Argument FOR postmodernism

One of the main arguments for postmodernism comes from the philosopher Lyotard who states that postmodernism is “incredulity towards metanarratives”, we can analyse the reliability of this quote by applying it to media texts that could be defined as being postmodern. For example, Zeitgeist is clearly a postmodern text; it clearly contains elements of intertextuality, bricolage, flattening of effect, simulacra, and hyper reality. In particular within zeitgeist there is a scene where clips of Dick Cheney, Rudy Giuliani, and George Bush’s speeches are strung together where they are talking about terrorism to show how this threat is being forced upon us, a comical soundtrack is played over the top of this bricolage of speeches which almost exaggerates the idea that this is all a joke, this directly applies to what Lyotard states about postmodernism and it is clear that this primary feature is present within this text. Baudrillard states that “We live in a world where there is more and more information and less and less meaning.” this supports Lyotard’s statement, particularly when applied to Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist is a bricolage of news clips, images, and quotes, it is clear that within a media saturated world it is difficult to find a (true) meaning behind what we see within the media, zeitgeist expresses the idea that terrorism has been “hypnotically repeated” to the public to generate an automatic idea of fear whenever someone is to repeat the word terrorism, this shows that we are having information almost thrown at us, yet we have no meaning or understanding of our own to gain any meaning to the information we receive, we just simply believe what we are told as a hyper reality is generated for us by the media. Chomsky believes that postmodernism is too vague, he poses the rhetorical question “what do they explain that wasn’t already obvious?” this could be applied to Zeitgeist, implying that Peter Joseph had no intention of creating a postmodern text, instead he just had the intention of constructing a text compiled of information and ‘facts’ to present to an audience making this text an agitprop which is a postmodern idea, this means that Zeitgeist can be applied to a variety of different postmodern ideas and theories implying that it could have always had the intention to be a postmodern text. It is clear that Peter Joseph has made Zeitgeist as a means to spread this propaganda meaning that this text is an agitprop, something that can be a defining feature of a postmodern text.