Study Task 2: Parody & Pastiche

Sources

• Hutcheon, L. (1987) The Politics of Postmodernism: Parody and History in Cultural Critique, No. 5, Modernity and Modernism, Postmodernity and Postmodernism, University of Minnesota Press.
• Jameson, F. (1984) Postmodernism: Or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, pp.17-25.

Jameson defines postmodernism as an era of mess and confusion which is lacking of a Grand-narrative when being compared to the modern era. Cultures from the past were recycled and simplified so that it is acceptable for the mass audience. Jameson is a proponent of the idea that postmodernism is not idiosyncratic, hence lacking of substance. According to him, it reflects the effortlessness and its effect on creativity which leads to a cul-de-sac for originality. The superficial understanding of avant-garde culture creates a dystopian society with historical deafness, and hence the problem of 'random cannibalisation of styles' (Jameson, 1984) prevalent in creative works. Postmodernism is arts of pastiche. Pastiche itself is a 'blank parody'; 'without any of parody's ulterior motives, amputated of satiric impulse, devoid of laughter and of any conviction that alongside the abnormal tongue you abnormally borrowed, some linguistic normality still exists.' (Jameson, 1984)



Hutcheon (1987) has a different insight on postmodernism which criticises Jameson's theory of postmodernism. She thinks that they are 'art marked primarily by an internalised investigation of the nature, the limits, and the possibilities of language of the language or discourse of art.' In other words, postmodern art is an application of art forms and its theory from the past, carefully crafted in order to 'abuse, install and then subvert convention in parodic ways'. This relates closely to Hutcheon's (1987) definition of parody: 'the formal analogue to the dialogue of past and present that silently but unavoidably goes on at a social level.' Despite all the criticism, Hutcheon acknowledged Jameson's take that postmodernism lacks 'genuine historicity'. The double-coded nature of postmodernism has resulted on the popular perception that postmodernism marks the fall of the avant-garde movements from the modern era. Hutcheon dismissed the negative connotation by arguing that avant-garde have undergone a paradigm shift to parodic postmodernism in which artists place more value on revealing 'the close connections between the social production and reception of art and our ideologically and historically conditioned ways of perceiving and acting.' (Hutcheon, 1987) This is pertinent to the present day situation where animated comedies, such as South Park, Family Guy and American Dad!, make use of narrative and symbolism as a powerful propaganda tool to influence the public's perception on socio-political issues.

Study Task 2: Reading and Understanding A Text

I have chosen to explore the question "What is the relationship between Animation and the Culture Industry?" for my Context of Practice project. To find out more about the Culture Industry, I decided to read a section on Marxisms in the fifth edition of "Cultural Theory and Popular Culture" by John Storey from page 62 to 70.

Storey did a critical analysis on the Frankfurt School's view on the culture industry. The use of language is kept formal with relevant terminologies used to describe the subject of the discussion. Hence, demonstrating the quality of an academic writing. Storey begins with presenting The Frankfurt School's view on the culture industry in an unbiased way, then he presents his view on the arguments made by the Frankfurt School and supports his arguments with facts and figures from other resources.

Five key points:

1.  The popular culture is uniform and obvious while 'authentic' culture is abstract.

2.  The culture industry distracted human from having their own unique opinions on politics as it enforces them with superficial thoughts.

3.  The 'authentic' culture has revolutionary potential, but it is compromised due to commercialisation of avant garde art.

4.   Ignorance towards the mechanical nature of popular culture establish a standard which dictates the public hence maintains the dominance of social authority.

5.  The active consumption of the mass culture allows the public to have free interpretation on the mass culture so it is not oppressive afterall.

Five key quotes

1.  "Constant reproduction"

2.  "The culture industry has worked to depoliticise the working class - limiting its horizon to political and economic goals that could be realised within the oppressive and exploitative framework of capitalist society."

3.  "What was separate became assimilated since any critical dimension which might have pertained to Matisse's painting was eclipsed by its new and unsolicited function"

4. "The function of the culture industry is therefore, ultimately, to organise leisure time in the same way as industrialisation has organised work time."

5. "Changes in the technological reproduction of culture are changing the function of culture in society"

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The Frankfurt School attacks the mass culture because it jeopardises tradition and promotes public ingnorance towards political issues, hence enabling political agencies to dictate society. The school asserted that popular culture is typical and obvious as compared to the rather abstract 'authentic' culture. "Constant reproduction" (Storey[2008]62) is the main issue in the mass culture as it deters people from having their own unique political stand point by limiting their view to just on "political and economic goals that could be realised within the oppressive and exploitative framework of capitalist society." (Storey[2008]63) Furthermore, they highlighted that many artworks are being reused by big companies for advertisements and undermined their original meaning as people starts to associate these artworks with certain products advertised by the company which caused "what was separate became assimilated". (Storey[2008]65) Hence, what was complex is made simple, and simple becomes the new standard of popular culture. The culture industry is fixated on simplicity which can be clearly seen from the mechanical nature of popular music. Producers cannot be bothered to come up with novel ideas, and tweak the production that has been successful to make a new one. On the same note, Adorno argues that the function of culture industry is "to organise leisure time in the same way as industrialisation organised work time" (Storey[2008]65) which maintains the dominance of social authority. However, the author dismiss Adorno's argument for being outdated, and he points out that Adorno's account on the impact of the culture industry on people is cynical by proving that the "changes in the technological reproduction of culture are changing the function of culture in society". (Storey[2008]68) The author shows more inclination towards Benjamin's view which explains that the public are active consumers of the mass culture, and they effectively utilise their freedom of interpretation to discern the products of the culture industry.