Music Video: Postmodernism in music video

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 Media Magazine Theory Drop - Postmodernism


Create a new blog post called 'Postmodernism in music video: blog tasks'. Read ‘The Theory Drop: Postmodernism’ in MM66  (p26). You'll find our Media Magazine archive here - remember you'll need your Greenford Google login to access. Answer the following questions:

1) How does the article define postmodernism in the first page of the article?
Postmodernism takes this concept of questioning traditional structures, representations and expectations and pushes things a step further.

2) What did media theorist and Semiotician Roland Barthes suggest in his essay 'The Death of the Author'?
He challenged tradition when he said that a writer’s opinions, intentions or interpretation of their own work are no more valid than anyone else’s.

3) What is metatextuality?
Metatextuality is where a text draws attention to the fact that it is a text.

4) What is the repeated phrase on the cartoon on postmodernism on page 28?
Postmodernism is a cultural movement that distrusts all established philosophies and frequently experiments with the medium it is presented in

5) How does postmodernism link to media representations and reality?
The distinction between what is real and what is imagined is continually blurred and meaning is systematically eroded. This anxiety over what is real and what is not starts to get reflected in films such as The Matrix, The Truman Show and Inception, all of which feature characters trying to escape an imaginary world in pursuit of an objective truth.

Music video CSPs and postmodernism

Now apply postmodern ideas to our music video CSPs by answering the following questions:

1) How does the music video for Ghost Town incorporate elements of postmodernism?
Intertextuality - historical contexts racial tension and unemployment in 1980s Britain. By referencing real life evets they blur the line between fiction and reality

Metatextuality- ghost town can be taken literally with the deserted streets and metaphorically with the events happening in 1980s Britain

2) What film genres are alluded to in the music video for Ghost Town? Which scenes in particular created these links?
The road trip genre as they are travelling somewhere however the difference is that there is no narrative resolution. 

3) How does Old Town Road use postmodern elements in its music video?
  • The imitating of the western genre with the cowboy costumes/accessories and horse riding. 
  • Blending the rap and country genre together.
  • Blurs the reality and fiction with the cowboy turning into a successful futuristic cowboy could represent Lil Nas x's humble beginning and journey to success

4) How does the Old Town Road music video reflect technological convergence and modern digital culture?  
  • The song originally got fame on TikTok and was used with memes, then because of its success Lil Nas made a full song
  • In the music vide, you can see people immediately recording when they see Lil Nas x's character as an intruder, this mirrors society today and technological convergence in the modern world

5) What do YOU think Lil Nas X was trying to say about reality and American culture in the music video for Old Town Road?
I think Lil Nas X was mocking what people think is reality but truing it into fantasy. He may be trying to criticise the romanticisation of the American dream and how with the white picket fence living only being black people in the neighbourhood. He was trying to give insight people into the realities of being black American by making fun of other people's false assumptions 


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