Definitions:
- Pastiche – A work of art, drama, literature, music, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist. Usually based on true events / work.
- Parody – A work of art, drama, literature, music or architecture that imitates/copies another work with ridicule or irony. Usually making a mockery out of a piece of work.
- Bricolage – The construction of a piece of ‘art’ created when things available or around you.
- Intertextuality – Seeks and theorises links and connections between media texts and textualized social life. ‘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.’
- Referential –
- Surface and style over substance and content –
- Metanarrative –
- Hyperreality – The inability to be able to know what is real or what is fake and the idea that reality is not actually real.
- Simulation (sometimes termed by Baudrillard as ‘Simulacrum’) – The idea that reality is not real and is masked by something else such as a copy of reality.
- Consumerist Society –
- Fragmentary Identities – The idea that people can switch between multiple personalities or act like a different person.
- Alienation – The state of being disconnected or detached from the world.
- Implosion – The realism / realisation of what will happen or could happen.
- Cultural Appropriation –
- Reflexivity –
Postmodernism – The sense that there is little meaning and truth in the world. It is different from traditional structures such as a meaning towards something where as society, is now moving towards uncertain structures, with little meaning and truth in the world.
Jean Baudrillard:
- French sociologist, philosopher and cultural theorist.
- Baudrillard claims that our current society has replaced all reality and meaning with symbols and signs, and that human experience is a simulation of reality.
- “We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.” – Simulacra and Simulation Book 1981
In 1959, Richard Hoggart (Uses of Literacy) noted the shift in modern societies particularly the impact on our ‘neighborhood lives’, which was ‘an extremely local life, in which everything is remarkably near‘ (1959:46). As John Urry comments, this was ‘life centred upon groups of known streets’ where there was ‘relatively little separation of production and consumption‘ (2014:76).
| Word / Characteristic | Reference to film (Existenz / TLBIYLV / Memento) + CSPS (Metroid / Maybelline / Tomb Raider / Newsbeat / Ghost Town / Letters to the Free) |
| Pastiche | – Existenz: |
| Parody | – The Love Box in Your Living Room could be seen as a Parody. For example, in the documentary, British children were taken to the “blue Peter garden” to get terminated by Doctor Who Darleks this was specifically at 21:38. A further example which proves the documentary is a parody is through the distinction that the actor for John Wreath is not actually him, this was shown all throughout the video. |
| Bricolage | |
| Intertextuality | |
| Referential | |
| Surface and style over substance and content | |
| Metanarrative | |
| Hyperreality | – Existenz: The film makes it hard for the audience to distinguish which layer is outside of the game and which is inside the game. – Tomb Raider: – Metroid: |
| Simulation (sometimes termed by Baudrillard as ‘Simulacrum’) | – Existenz: Within the film there are multiple times and layers when the characters are in a game or acting like they are in a game. This goes back to Baudrillard theory that we live in a copy of the real world through human experience. – Games immerse their users to separate them from reality – Tomb Raider: – Metroid: |
| Consumerist Society | |
| Fragmentary Identities | – The Boss Life (Maybelline): The celebrities acting within the advert have fragmented identities and lives as they will act different in the real world compared to when they are promoting the mascara/makeup. – Existenz: – Memento: |
| Alienation | – Memento: Lenny (the main character) is oblivious to the world and does not know if people are telling the truth and what the truth actually is. |
| Implosion | |
| Cultural Appropriation | |
| Reflexivity |