Postmodernism & Deutschland 83: blog task

1) Read the section on Strinati's five ways to define postmodernity. What examples are provided of the breakdown of the distinction between culture and society (media-isation)?
Stritani defines postmodernity in five ways such as advertising being able to make a company even better or break the company e.g. in terms of the quality of the product they are selling as whereas some products may be very poorly made and a the quality is poor if the advertising for it is good it can still be a success. 

2) What is Fredric Jameson's idea of 'historical deafness'? How can the idea of 'historical deafness' be applied to Deutschland 83?
According to Fredrick Jameson as mediazation increases so the culture finds itself losing a sense of historical context. History is now reduced to 'talking heads' documentaries and historical knowledge is often based on media representations.

3) What examples and theories are provided for the idea of 'style over substance'?

• People are strongly influenced by branding when buying products as the label often becomes more important than the product itself and packaging more important than the contents. People are willing to pay high prices for products which bear the logo of a fashionable label regardless of the actual quality of the product.
• The modern rise of celebs launched through reality T.V programmes such as the popular 'Big Brother' can be seen as the culture celebrating style over substance. Many celebs are now famous for being famous rather than for an identifiable talent or ability.

4) What examples from music are provided for the breakdown of the distinction between art and popular culture? Can this be applied to Deutschland 83?

• In postmodern culture Andy Warhol created multi-coloured prints of the Mona Lisa (high art) and Campbell's soup cans (low art)
• Pop music (low art) often samples classical music (high art)
• Advertising (low art) often makes reference to visual art (high art) or uses classical music (high art) to help sell its products

5) What is bricolage? What examples of bricolage can be found in Deutschland 83?

The idea of mixing references is referred to as bricolage. Bricolage refers to the process of adapting and juxtaposing old and new texts, images, ideas or narratives to produce whole new meanings. An example of this is the sub-genre being Spy as there are involving aspects of the James Bond films in it as the protagonist is a spy.

6) How can the audience pleasures of Deutschland 83 be linked to postmodernism? Read 'The decline of meta-narratives' and 'Media texts and the postmodern' to help answer this.

Meta-narratives are the ideas and concepts that are used to explain the way the world is and how it should be. Deutschland 83 can link to this as it uses things such as communism and socialism and applies it to show different representations of Germany back then.

7) Read the analysis of media concepts and postmodern approaches on page 3 of the factsheet. Choose three of the concepts and write an example from Deutschland 83. Clue: genre, representation, ideology and audience would all be good options for this task.

Genre

Deutschland 83 features a range of different genres, e.g. the spy genre as we see Martin training to be a spy to get top secret info and make sure that his family and country are safe. Another genre is History as the whole thing is based on past events, the Cold War and the inner feud in West and East Germany in the 1980's. Another genre is Thriller as there are many enigma and action codes which create the whole idea of a Thriller. 

Representation

An regularly used representation in Spy genres is having a white male protagonist which this reinforces with the character of Martin as he is a white male and is shown throughout to be fighting for his country and his family. 

Audience 

I believe all audiences will enjoy this show as for the older audiences I believe they will feel a strong sense of nostalgia as the most probably will have lived through this time period and will notice things like Ronald Reagan's famous Evil Empire speech. As for younger audiences I think it is a fun way for them to learn about the history of Germany instead of having to go and learn about it at school where they may not be as invested. 

8) Now look at page 4 of the factsheet. How does Deutschland 83 demonstrate aspects of the postmodern in its construction and ideological positioning?

Modern texts demonstrate aspects of the post modern in their construction and ideological positioning these texts can be seen as postmodern culture. Deutschland 83 features continuous references highlighting the difference between East and West Germany, I believe this is done to show postmodern aspects as Deutschland 83 will be seen as more conventional.

9) Which key scenes from Deutschland 83 best provide examples of postmodernism? Why?
When Martin was training it was a good example of post modernism as his training is comparable to that of a James Bond montage sequence. The intertexuality mixing with mise-en-scene reinforces the realism making it a good example of postmodernism.
10) Why might audiences enjoy the postmodern aspects of Deutschland 83? What audience pleasures might elements of bricolage or pastiche provide viewers?

Audiences would enjoy the aspects of bricolage and pastiche as they are a form of intertextuality and the audience would enjoy the juxtaposing of old and new texts , ideas and narratives as they link back to other things they may have seen such as the Rocky films of James Bond.