>Furthermore, the article claims that postmodern is characterized by an ironic self awareness, and never has this idea been more prominent in culture. In recent years I have noticed that TV commercials have become more and more self-aware. Take for example a recent commercial by what I believe was Verizon. It says something like "More coverage, more data." and then another actor comes into screen saying "and more people saying more." If this isn't ironic self awareness, I'm not sure what is.
I think that perfectly proves the author's point, though. The "self awareness" of postmodernism has filtered to even the most banal of sources and been left in the dust by the avant garde of today. Irony and sarcasm as critical devices are dead for anyone but the hacks.
From the article:
>"people who produce the cultural material which academics and non-academics read, watch and listen to, have simply given up on postmodernism. The occasional metafictional or self-conscious text will appear, to widespread indifference – like Bret Easton Ellis’ Lunar Park – but then modernist novels, now long forgotten, were still being written into the 1950s and 60s. The only place where the postmodern is extant is in children’s cartoons like Shrek and The Incredibles, as a sop to parents obliged to sit through them with their toddlers. This is the level to which postmodernism has sunk; a source of marginal gags in pop culture aimed at the under-eights."
I think that perfectly proves the author's point, though. The "self awareness" of postmodernism has filtered to even the most banal of sources and been left in the dust by the avant garde of today. Irony and sarcasm as critical devices are dead for anyone but the hacks.
From the article:
>"people who produce the cultural material which academics and non-academics read, watch and listen to, have simply given up on postmodernism. The occasional metafictional or self-conscious text will appear, to widespread indifference – like Bret Easton Ellis’ Lunar Park – but then modernist novels, now long forgotten, were still being written into the 1950s and 60s. The only place where the postmodern is extant is in children’s cartoons like Shrek and The Incredibles, as a sop to parents obliged to sit through them with their toddlers. This is the level to which postmodernism has sunk; a source of marginal gags in pop culture aimed at the under-eights."