http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PostModernism

— Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation "The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth  it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true."

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Postmodernism first emerged as a philosophical movement amid the ruins and tribulations of postwar Europe and stems from a general disillusionment with thirties-era modernism brought about by World War II. It was natural, and almost inevitable, that people who had suffered through the war (and the preceding Great Depression) would question the ideals of perpetual progress inherent in modernism, and that would lead to a philosophy of questioning everything in general. It has been pointed out that much post-modernist thinking originated in the countries (France, Germany) with a history of wartime devastation and in reaction to the threat of nuclear war which reared its head at the end of the war.

Post-modernism in books and movies was largely a questioning on the nature of narrative and plot and characterization. An epic story with The Hero orbited by Satellite Characters was succeeded by stories with Loads and Loads of Characters with The Hero, if it is used, openly presented and critiqued as an Audience Surrogate. Essentially, authors wanted readers to be more aware of how storytelling works and interact and question it so that they become active rather than passive audiences, leading to Viewers Are Geniuses, the aversion of Small Reference Pools, and all kinds of Genius Bonus. In Europe, this was related to a growing awareness that modern democracies and totalitarian governments are too vast for any single heroic figure to resonate: WW2 wasn't won by a single great general's gambit or small heroic actions, but a Gambit Pileup so vast that the world is still trying to put it together, and ultimately the Allied Powers were too late to do anything to halt The Holocaust aside from counting the bodies and helping the survivors. After that, artists and philosophers felt that old forms of storytelling would no longer work in this new reality. The Frankfurt critic and philosopher, Theodor Adorno, famously stated that poetry was impossible after Auschwitz, which he did not mean as a literal statement but a general feeling, that was echoed and felt by many artists who felt that conventional storytelling no longer explained the tragedy and horror of the times and that any artist or philosopher who tries to come up with a "Grand Narrative" that ties everything together is either delusional or dangerous. Post-modernist narratives can be generally distinguished by their dearth of characters with large-scale agency. The actors in earth-shaking events are governments, institutions, and societies, and the story deals with the ways in which the characters do or do not fit into that broader picture.

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This led to all kinds of Take a Third Option in storytelling, efforts that echoed conventional pre-war genres but with a more contemporary, darker twist, the Happy Ending was often shown with Stylistic Suck or a parody, and while Downer Ending never went out of style, we now had the Gainax Ending where the story goes beyond the fate of the characters and the confines of the story, sometimes directly addressing the viewer, other times leaving them with a sense of irresolution and uncertainty, sometimes yes veering to True Art Is Incomprehensible levels but with the intention that audiences should think and engage with the work, however difficult it may be, as per their own experience without the story telling them what to think and how to feel. Deconstruction was developed as an independent strain in this time and post-modernism generally features a strong deconstructive aspect. In general, postmodern writing involves a blurring of boundaries. An example of this is blurring the boundary between the reader or viewer and the fiction — for example, a TV show that acknowledges that it is not real (contrast This Is Reality). However, Post Modernism can also be applied to fiction that mixes different genres into something new, such as the way that Cowboy Bebop combines western tropes with science fiction and various movie pastiches. Here, Post Modernism describes a self-referential fiction, a fiction which references other fiction, or a fiction which displays some awareness that it is a fiction. The Subverted Trope, Discredited Trope, lack of Genre Blindness, Deconstruction of conventional boundaries, and Playing With the Fourth Wall (or lack thereof) are all hallmarks of Post Modernism. Expect Mind Screw.

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Post Modernism is also a popular school of thought in the social sciences and humanities, largely revolving around the idea that a cogent argument doesn't necessarily have to make points that are actually true, while arguments that may "technically" be true in some sense are not necessarily either convincing or valuable. In academic disciplines, the biggest impact that Postmodernism introduced was to sever the idea of history, society, or existence, being linear and progressive (i.e. the world is going to get better and better) and that led to the popularity of Alternate History and For Want of a Nail not only in speculative fiction but also in serious works of non-fiction where people showed that a lot of things people saw in history wasn't inevitable but in large part accidental or came down to pure dumb luck. Postmodernist theorists by extended research also pointed out how the idea of society going somewhere was Newer Than They Think, based on Entertainingly Wrong assumptions that have become Dated History (a strain that is called Historicism or New Historicism). Contingency and agency became watchwords in post-modernist inspired works. Post-modernist inspired accounts insist that life is in large sense a Random Events Plot and much of what we consider the "pursuit of knowledge" is a narrative that distracts us from realizing that, drawing inspiration from Existentialismnote But differing in that existentialists insist on agency to choose and engage actively with one's ideas and views, i.e. if "the pursuit of knowledge" is not inherent in society, then it is up to humans to actively make a society that promotes knowledge knowing fully well the limitations of that choice. Postmodernism generally doesn't advocate engagement, which has led the kind of people who care about such things to accuse it of promoting nihilism.

In general practice however, a lot of the serious and intellectual character of the movement tends to be too obscure or too bleak to register outside an impartial academic course. Post Modernism in certain works of fiction can often simply be about spoiling everything for everyone without having to adopt any unspoiled or easily spoilable ideas of your own, which contributes greatly to the "Huh?" factor in postmodern texts (books, films, shows, art, etc.) — they treat themselves as already didactic and spoiled, and instead attempt to generate enjoyment through the adroitness of their use of their own tropes and medium. World of Symbolism tends to come up, even when it's not necessarily obvious, so best try to have fun when Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory. In the extremes of such instances, postmodernism becomes a posture, using irony as a defense, an attempt to dodge responsibility and more or less advocate preserving the status-quo from the comfort of learned and knowing distance. This is considered the conservative strain of postmodernism which allows it to be co-opted and adopted in a number of consumerist media. The contemporary definition of Post Modernism is extremely ambiguous, and some of the definitions are extremely metaphysical, so don't go out into the world thinking this article is all there is to the concept. That the very term "Post-modern" is inherently self-contradictory is freely acknowledged — indeed celebrated — within Post Modernism itself.

Not to be confused with Irony, per se, although both terms have been frequently misused as such since The '90s. Interestingly, the Death of the Author is a Criticism Trope that both groups can often agree on. Modernists can claim it's possible to come to a canonical conclusion about the text regardless of the author's changing opinions, whereas postmodernists can claim that "there is nothing outside the text" and that their opinion of what the author was trying to say is equally likely to be true as their opinion of what the work itself states. Confused?. A.K.A. PoMo. Compare Dada. See also Affectionate Parody and Surreal Humor. May sometimes border onto True Art Is Incomprehensible territory. Related heavily to Medium Awareness, Breaking the Fourth Wall, No Fourth Wall, Fiction Identity Postulate (which states that all fictions are equally fictional). Compare Recursive Canon, Heavy Meta, Footnote Fever.

Oh, and by the way, Actual Post Modernism is So Last Season these days. We're up to Nuvo-Retro-Ex-Post-Modernism now.

Examples:

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Meta-Example


Commercials have been experimenting more and more with Post Modernism for comic effect. For example, observe this Cars.com commercial.

Cars.com commercial. Skittles: X the rainbow.

It's a big ad!

In this trailer for Citizen Kane, Orson Welles explains certain aspects of the film, introduces the actors, and invites the audience to come back to the theater and see it later.

trailer for Citizen Kane, Orson Welles explains certain aspects of the film, introduces the actors, and invites the audience to come back to the theater and see it later. Alfred Hitchcock advertised some of his movies by creating trailers in which the actors describe the premises to moviegoers, sometimes even in character. Eventually, he hosted the ads himself.

Anime and Manga

Art

René Magritte's famous painting of a pipe, with the words "This is not a pipe" written eloquently in French.

Analytic cubism is actually an attempt to look at every angle of a three-dimensional object on a two dimensional plane.

After World War I, several artists decided art should have no meaning whatsoever, (because according to them, nothing meant anything any more), so Dada developed and is forever remembered as one of the more ridiculous art movements- when it's not the most depressing. Though Dada is technically part of Modernism.

Comic Books

Fan Fic

Film

Literature

Live-Action TV

Music

The comedy folk song "The Anti-Singalong Song" relies on this trope to make it funny, as its performers cheerfully persuade their audience to sing about how they won't sing along.

In the song "An Attempt to Tip the Scale" by Bright Eyes, Conor Oberst, in the middle of a fake interview in the song, at one point says, "Can you make that sound stop please?" The interviewer says "Yes." And the music in the background of the interview stops.

The Beatles song "Only a Northern Song" references itself, telling how it was intentionally written badly. Screwed around with by "Weird Al" Yankovic in "This Song Is Just Six Words Long".

In the song "Signed Curtain" by Matching Mole (a post-Soft Machine project which includes Robert Wyatt), the lyrics consist of references to song structure: This is the first verse This is the first verse This is the first verse, first verse... And this is the chorus Or perhaps it's a bridge Or just another part of the song that I'm singing

The second verse of The Ramones' "Judy is a Punk" begins with "second verse, same as the first", and indeed it is. Verse three begins with "third verse, different from the first" and, again, it is. This is probably a reference to Henry the 8th by Herman's Hermits

Post Modernism is also an art movement in music. Postmodernist music is often defined as a reaction against Modernism and its overt atonality. Like postmodernist literature, postmodernist music often likes to blur the boundary between tonality and atonality (dissonance), high art (classical) and low art (pop, rock music), between performer, composer and listener (chance music, conceptual music, etc...), and between musical forms. The form everybody knows would have to be Progressive Rock. Industrial music, especially noise and some forms of EBM. Avant-garde metal, in all its iterations, from early Nu Metal to mathcore. Devo, if you believe the title of this essay by their former associate Bob Lewis. Wikipedia lists David Bowie, Talking Heads, and Frank Zappa as examples of postmodern popular music acts; given that all three of them have fulfilled all of the above-mentioned traits of postmodern music and then some, it's not an inaccurate label for the three of them. Talking Heads is an especially standout example, given how their music so thoroughly dissected and reinvented popular music that they sound unlike anything that's come before or since.

Wire, especially on Pink Flag.

"In vernünftigen Grenzen" by Swiss band "Die Aeronauten" is a volley against postmodernism (read: everything is ironic, everything is just a game, everything is meta, nothing matters) as a moral attitude.

The Killers' "Spaceman", discussing the state of what is real with anti-realism. Taken even further by the music video , and then that goes further with the ending of the video showing the soundstage on which it was contained and filmed.

, and then that goes further with the ending of the video showing the soundstage on which it was contained and filmed. Bob Luman's "Let's Think About Living" is a country-western song poking fun at the fact so many then-recent songs (it was recorded in the early 1960s) dealt with depressing topics such as death and murder. After naming off a number of examples (such as "El Paso" by Marty Robbins), the song climaxes with Luman Breaking the Fourth Wall and warning: "If we keep on losing our singers like that, I'll be the only one you can buy!"

The album Brothers by The Black Keys was backed by a promotional gimmick in which all promotional materials would bluntly state their medium (i.e. posters sating "This is a Black Keys poster.", concert promos stating "This is a live concert tour with The Black Keys.", etc). The album cover itself consists of a black box with a white border stating "This is an album by The Black Keys. The name of this album is Brothers."

Radio

Round the Horne would often stop in the middle of sketches and break down in to (scripted) verbal fights between the actors.

Theatre

Six Characters in Search of an Author is technically absurdist (a movement that came between modernism and Post Modernism), but it provides early examples of many of the metafictional elements that became popular in Post Modernism.

In the musical Into the Woods, the narrator is a character of his own. He insists that he isn't part of the story, but still perishes at the hand of a character  after which the story becomes quite chaotic.

Spamalot is positively brimming with this. The most fall-off-your-seat-hysterical one being the show's love theme entitled "The Song That Goes Like This". Also the Lady of the Lake's "Whatever Happened To My Part?"

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, especially when Guildenstern "kills" the Player , and when Rosencrantz shouts "Fire!" and comments that no one is moving.

, and when Rosencrantz shouts "Fire!" and comments that no one is moving. McQueen: or Lee and Beauty, which also hits into the surrealist and absurdist movements. Its presentation (dancing mannequin props/stagehands/characters?) is not only what grounds it in the postmodern - the development of the story and the unique influence is a very postmodern factor, too.

Video Games

Web Animation

The Guild: - the song Do you wanna date my avatar .

. Homestar Runner cartoons tend to play with the notion that, since the characters are all in a cartoon anyway, cartoons in the cartoon world of Homestar Runner are more or less instantly malleable. In a Strong Bad Email, Strong Bad brags that he has the only extant copy of the ill-fated Limozeen Saturday-morning cartoon, which was cancelled before the first episode even finished airing. When Strong Bad mentions this, cut away to the cartoon, with Teeg Dougland saying, "I've got some bad news, boys; we've been cancelled." This is a cartoon, meaning that technically the animators would have known that months ahead of time. Meta. Later on, Crack Stuntman, the not-taking-his-job-seriously voice actor of the Cheat Commando leader Gunhaver started making obnoxious demands about his character, leading to on-the-spot edits to make Gunhaver a lover of massage chairs or to add Crack's girlfriend as a cast member. Finally the director creates a character to replace Gunhaver until they can find an actor who doesn't have his head stuck up his ass. In an Easter Egg in Strong Bad's one hundredth email, Limozeen congratulates him, and then Larry says, "We're from the band Limozeen!", startling the others. One of the others says, "I think it says that at the top of the screen." Replies Larry: "Well I didn't know that!" At the end of the two-hundredth episode, the same Easter Egg is seen, re-edited and dubbed over to make it relevant to the two-hundredth episode. Sbemail Virus. Just watch it, it's freaking weird.

Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse explores some trappings of being a doll, such as never showing physical aging signs, and having hair that never grows back when cut. The series also openly acknowledges the likelihood that Barbie is too perfect for her own good. For example, she admits having trouble keeping track of all the jobs Mattel has given her over the years. Also, as a pseudo-reality show, Barbie and the gang frequently comment to the viewers. They initially limit themselves to Confession Cam sequences, but they gradually become more aware that the viewers possibly watch everything they do.

Web Comics

Web Original

Western Animation

Real Life