postmodernism theory in music videos

2. POSTMODERNISM IN MUSIC VIDEOS
What postmodern factors feature in music videos?
• Irony
• Playing with conventions
• Intertextuality
• Black humour (leaves you answering more questions)
• Pastiche (pasting together and commenting on things of the past)
• Magic realism (exaggeration)
• Different perspectives (excusing all values of judgement)
• Bricolage (construction or creation from a diverse range of available things)
• Cultural flattening (weakening and devaluation of cultural identities, symbols,
icons and traditions)
• Knowingness (cynicism)
• Hybridization (swap purity for new combos of genres, styles and media)
• Eclecticism (drawing upon multiple theories/ideas to gain complementary insight)
However, the postmodern view that there is no metanarrative is criticised for
there being no right or wrong – having no central belief system leads to a lack of
morality.

3. EXAMPLES OF POSTMODERN MUSIC ARTISTS
• Lady Gaga
• Green Day
• Nirvana
• Pink Floyd
• Nicki Minaj
• Lorde
• Beck
• The Beatles
• Radiohead
• Madonna
• Iggy Azalea

5. VIDEO ANALYSIS
Gaga’s videos seem to always have elements of being cinematic with the use of
postmodern element pastiche, meaning that she has imitated elements of cinema
with the screen title and also at the end of the music video where there are the
credits running at the end. However, these defy traditional conventions of a film as
they run in the opposite direction to what would be expected.
The narrative of this music video links to a key postmodernist view – Lyotard’s
postmodern condition which was first published by Jean-Francois Lyotard in 1979.
With the ideology of their being a grand narrative, this is evident with the lack of a
strong message being present in this video as the lyrics in the video talk about not
being able to get any reception on her telephone as she is in a club, however, the
video shows Gaga being in prison and Beyoncé coming to bail her out.
Another postmodern element that is used in the music video is cultural flattening
through the use of provocative dancing, minimal clothing and swearing as the
director attempts to reduce the stigma around this meaning that the culture around
these identities and symbols are weakened and devalued.

6. VIDEO ANALYSIS
When the guards bring Gaga into the prison and take her into her cell, they take off her
clothes and one says to the other “I told you she didn’t have a ****” which has
intertextual references to the rumours that have been displayed across the media
about Lady Gaga having a penis. I believe that these subtle mentions in videos,
not just Gaga’s, are used by the music artist to try and deter rumours being made
and respond to what the media has to say in an unconventional way.
Using Goodwin’s theory and looking at the narrative and imagery in the video, the
audience will see that the video is fairly disjunctive meaning that the song has
nothing to do with the video which is seen as an extremely postmodern element.
In this music video, there is a lot of product placement and consumerism in which
cinematography is used to highlight certain aspects of the video. For example, in
the prison yard when Gaga is seen getting a phone off of one of the other inmates
which is seen through the use of a lingering close up shot on the phone which is
served by virgin mobile – product placement.