TV: Postmodernism and Deutschland 83

TV: Postmodernism and Deutschland 83

Postmodernism & Deutschland 83: blog task

Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet #54: Introduction to Postmodernism. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets - you'll need to save the factsheet to USB or email it to yourself in order to complete this at home. Read the factsheet and answer the following questions:

1) Read the section on Strinati's five ways to define postmodernity. What examples are provided of the breakdown of the distinction between culture and society (media-isation)?

The characters Bruno and Borat

2) What is Fredric Jameson's idea of 'historical deafness'? How can the idea of 'historical deafness' be applied to Deutschland 83?

He argues that as mediaization increases so the culture finds itself losing a sense of historical context. History is now reduced to ‘talking heads’ documentaries and historical knowledge is often based on media representations. This can be applied to Deautschland 83 with how many foreign audiences are presented with a dramatised version of 1980s Germany and make sense of it exclusively from the show's representation of it.

3) What examples and theories are provided for the idea of 'style over substance'?

Logos and packaging will influence a buyer to the point where it becomes more important than the product itself.

Programmes such as Big Brother celebrate style over substance due to many celebrities spawned from that show are now "famous for being famous" rather than having an identifiable talent or identity.

4) What examples from music are provided for the breakdown of the distinction between art and popular culture? Can this be applied to Deutschland 83?

Advertising (low art) often makes reference to visual art (high art) or uses classical music (high art) to help sell its products

Pop music (low art) often samples classical music (high art)

In postmodern culture Andy Warhol created multi-coloured prints of the Mona Lisa (high art) and Campbell’s soup cans (low art)

5) What is bricolage? What examples of bricolage can be found in Deutschland 83?

Bricolage refers to the process of adapting and juxtaposing old and new texts, images, ideas or narratives to produce whole new meanings. One example could be that Deutschland 83 uses iconography from the spy genre, reminiscent of James Bond, and mixes it with contrapuntal pop music.

6) How can the audience pleasures of Deutschland 83 be linked to postmodernism? Read 'The decline of meta-narratives' and 'Media texts and the postmodern' to help answer this.

Deutschland 83's exploration of meta narratives such as communism reflects a postmodern perspective as it denies single truths/realities in favour of a more dramatised story. The series focuses less on positioning itself on the side of one ideology, instead focusing on diversion for the audience through it's entertaining narrative and
personal identity in the show's relatable characters.


7) Read the analysis of media concepts and postmodern approaches on page 3 of the factsheet. Choose three of the concepts and write an example from Deutschland 83. Clue: genre, representation, ideology and audience would all be good options for this task.

genre
83 uses traditional codes and conventions associated with the spy genre, although somewhat parodies them.

representation

Deutschland 83 approaches both the East and West sides with integrity, taking on a post-modern approach and somewhat deconstructing stereotypes of each side.

The conventional approach would have been to create one dimensional characters based on stereotypes that are easy to predict whereas Deutschland 83 tries to humanise both the East and West.

audience
Deutschland 83's audience is encouraged to engage with the text and form different perspectives.

8) Now look at page 4 of the factsheet. How does Deutschland 83 demonstrate aspects of the postmodern in its construction and ideological positioning?

Deutschland 83 has a morally grey ideological position, with our protagonist and his allies doing things like assassinations and spiking a woman's drink to dispose of her.

9) Which key scenes from Deutschland 83 best provide examples of postmodernism? Why?

The spy training montage - something seemingly obligatory in the genre.

10) Why might audiences enjoy the postmodern aspects of Deutschland 83? What audience pleasures might elements of bricolage or pastiche provide viewers?

The audience gets nostalgia from the 80s music and iconography reminiscent of pop art. Some may see the dramatisation of the divide between east and west Germany as appealing as it makes the narrative digestible to a wider audience.

There is a lot of challenging work here - you will have over a week to complete it so take your time, read around the subject and re-watch the scenes from the first episode on All4 to help develop impressive academic answers to these questions.