Momento can be classified as a postmodern text as the main character “Leonard” has no true identity. This can be seen through many times throughout the movie. he wants people to believe he is a clinical psychologist who wants vengeance for his wife. However, his true identity is a murderer but only because of his own actions. This can show how Leonard is his own victim as he constantly led himself to believe he never solved the murder even though he had many times as every time he found out he made false clues to lead to a new “killer”. He does this to give himself a false sense of purpose. This therefore allowed it to become a Whitley text as consumers believed he was doing the right thing until we found out Leonards true self. This is the Theory of Ronald Barthes where consumers create their own versions of the text without having any factual information.

The text itself relies on how only evidence and facts can truly be trusted where as people who “claim” to know the truth can’t, even if it is the real truth. This is done to show how Leonard is a paranoid character who is going insane and couldn’t take the weight of him killing his own wife. To do this he constructs a character called “John G” so when he finds out his true self he can forget and blame someone new, this becomes and endless cycle. Because of this, evidence begins not matching up and Leonard confuses as well as contradicts himself and leads him to killing innocent people and trusting people such as Natalie when he shouldn’t.

All of this can be blamed on new and rising media technologies as well as people with power such as “Teddy” who lied to Leonard so he could have a false sense of purpose, simply out of pity.

In some ways, social, historical and cultural contexts are important, as it not only connects to media studies, it allows society to grasp a better understanding of postcolonialism, and how races are constructed as different, opposite or other. Looking at Commons Letter to the Free, which is a song wrote as a soundtrack to the 13^th, a documentary by Ava DuVernay, named after the American 13^th amendment, which was the abolition of slavery. The song implies how black people are seen different to others. This is evident through his lyrics, “we aint seen as humans”, suggesting that society see Black people as different, not even human beings. Furthermore, the lyric “will the U.S ever be with us” constructs an ideology of U.S almost seeing them as opposites and choose to stand against them.

The theorist J. McDougall analyses the notion of “fake news and media Studies”. In his book, he states “I do spend long periods of time with my gaze turned away from the media, because I’m seeking to understand what’s going on out there, and then the role of the media in that context. I’m always putting the social, the political and the economic (contexts) first.” 

If we look at War of the Worlds, it is a science fiction novel, where aliens invade, and the story is told through the narrative’s diary. The conventions of news reports were used for dramatic realism, to create suspend disbelief for the audience. The reason why it is important not just to focus on the media/not just to focus on society, is the notion of “interpellation”, meaning society can eventually make us into a certain person. The theorist Louis Althusser talks about the ISA’s and the idea of interpellation (ideology state apparatus). They construct an idea, that is connected to the state, in a way of which individuals are interpellated into society. The way in which your subject identity is formed and which, more often than not, corresponds to the dominant ideology. Linking this the War of the Worlds, we can say that the audience listened into the media (radio broadcasters, who were potentially controlled what to say by the “ISA”) and they were educated about what happened. Due to the suspend disbelief, the majority of the audience were interpellated into the “fake news”. McDougall’s claims that “I do spend long periods of time with my gaze turned away from the media, because I’m seeking to understand what’s going on out there, and then the role of the media in that context. I’m always putting the social, the political and the economic (contexts) first.” So, it is important to acknowledge not only the media, but also society, as they are interdependent and allow us to have better understanding of the realism of the world.

Music videos are a great source of media to address information about the society. If we look at The Ghost Town by The Specials, it educates the audience about the economic depression and lack of employment in London. It involves hybridization, as two genres of music merge together: reggae and ska. Alternatively, Commons Letter to the Free, with its hip-hop rap style, it sends the audience a message that black lives matter, as it talks about ending slavery and generating equal rights for everyone.

The similar between these two music videos, is that it gives awareness of the current situations that took place in those eras. This is where post colonialism links in, as it creates the emergence of critical thinking. The arguments around postcolonialism critical thought “constituted a fundamentally important political act” (MacLeod). Theorist Edward Siad, developed orientalism, where he states that the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism. Linking to Letter to the Free, which was made in 2016, the power of its narrative aided and encouraged the Protests for Black Lives Matter in 2020. In his book “orientalism”, Edward Siad points out the “the Orient has helped to define Europe”. So, we could say that music videos i,e Letter to the Free, has helped define society, through protests, to make the world a better place.

To understand the term “other” in “the orient in other”, Jacques Lacan, a French philosopher,  developed the mirror stage of child development, which points out that we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are and who we are not. Lacan’s theory of the mirror stage talks about when we first see each other, that’s when the recognition occurs. So, applying this theory to media studies, communications and culture, the reason why we consume the media so much, is to not only identify and understand the “other”, but explore ourselves. Linking to the music video Letter to the Free it allows audience/society, to reflect on themselves and think how they are as a person – are they discriminating the black? Society consume media and reflects on themselves. As it allows them to understand society and culture, it gives them the opportunity to make a change, such as joining protests to try and get rid of poor equality.

Jacques Lacan – his term of the mirror stage of child development, whereby, as we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not. Lacan proposed that in infancy this first recognition occurs when we see ourselves in a mirror. Applying that theory to culture, communications and media studies, it is possible to see why we are so obsessed with media etc because, essentially, we are exploring ‘The Other’ as a way of exploring ourselves.

The Orient is an idea that has a history and a tradition of thought, imagery, and vocabulary that have given it reality and presence in and for the West. The two geographical entities thus support and to an extent reflect each other.

ORIENTALISM: The Link between culture, imperial power & colonialism

the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism – Edward Said Culture and Imperialism, 1993: xiii

Hegemonic struggle – a chance to reclaim

Emerges from NEGOTIATION and CONSENT; a continual exchange of power, through ideas. In this sense, postcolonialism articulates a desire to reclaim, re-write and re-establish cultural identity and thus maintain power of The Empire – even if the Empire has gone. power of representation, played out in the realm of the cultural and civic, looking to make an affect on the political and economic.

Pastiche – a work of art, drama, literature, music, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist

Parody – a work or performance that imitates another work or performance with ridicule or irony

Bricolage – involves the rearrangement and juxtaposition of previously unconnected signs to produce new codes of meaning

Intertextuality – surface signs, gestures and play

Metanarrative – narratives of historical meaning, experience, or knowledge, which offers a society legitimation through the anticipated completion of a (as yet unrealized) master idea.

Simulacrum – simulations of reality

Hyperreality – the simulation is more real than reality.

Syncretism –

Double consciousness – the internal conflict experienced by subordinated or colonized groups in an oppressive society.  Black and british, black and american.

Hybridisation

Paul Gilroy is insistent that ‘we must become interested in how the literary and cultural as well as governmental dynamics of the country have responded to that process of change and what it can tell us about the place of racism in contemporary political culture.’ (2004:13)

Postmodernism can be understood as a philosophy that is characterised by concepts such as RE-IMAGINING, PASTICHE, PARODY, COPY, BRICOLAGE

Doing something new with a fragmentary set of inter-relationships. It contains self-referentiality – in Memento, complicated cut up and paired together to form a narrative

pastiche is a work of art, drama, literature, music, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist

parody is a work or performance that imitates another work or performance with ridicule or irony.

Inter-textuality is another useful term to use, as it suggests signs only have meaning in reference to other signs and that meaning is therefore a complex process of decoding/encoding with individuals both taking and creating meaning in the process of reading texts

Look for patterns, codes, conventions that share a common features. In other words, narrative theories look at recognisable and familiar structures, that help us to understand both how narratives are constructed and what they might mean.

Satellites and kernels –

Roland Barthes:

Proairetic code: action, movement, causation

Hermenuetic code: reflection, dialogue, character or thematic development

Enigma code: create puzzles – enigmatic means confusing, intriguing – asks a question

ellision and elipsis: cut and crop things out – only show a short scene of burning a book, doesnt have entire thing from start to finish

Flasback/Flashforwards – working with time, foreshadowing, chronological order

non-sequitars – elements that emerge and play out but actually have little value, meaning or consequence to the overall / main parts of the narrative