Postmodernism - The Mighty Boosh article

The Might Boosh article

Media folk love to bathe and obsess about postmodernism when in fact most of us cannot give many examples that are not Tarantino productions or Scream. Postmodernism defies easy definition; dictionaries do not do it justice but it generally comprises of a set of core ideas and key concepts that work collaboratively to shape it. Enter The Mighty Boosh: two zoo keepers, one owner, one shaman and a gorilla. Here are some of the factors involved:

1) Eclecticism - a wide range of influences, contributions and techniques

Eclecticism shines through varied characters they portray and the range of musical styles they adopt so you never know what your going to get.

2) Intertextuality - an author's borrowing and transformation of a prior text

The Mighty Boosh openly borrows, mimics and adopts certain styles, cliches and conventions that the audience can relate to. Parallels are regularly made between the Boosh, Monty Python, Spaced, The Goodies and The League of Gentlemen with their individual brands of surrealist humour, its this recognition and familiarity that appeals to the audience.

3) Parody- a humorous or satirical imitation of a text

Parody is all down to the recognition that the audience will have for the style, characters, scenarios and techniques. The Boosh is scattered with parodies from the generic (see Mutants for a take on the Sci-Fi, Horror genres), musical (see hard rock parodied in Bollo's Monkey Hell) or textual (see 'The Nightmare of Milky Joe' for a take on Castaway).

4) Bricolage - A technique where works are constructed from various materials available

A criticism of postmodernism is that it suggests that we cannot bring anything new to the table and must recycle old formaMighty Boosh can be viewed as a bricolage of many already tried-and-tested formulas but does this make it less original?

5) Acts against modernism - Postmodernism embodies scepticism of ideas towards the modern world, especially ideas of progress, objectivity, reason, certainty, personal identity and grand narrative.

Postmodernism acts against reason, orthodoxy and logic to bring us a text that is rich with surrealism and unpredictability. A talking gorilla, a Mexican jazz-fusion guitarist with a door in his afro, a man made of cheese- a celebration of the medium of television that allows the Boosh to pick and choose from a history of tried-and-tested formulas.

6) Nostalgic- Celebrates the past and bathes in its glory

Postmodernism looks back, borrowing from others to construct a text rich with references.

7) Narcissistic- Fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity

Postmodernism is obsessed with itself. This obsessive nature is evident in the character of Vince Noir who has a fascination with his appearance and a burning passion to become a front man (his idol being Mick Jagger).

...it's the combination of narcissism and nihilism (total rejection of established laws and institutions) that defines postmodernism.

8) An active audience -

In this unpredictable, surreal and unreasoning postmodernist world, the audience has no choice but to be an active and aware participant ready to follow whatever twist and turn the text decides to take.

9) Hyper-Conscious - Aware of itself

The Boosh team cleverly use this at the beginning of each episode with Vince and Howard standing in front of stage curtains introducing the show with direct references as to what to look out for. In their live show, postmodernist mix of stand-up, improvisational and theatrical styles.

The Mighty Boosh provides us with an effective framework for postmodernism deconstruction and is bursting with its characteristics from the music, costumes, characters, design, mise-en-scene and dialogue. It provides its active audience with a contemporary variety show that is all knowing, highly aware and above all, a celebration of the medium of television.

Postmodernism - Intro

Postmodernism

At the start of the lesson we listened to a song that was very post modern, the song was by Cold Cut and it was called Let us play. The song is very post modern as it has 'mashed up' many styles of genres. We were asked to write down what genres and types of music we could hear throughout the track. The ones we came up with were: groove, jamming, classical, DJ, base, mash-ups, static, scratching, updated, hip-hop and big beat. After we were told to remember this:

B - Bricolage
&
H - Hyperreality

P - Playfullness
A - Aesthetic
I - Irony
N - Nihilism

P - Parody
I - Intertextual
P - Pastiche
E - Eclectect
S - Self Refrential

Comparing the versions of Britishness - Spooks and James Bond (Casino Royale)

Comparing the version of Britishness

Casino Royale
-In the beginning its in black and white which has conventions of strictness, power and being proper which is an English stereotype.
-When the characters are in conversation or no action is happening the camera shots/angles are very smooth and clean which creates an elite feeling.
-Its always very clear who is British as the characters play on the stereotypical Englishman.
-Examples of heroism are in the opening titles, where you see the cartoon version of bond jumping bullets.

-The movie is also following Bond as he goes through this mission alone, which again shows heroism.

Spooks

-Similar to James Bond the camera angles and shots are also very smooth and clean.

-Like in James Bond its always clear who is British because of stereotypes.

-There is a strong act of heroism similar to James Bond, in Spooks the women takes the bullet in order to kill the criminal.

-There is constant danger in it which shows and demonstrates heroism.
-There is a strong connection and positive reinforcement for the British government which makes it very patriotic.

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants - Notes
by Marc Prensky

The article starts off by saying how this generations students are completely different to previous students in the past and states that this is because of the arrival of the internet in the last decades of the 20th century. It carries on by stating that the students of our times have grown up and are constantly surrounded by technology, it highlights this point by stating some shocking facts which are: students have spent less than 5,000 reading, over 10 hours playing video games and over 20 hours watching TV. Continuing from this it suggests that students brains are now physically different from those before and that educators have not realised the amount of change/difference. The students have been given a name which is 'Digital Natives', this is because the students now have all created and re-newing digital language. These digital natives are always compared to those who weren't born into this digital world or have eventually taken interest in it, Digital Immigrants.

Digital Immigrants adapt to their environment, however they will always bring along some of the past and their social norms. The Digital Immigrants were bought up and socialised differently and are now learning this new language which the digital natives have created. The article then states ways in which the digital immigrants have bought the past with them: printing out emails, bringing someone in the office to look at a website instead of just sending it them and calling someone to see if they got their email.

However the article then changes its tone and addresses the seriousness of this as the students educators are teaching them in a whole new language. This is obvious for the digital natives and school feels like somewhere they are bought in to be taught by a foreigner.

The article then highlights the major issues which are digital natives are used to receiving information fast if not instantly, they like to multi-task, they prefer the graphics before the text, they thrive of rewards and would rather play video games than do any serious work. Digital immigrants rarely have appreciation for these skills as they want to and are stuck in the ways of teaching in a slow, step-by-step way, which, for the digital natives is a boring way.

Digital immigrants don't believe that digital natives can learn in different ways to ways that they do. Digital immigrants therefore that digital natives learn in the same way they did, this however is not valid. Digital natives therefore believe that the education that the digital immigrants are providing them with isn't worth it.

It is unlikely that the digital natives will go 'backwards' and return to the social norms and learning of past times. Some digital immigrants embrace the change and accept that they don't know much and take advantage of their kids to help them. However there are some digital immigrants who refuse to change and complain about the 'old days'.

To overcome this problem the article suggests we have to reconsider both our methodology and our content. First our methodology, the educators need to change the way they teach and teach in the new language that the digital natives created. This means make it faster and less step-by-step. Second our content, which there seems to be two kinds of the first legacy and second future. 'Legacy' is the traditional curriculum like, reading, writing, arithmetic, and logical thinking. Which is of course still important but its from a different era, some parts like logical thinking will be important but others like geometry wont e.g Greek and Latin. The second content, Future is digital and technological including, ethics, politics, sociology and languages. This content is interesting to today's students. Some digital immigrants however might not want to teach it.

The educators need to think about how they are going to teach both legacy and future content to digital natives, this would involve a translation and to add the new content. A theory has been highlighted which may at first been seen comically but as a case study shows it can definitely work. The theory is to make this content into video games. A case study to back this up was a company who had designed a new, faster and overall better way to operate factories. However the company encountered resistance as there was new software to learn eg. more buttons. The marketers then turned the learning into a computer game. The computer game ended up being highly successful. However it was harder for the educators to create it as they were used to different ways. They were asked to create a series of task's that the skills were embedded in. The professors had made 5-10 minute films, they insisted for them to be 30 seconds, the educators insisted that they do them in order, they insisted randomly. So the experimenters stripped all the old language away. Eventually the educators came through and it started working.

Similar thinking needs to be done for other subjects, there have been attempts that failed but the article states that we will improve. For example in maths we should now use computers and calculators all the time and learn how to implement them in aiding us. Geography there are many games out there which many kids can remember huge amount of information for eg. Pokemon and memorising 100+ Pokemon with all their info, we need to re-think how we present information.

Overall if digital immigrants want to reach out to digital natives they will have to change. If so they will eventually succeed.

Identify how Sense an Sensibility and Four Weddings and a Funeral represent aspects of Bristish society past and present.

Identify how Sense and Sensibility and Four Weddings and a Funeral represent aspects of British society past and present.

Sense and Sensibility and Four Weddings clearly represent aspects of British society. The main difference between them is the Sense and Sensibility is based in the past and Four Weddings is recent. This therefore makes them represent different morals and values of Britain. Another difference is how women get portrayed and treated, this difference is mainly because of the time difference. Sense and Sensibility was first a novel written by Jane Austen and published in 1811, Four Weddings was released into cinemas in 1994.

An aspect that they both share but have very different views on is marriage, in Sense and Sensibility marriage isn't a choice, especially for women however in Four Weddings it can be a choice and isn't a major deal unlike Sense and Sensibility. In Four Weddings there a good quote that one of the characters says, he says that couples only marry when they have run out subject to talk about. This shows that the representation of Britain in Four Weddings could be classed as realistic and modern. Women can take the time to the find the man that they want to marry and choose whether or not to do so. This shows that the two films have a different view of women and what there power, morals and values are. For example in Sense and Sensibility the women's costumes are very uptight and they are always covered up somehow, whereas in Four Weddings the women have let their hair down a bit more and are less uptight. This shows two different versions of British society, one where women don't nearly have as much freedom (Sense and Sensibility) than the women in Four Weddings. As well as freedom women in Four weddings are and could be respectful business people with authority over others this is a total clash from how women are represented in Sense and Sensibility. Women in Sense and Sensibility don't have much of a career, they stay at home and care for the house and their husbands or anyone else who they may serve. These two representations are drastically different but still realistic of their time period in which it’s set in. If you see in Sense and Sensibility the mood of the film and areas around the women are darker and stale. This denotes women to be low in the hierarchy on the social scale. As well as this the non diegetic sound that gets played doesn't set the mood the scene to be a joyful and happy one. In Four weddings these two points are completely different. The area and lighting surrounding women is bright and full of colour to denote that they are just the same as men in the social hierarchy. The sound might not be happy and joyful at all times but it isnt as dull as the sound in Sense and Sensibility.

Another difference that they have is that Four weddings represent a version of Britishness which is more like a part of 'Curtisland'. The way the characters go about their daily life and their values are grittier than those characters in Sense and Sensibility. This is partly because Four weddings is based in a more recent time period where society is very different from the time set in Sense and Sensibility. However with Four weddings being grittier it doesn't mean that its heavy hearted, in fact it could the very opposite. Most of the characters in Sense and Sensibility take most things seriously and you don't see them having a laugh as much as the characters in Four weddings. This again is another difference in how the society of Britain is represented in both films.

Merging on from the point about seriousness the subject love in both films are also the same. In Sense and Sensibility love/marriage is taken more seriously, men and women will set out to meet someone with the ambition of marrying and not necessarily the ambition of falling in love. Whereas in Four weddings a couple would date to get to know each other, then be official to each other, stay like that for a while to really see how they are, move in and then get married. So as you can see the steps for falling in love are more complicated in Four weddings.

Overall both of these British films represent a version of British society very well but they do have their differences and similarities. The similarities however make the representations very reliable. The main difference is that Four weddings is set in a modern time and Sense and Sensibility is set 100s of years ago. This provides us with one up to date representation and one historical representation.

Slumdog Millionaire and Somerstown - Comparison

Slumdog Millionaire

Directors: Danny Boyle
Loveleen Tandan (co-director: India)
Writers: Simon Beaufoy (screenplay)
Vikas Swarup (novel)
Release Date: 9 January 2009 (UK)
Genre: Crime | Drama | Romance

Somerstown
Director: Shane Meadows
Writer: Paul Fraser
Release Date:22 August 2008
Genre: Comedy | Drama

I believe that both of these films are definitely British but in different ways. Somerstown is obviously British with its British nature, whereas Slumdog Millionaire is debateable. Somerstown is classic British with its grittyness and again obviously has a British environment. The reason why Slumdog Millionaire is debatable is beucase it wasnt actually filmed in Britain for the most part. However there are a lot of factors that make it British, for example it was funded by channel 4 and has British actors in it. For example Dev Patel who also appeared in Skins (Which is a very British teen drama). Somerstown however was funded by eurostar which isnt as British as channel 4. It again has British actors for example,Thomas Turgoose he was also in 'This is England' which as by the title is very British film.

Active Reading Homework - Observer Film Quarterly March 09

A shiny, happy place, relaxed about the filthy rich, insatiable in its optimism, in love with happy endings, and very New Labour Welcome to Curtisland...

This article is based around the man Richard Curtis who has achieved an amazing amount towards British films. His most famous films include, Love Actually, Bridget Jones's Diary, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill. He is also the creator of Blackadder and The Vicar of Dibley.

The article is very much interested in how his films are based around New Labour and how they always have a optimistic view about them. This optimisim has made the view of Britain change from the old broken-home and teenage pregnancy capital of Europe to a sunny, happy and witty place.

His films were seen as a stepping stone to what British film is now today because he created his own style of cinema which is named 'Curtisland'. Most British films were either wrote by him or followed his formula of a man/women needing to grow up and find out that love is all around us.

As said before Richard Curtis/Curtisland has achieved many things for British Cinema and most importantly British people. He has changed the perception of British Citizens and has definitely left his mark.