In What Ways can Scott Pilgrim Be Considered as Postmodern?

Scott Pilgrim as I see it is postmodern because the whole film is filled with Intertextual references, an Intertextual reference is something in a film that could be a prop person or scene that links in with another media a texts. It is covered with references from video games a prime example of this is when Scott defeats one of Ramonas evil exes he is rewarded with coins, these coins are a reference from killing the enemies in River City Ransom.

Firstly we must understand postmodernism, it essentially is a rejection of modernism, which suggests that every piece of media is new and original. What postmodernism does is allow a media texts to be linked in with others in popular ways as a pastiche or homage. Homage is professional nod of acceptance and appreciation to another professional using the same style or Intertextual references. If we didn’t have this and carried on thinking every film is unique then a film like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World wouldn’t work or make sense and probably wouldn’t sell much. Not only does this film have Intertextual references from popular games and American TV shows it also has some made from the movie.

The narrative of the movie is that Scott falls in love with this new girl Ramona and in order to ‘be with her’ he must defeat her 7 evil exes with each ex being worse than the previous. During every fight scene with one of her exes there are links to what number that ex is all around for example when Scott is battling ex number 2 he is told it will take Lucas Lee two minutes to kick his ass’, he points two fingers when addressing Scott and after Lucas Less is defeated we see 2000 coins spring up in the air in the same fashion after killing someone on a game and many more references. This carries on throughout the film and the references link to the ex number.

Ramona’s third evil ex Todd Ingram is full of Intertextual references; in the whole film all the actors seem to have super powers that of which are scenes in video games but they’re not acknowledged until Todd who is said to have special vegan powers. The actor who plays Todd, Brandon Routh played superman in Superman Returns, which can be considered postmodern, as he has gone from playing a superhero to a villain. Furthermore when Todd looses his power fro the vegan police they shoot a green laser, which has connotations with vegetables and additionally kryptonite, and specifically green kryptonite that causes immediate physical pain and debilitation and kills within hours.

During the film nearly every major video game is referenced at some point from little icons on the bands drum to sound effects. I spoke before about how at the end of a fight scene between Scott and an evil ex the explode into coins, this is a reference from River City Ransom.

When Scott ‘gets it’ a sound effect is played from sonic the hedgehog when a zone is cleared. And this shows the Intertextual relationship between film and video games that is reinforced throughout the whole of the film. In addition the makes of the sound in the original sonic game are the people that made the soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim

Another relationship between video game and the movie is when Scotts sister is described and described as ‘Rated T for Teen’ this is also used as a rating for video games in America. 

Using summer camp + a band of your choice explain how some artists can be called postmodern.

Summer camp and 2 Many DJ’s are postmodern. Postmodernism is firstly a rejection of modernism. What modernism suggested was that everything was new, If one artist recorded a song with entirely new lyrics It would be brand new (Which It would) but If another artist recorded a song using exactly the same lyrics or even part of the lyrics that song would be seen as new. A postmodernist would believe that the two songs are connected and that nothing is new. Kirby Ferguson says "we've seen many great ideas, but we look for inspirations in different medias and later translate it into interactive experiences...We have seen so many music videos...When we're making new project we just look for the spark that transforms all those inspirations into something new and immersive.” Just because an artist may do a cover of a song doesn’t mean they’re postmodern; Jonathan Kramer uses 16 points to decided whether a band is postmodern or not and these include. Includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures and challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles. This means some artists aren’t postmodern; these Include people like Justin Bieber and manufactured artist such as everyone coming from X Factor.

Summer Camp is an English duo making synth-pop music of the 80’s style. The band is made up of Elizabeth and Jeremy. When they first put out music critics mistook them for being a Swedish group along the style of ABBA, this is because they didn’t show any pictures of themselves and their first music video for Round the Moon used ‘found footage’, this is footage that has no copyright and therefore anyone can use it in their own work. Because of hypereality when we did finally see the band (in their music video for Better Off Without You) we were surprised to see they weren’t a Swedish group or even what I expected them to look like a mix between crystal castles and Sleigh Bells. They seemed to just be plain and normal.  This for me did affect their music as we use music for the visuals as well as the music. They are considered post modern if we look and use some of the sixteen points as described by Kramer, they use point number 11 about a band using contradiction; Summer Camp use images and videos from the eighties to create their style but put them to a modern song to contradict themselves. They are also been considered as ironic because as I’ve said when they first created the band they didn’t clearly say what nationality they were so led people to believe they were either American or Sweedish and using these countries and their music it made them ‘cool’ but when they reveled themselves as British their good reviews disappeared and replaced by ones claiming they’re just playing with ‘cool’ music and this gave them the status of being ironic. Using these points you can see why people would class them as postmodern but it is also possible to see why people wouldn’t as you could just class them as ‘playing at music’ and because they used found footage for one of their music videos they aren’t committed to the industry.

Another artist who can be described as postmodern is 2 Many DJ’s they are a DJ duo that create mashups of songs; they have 13 albums out using the same songs on each just each album is mixed slightly different. Their most famous is Pt 2 which you can legally download from iTunes but some aren’t so readily available or legal to download. Because they use mash ups none of their songs will sound the same for 3 reasons the first being that its not their own music so they music produced cannot be called bad only the way its mixed together, also when they do the mash up they take completely different songs from different genres like in their song No Fun / Push it from Salt N Peppa and Iggy and the Stooges. Finally they can choose any song so they’re not limited to using instruments they own meaning they could hypothetically create any sound they want. In addition they questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values because they use songs they are not not considered ‘cool’ and then make them ‘cool’ by using modern samples and their use of visuals as in their live shows they start by ‘’showing the mash up happen’ and then use the album artwork of the songs and animating them to make them more fun. Moreover one of Kramers points that link strongly with 2 Many DJ’s is they considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music as they mix their song electronically on a laptop and then add electronically created sounds, even if it be a drum beat, and samples that can be found in Garage Band on a Mac.

For the future is do see us all becoming pro-sumers this is because it is so possible to people to create their own music as software is so readily available and cheaper not so any kid with a mac could create the beat used in Rihanna and Jay-Z’s hit single umbrella. A postmodernist would consider the death of uncool as the way forward; this is nothing is uncool and everything will have an audience and because people are always trying to find the freshest sound some of these new genres and music taste will turn mainstream and be in the top 40 one day.

In conclusion; an artist may cover some of Kramers points and not be postmodern at the same time and postmodern artist do not have to fit every one of the 16 points. And the future is unknown but whatever it is we will be able to link it to the present and to the past. 

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

First to understand why some people are not convinced we must understand what post modernism is, now this can be tricky as you can be as general to say that everything is post modern. Firstly it is a rejection of modernism and that everything ever created is new, for example one person may make a chair and another person may make that chair but in a different colour, a modernist would have you believe these chairs are in no way linked and that the creators simply thought genius thoughts at the same time. Now a post modernist would see the two chairs make a connection between them and suggest that one of the creators may have seen the original chair and decided to copy it but change it slightly to improve it, because how can we progress to the future if at the present we don’t look at the past? A post modernist will also believe in Grand Narratives; these are, religion, science and politics and that we all take pieces from these grand narratives to build are beliefs upon. Such as their are some scientist that are religious which modernism would not allow. 

Moving on to why some people are not convinced by this theory of post modernism, the simple and first answer may be that they are modernist and therefore would reject any thoughts of post modernism let alone their media. Also they may be neither post modern or modern and reject both theories. 

As for understanding a media texts a post modernist will watch a film for example and spot where the director/creator has taking inspiration (or homage) from other texts whether it be films, television, games, music or written down. For example if a post modernist watched ‘Dan Blacks - Symphonies’ (where he uses Levi-Strauss’ theory of addition, subtraction, substitution and transposition) he/she would be able to spot the intertextual references found in other media forms such as the use of French cinema style and taking the universal logo and changing it to fit his production. But; on the other hand someone with no previous knowledge of these references or of post modernism would be able to watch the video and see it for its owen merits as a good music video. 

Where this doesnt work is the film ‘Hobo With a Shotgun although it is post modern with its homage to a certain type of cinema (the same type that kill bill is) and works if you know its a homage it doesn't work on the same level as Dan Black because as a stand alone film it doesn't work because it has one standard narrative that there is a hobo that wants to kill people in disgusting ways In a city that would never exist. What im trying to say is that if you don’t agree with post modernism you would see all these attempts as time and money wasted. 

Post modernist also like to see things for what they are as René Magritte once did a painting of a pipe and captioned it as ‘this is not a pipe’ which to someone not understanding post modernism would find strange but to a post modernist would make sense as it is not a pipe but a painting of a pipe. Therefore in video games why do we get awarded thousands of point for completing something why not just one point and why do we do games set in space when it is near impossible for us to actually do these activities. This is where we get the post modernist game ‘desert bus’ instead of riding it round city roads beating up hookers like in some games you drive the best down a road leading to Las Vegas, to complete the game takes 8 hours and once completed you receive one point. You cant pause the game and if you stop or fall in the ditch you are towed right back to the start no mater how close you are to finishing. Now why would people play this game? Because it is the most accurate game made.

Post modern media texts challenge the traditional text reader because it made you think, is what you are watching, reading or playing actually what it is or just a copy of something else. The answer is yes it will be a copy of something already created, you may not know about this thing but it is still out there and you are not as cleaver as you think you are.