorias-secret.jpg

The two flyers above are Victoria’s Secret. Their advertising sells an idea of sexy. Thus when consumers wear their products, they could convey others they are sexy.

2. Market coolness? Fine an example of an ad that uses a counterculture or anti-consumerism to sell it’s product. Explain the approach of the example.

This condom advertisement is a nice idea that use of humor in advertising campaigns. It does not only get the attention of consumers, it also makes the product or service easier to recall or remember. This advertisement shows two firemen with a naked man are put out a fire. This humor advertisement is easier to catch peoples’ attention and let people want to know what this advertisement talks about. However, it is a metaphor to letting people knows calm down and “Don't be stupid, protect yourself. Use condoms.” Using firemen make of humor to get the attention of people and reach the market coolness.

3. What is an Anti-Ad? What is Culture Jamming? Find an example and explain the strategy of the ad.

ANTI-Ad refers to the practice of making spoofs or parodies of corporate and political advertisements . It may take the form of a new image or an alteration to an existing image, often in a satirical manner.

Culture jamming is an interesting mode of political communication that has emerged in response to the commercial separation of public life. Practitioners of culture jamming argue that saturated commercial environments have bent culture, politics, and social values from corporate logos on sports facilities, to tube content designed exclusively to deliver targeted audiences to producers and sponsors.

The text says:

“Every year 6 million animals are killed from cosmetic testing. Please refuse animal-tested products.”

There is mascara on the top of injector, humorously revealed the relationship between cosmetic and animal testing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEpD4YOfz9I

KFC Anti-AD

It showed chicken were killed by KFC.

Daily Media

http://www5.svsu.edu/~ychen2/DailyMedia.pdf

In our group, we are using quite the same media a day. Most of us use wake up by cell phone alarm clock and use cell phone to text message or communicate with friends or family. In addition, we rely on internet during our day, such as check email, facebook, news, gain information and so on. We browse the internet quite often and search information throughout internet.

Speak of compare the media in 60 years ago. It is quite different with now. 60 years ago, there was not an internet or cell phone generation. In that generation, people used hand writing more often and printing technology. For instance, people read newspaper in order to gain knowledge or people wrote postal mail to communicate with friends or family. Some of the people were wealthy, they may have TV, so that they could gain news on TV; otherwise, people only could listen the radio to gain news.

Take-home Midterm Exam

http://www.douban.com/

Douban

Douban started from a social networking site for book, movie and music lovers in 2005, when hype of web 2.0 just began. When people talked about web 2.0 in China, they will talk Douban. Defined by the contents of Douban, it has attracted users who intend to review books and movies and are more eager to discuss social issues.

For example, my friends form one band by themselves; they shared their performances and track files on Douban, also published their news and collect their fans’ comments. As a base of construction, Douban offers a community platform to band’s fans; these fans start to build a more and bigger fan group for the band.

http://www.douban.com/artist/themetaphor
This is the link of my friends’ band in Douban

Douban is a good place to read book, watch movie or listen music (some of them need third connection), you can seek out lots of comments or complains from different viewers, and easily to add or drop some fans groups.

Currently, Douban’s main revenue source is online advertising, some big brands are Douban’s advertisers already. For Douban Book, it also gains revenues from affiliation with Dangdang, Amazon Joyo and other book ecommerce sites.

www.cyworld.com

Cyworld

In its orbit, around South Korea, Cyworld is both a giant in the ever-widening galaxy of cyberspace and a community website.

In cyworld, members cultivate relationships by forming Ilchon (means: friend) with each other through their mini-homepage. Avatars and "mini-rooms", small, decorate-able, apartment-like spaces in an isometric projection, also feature. All of this can make for a Sims-like experience.

I can read some Korean, so I have some experience to use Cyworld. Cyworld is the most popular SNS tool in Korea, many renowned Korean socialites and celebrities possess its accounts in which details of their upcoming tours and works are posted. Base on high market share, large quantity news or scandals may be published from it. The searching engine of Cyworld can hunt for pictures, videos and diaries with keywords very easily, and everyone connect to Ilchon with others conveniently, in addition there are many hackers aim at it, so that it is hard to protect users’ personal privacy. Actually, there are many disputes about Cyworld privacy protection in Korea; however, well-established solution is not discovered until today.

Cyworld has a special tool for users to edit their photographs. Like adobe Photoshop, users can edit their pictures with graphics program to complete various inflections or different shapes, especially the output form of the photos include image and flash.

Revenue of Cyworld is generated through the sale of Dotori (means: acorns), which can then be used to purchase virtual goods, such as background music, pixilated furniture and virtual appliances.

http://www.flickr.com/

Flickr

This is a popular site let users share and embed personal photographs; the service is widely used by bloggers to host images that they embed in blogs and social media.

Flickr asks photo submitters to organize images using tags, which enable searchers to find images related to particular topics, such as place names or subject matter. Flickr is also an early website to implement tag clouds, which provide access to images tagged with the most popular keywords.

Flickr provides both private and public image storage. A user uploading an image can set privacy controls that determine who can view the image. A photo can be flagged as either public or private.

I think Flickr is an image host store the image onto its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view that image. It is good tool help owners to manage their quantity of pictures, furthermore also protect their personal privacy don’t be leaked out.

Cecilia Yang 2010-10-25