Modernism, Postmodernism, Meta-modernism

[honorentheos]

I watched this Youtube video this weekend and thought others may find it interesting as well. The subject is ostensibly the evolution of movie narrative from its roots in moderism through today where the deconstruction of postmodernism and often nihilist or absurdist inevitability it brings to art, to the increasing search for meaning and sincerity within the many strands of narratives of hyper-modernism.

https://youtu.be/5xEi8qg266g

And, frankly, true to the subject, I thought there is much more to take from this than a video essay on film. The topic extends to every topic we discuss on this board. It is, at many levels, truly a discussion of...art.

[Some Schmo]

I just finished watching it. That was well worth the time.

I was thinking that stand-up comedy has gone through a similar pattern over the last 80 years or so, although I'd argue it would have been on the cutting edges of each phase. I'm not sure I ever remember watching a modernist comedian live, but I've seen old clips of them. Most of the comedy I grew up with would have been, by the standards outlined in that video, pretty postmodernist. Deconstruction is one of the most useful tools in a comedian's toolbox.

It seems there's a much higher premium on honesty in comedy than there used to be, because that's what's making people really laugh these days. It's not really enough to just be absurd any more. There has to be a nugget of truth buried within. The most highly respected comics these days like to bare their souls.

But anyway, thanks for the video recommendation. It is an interesting way to think of our culture.

[huckelberry]

I watched this Youtube video this weekend and thought others may find it interesting as well. The subject is ostensibly the evolution of movie narrative from its roots in moderism through today where the deconstruction of postmodernism and often nihilist or absurdist inevitability it brings to art, to the increasing search for meaning and sincerity within the many strands of narratives of hyper-modernism.

https://youtu.be/5xEi8qg266g

And, frankly, true to the subject, I thought there is much more to take from this than a video essay on film. The topic extends to every topic we discuss on this board. It is, at many levels, truly a discussion of...art.

Honoretheos, I watched and have put a little effort into considering but am a bit unsure where to proceed. There is postmodern in visual arts, philosophy and literary criticism. I think it is a bit of a different thing in each with perhaps some similarities.Is it a blessing that we have little postmodern popular music, or sort of popular music?

The look at movies pointed out shifts in stylistic trends , changes in what sort of methods are favored or employed. The most recent movie mentioned which I have seen was Once upon a time in Hollywood which I found to be a suprisingly effective movie. I do not see a philosophical reflection in the choices of how the movie was made. It is probably true that the mix of strategies used have been developed in the past few decades. Familiarity would make it easier to make the fictional retelling of real events work. Most everybody watching the movie would know about the substantial divergence from the real events. The tension between fact a fiction becomes an expressive commentary on the facts. (as is all good fiction despite its relationship to modernism, what ever form of that may be in view)

[honorentheos]

I just finished watching it. That was well worth the time.

I was thinking that stand-up comedy has gone through a similar pattern over the last 80 years or so, although I'd argue it would have been on the cutting edges of each phase. I'm not sure I ever remember watching a modernist comedian live, but I've seen old clips of them. Most of the comedy I grew up with would have been, by the standards outlined in that video, pretty postmodernist. Deconstruction is one of the most useful tools in a comedian's toolbox.

It seems there's a much higher premium on honesty in comedy than there used to be, because that's what's making people really laugh these days. It's not really enough to just be absurd any more. There has to be a nugget of truth buried within. The most highly respected comics these days like to bare their souls.

But anyway, thanks for the video recommendation. It is an interesting way to think of our culture.

I'm glad someone else also found it worth watching. I hadn't thought about its application to comedy but as soon as I read your comment I had an a-ha moment. It's interesting to think through a list of comedians, placing them on the spectrum of how nihilistic vs absurd their comedy ran or runs.

It would be fun to lay out a two-axis grid to do so, with the modern/postmodern axis on the X-axis, and nihilistic/absurd on the Y. That may seem unintuitive to make nihilism and absurdism opposing points but I think it works for comedy. The middle-ground being folks whose deconstructions are mild, observational comedy. Middle ground absurd? Someone like Gallager whose jokes were mild forms of what Carlin was doing but with a smashed watermelon involved. Jerry Seinfeld's "What's the deal with...?" schtick being the middle ground nihilistic form. The point being less zany fun takes on how odd we can be, more shake-your-head-at-humanity.

Someone like Anthony Jeselnik could be pretty far on the nihilistic side, but really his comedy isn't that deconstructive that it breaks down in the same way, say Bill Hicks' routines could veer off into nihilism so hard it would be difficult to keep hold of the plot...which WAS the plot. I think that's how I interpret the modern/postmodern axis. Modernism being synonymous with ideological, I think viewing a comedian's sincere acceptance of something as being of value would put them over on the side of modernism while the conviction nothing matters so let's burn it all down, piss off the crowd-types being the most post-modern. I think those folks tend to be "comedian's comedians", people who are so into the comedy game they marvel at what someone like Andy Kaufman was willing to do for something other than a laugh so he could enjoy a cynical smirk all to himself. Or something. I hear Bill Hicks described in terms that I think venture this far. Carlin gets close but hugged the middle enough to be acceptable by a critical mass of folks to be popular.

Anyway, thanks for the thoughts. It's given me something to ruminate on.

[honorentheos]

I watched this Youtube video this weekend and thought others may find it interesting as well. The subject is ostensibly the evolution of movie narrative from its roots in moderism through today where the deconstruction of postmodernism and often nihilist or absurdist inevitability it brings to art, to the increasing search for meaning and sincerity within the many strands of narratives of hyper-modernism.

https://youtu.be/5xEi8qg266g

And, frankly, true to the subject, I thought there is much more to take from this than a video essay on film. The topic extends to every topic we discuss on this board. It is, at many levels, truly a discussion of...art.

Honoretheos, I watched and have put a little effort into considering but am a bit unsure where to proceed. There is postmodern in visual arts, philosophy and literary criticism. I think it is a bit of a different thing in each with perhaps some similarities. Is it a blessing that we have little postmodern popular music, or sort of popular music?

The look at movies pointed out shifts in stylistic trends , changes in what sort of methods are favored or employed. The most recent movie mentioned which I have seen was Once upon a time in Hollywood which I found to be a surprisingly effective movie. I do not see a philosophical reflection in the choices of how the movie was made. It is probably true that the mix of strategies used have been developed in the past few decades. Familiarity would make it easier to make the fictional retelling of real events work. Most everybody watching the movie would know about the substantial divergence from the real events. The tension between fact a fiction becomes an expressive commentary on the facts. (as is all good fiction despite its relationship to modernism, what ever form of that may be in view)

I once heard the best definition of pop media on NPR, which was, "Pop is anything that does the work for you." It's such a subjective (postmodern?) take on what constitutes pop culture and pop media yet seems to capture exactly what makes "pop" pop. The converse being media that demands a cost to appreciate it fully, usually through both study and attempts at practice. Jazz has both a low and high bar for appreciation. Low in that it can be pleasantly "pop" in its own right. High, in that the best jazz musicians can only be appreciated by being familiar with the structure of the music. Coltrane is appreciable at almost any level, but to see his genius requires more than tuning in. Visual media being the same, I think your conversations with Morley about art highlights there are points that only land when the other party is sufficiently prepared to understand the references, follow where the other person is not just pointing to, but where the point originates.

In that sense, I think the video essay benefits from someone being a bit of a film aficionado. Knowing the films, even the ones he only uses visuals from but doesn't mention or break down probably leads to moments of recognition and intuition that help explain it that I assume exist everywhere but on reflection shouldn't.

One aspect of this I think matters is narrative - both as storytelling devices we use to convey information to others. And as devices we use to explain the world to ourselves. The narrative of the essay is about the narrative of film as a medium in which one can see the zeitgeist of a time. And it makes sense that there aren't many post-modern pop songs except when someone does something for the lolz and the folks being lol'd at miss the joke and buy the single. That happens more often than we may realize, really.

But there's a broader point here. I think our society is at a point where we've deconstructed ourselves into societal failure. While I didn't agree with MG's points, I actually agreed with MG's concerns in the broad strokes in his thread where he mistakenly blamed Gen Z for being irreligious and ruining society as a result. And like the essay points out, those who would push a return to High Noon or, more likely, Top Gun Maverik, aren't responding to the state of the world as it is but as they fantasize how it OUGHT to be. MG would have the world return to making High Noon.

Now, folks like Culty and many others who post as contrarians are far along the deconstruction of postmodernism to the point they don't care about anything beyond their myopic ego-centric emotions. They would see the world only as No Country for Old Men, and piss on anyone who says they like that movie at the same time. There's no future with the populist bullshitters because there is no actual "there" there, just criticism of what others think or believe or do or vote or participate in the meaningless machine of society. And it's easy to imagine there is meaning and purpose in just opposing their nihilism through critic or absurdity. Why not? Nothing matters.

So that gets to the point about hypermodernism and metamodernism. If postmodernism asserts the end of ideologies because any one person's ideology will disadvantage someone else, and hypermodernism is the overwhelming cacophony of ideological views being pushed through all the forms of media that demand a person code shift constantly to simple tread water in the sea of multiplicity of competing realities, how does one find meaning? I think most anyone who has left religion gets accused of descending into meaningless existence. And the response back that there is meaning in one's life and relationships gets met with a stiff-armed defense in favor of the interloper's ideology of choice. I think there's something to this idea that as we, as a society, struggle with not rejecting the varied experiences and realities of others, as individuals we do need to make meaning that works for us. And there is the metamodern.

[Father Francis]

I think viewing a comedian's sincere acceptance of something as being of value would put them over on the side of modernism while the conviction nothing matters so let's burn it all down, piss off the crowd-types being the most post-modern. I think those folks tend to be "comedian's comedians", people who are so into the comedy game they marvel at what someone like Andy Kaufman was willing to do for something other than a laugh so he could enjoy a cynical smirk all to himself. Or something. I hear Bill Hicks described in terms that I think venture this far. Carlin gets close but hugged the middle enough to be acceptable by a critical mass of folks to be popular.

I think of Bill Hicks as the jester, who isn't really a jester, in a fantasy novel.

[honorentheos]

I think viewing a comedian's sincere acceptance of something as being of value would put them over on the side of modernism while the conviction nothing matters so let's burn it all down, piss off the crowd-types being the most post-modern. I think those folks tend to be "comedian's comedians", people who are so into the comedy game they marvel at what someone like Andy Kaufman was willing to do for something other than a laugh so he could enjoy a cynical smirk all to himself. Or something. I hear Bill Hicks described in terms that I think venture this far. Carlin gets close but hugged the middle enough to be acceptable by a critical mass of folks to be popular.

I think of Bill Hicks as the jester, who isn't really a jester, in a fantasy novel.

Nice.

I do think Hicks is one of the most "over it" comedians to get famous so I buy the jester reference. Carlin as crazed multiverse spanning wizard? Huh. I'll have to think about it.

ETA: Looks like me in the past had a conversation with an illusion.

[Father Francis]

I think of Bill Hicks as the jester, who isn't really a jester, in a fantasy novel.

Nice.

I do think Hicks is one of the most "over it" comedians to get famous so I buy the jester reference. Carlin as crazed multiverse spanning wizard? Huh. I'll have to think about it.

ETA: Looks like me in the past had a conversation with an illusion.

Are you referring to Fizban or Zifnab?

[honorentheos]

Nice.

I do think Hicks is one of the most "over it" comedians to get famous so I buy the jester reference. Carlin as crazed multiverse spanning wizard? Huh. I'll have to think about it.

ETA: Looks like me in the past had a conversation with an illusion.

Are you referring to Fizban or Zifnab?

Exactly

[Some Schmo]

George Carlin is an interesting case. He started out pretty traditionally (modernist) then a few years in abandoned all that, started growing his hair and wearing hippy clothes and went full postmodernist. He ended that way, as cynical and nihilistic as one can get. And, of course, many people think he's the best of all time (I don't, but I respect his work).