Bricolage

This is the "piecing together of narratives to make a new narrative." The best example of this is The Mighty Boosh, which explores many genres, styles, techniques and formulas (ecclesiastic) to create a new story. For example, the stereotypical "Frankenstein" set with frothing glasses and an evil villain is mixed in with a thriller style dance mix, and then with a romantic comedy. This mixing of stereotypes and from old examples of genres is an example of bricolage- a mix of styles to create a new piece of media. Here is an example from the Mighty Boosh:


This shows a dream of a dream state-already a convention of thriller or epics, where dreams are important to "tell you something". The bricolage in this dream is very obvious- the catuses link to Indians, who used to take this for drugs, whereas the didgeridoos and tribal dance link to Aborigines. The sudden use of rock music brings in Americans stereotypes, the Afros represent the 70's funk, the masks are parody's of Easter island, and the red light is "other worldly." There is huge use of other cultures, therefore creating a culture bricolage. This relies on an active audience, as it relies on cultural knowledge and significance.
The Mighty Boo sh also uses cliqued techniques such as shooting "through binoculars" and being very self aware of being a film- the time blood falls on the managers head, and we pan out and realize it is just tomato juice, plays on audience expectations and is very aware of being a camera lens.

Who's Reality?
This could be linked to Marxism, and who has the power to control or create realities. Reality is quite a tricky term, but this idea questions who it belongs to. You could say that the reality being create3d belongs to the person creating it- the production company, the writers, the funding company. However, interpretations change, and one person watching a film can interpret a reality differently. Therefore, the reality could be said to belong to a single person, or to a region or town as they might have similar ideologies. However, although the reality relies on who creates or interprets it, it also relies on cultural knowledge- and who creates this? For example, who comes up with the representation of a nation, or a sub culture? this gives them power as can often force people to act in a certain way. It could be said that the common representation of English people is a American creation as they are the most powerful and have most access to technology and media to reinforce and create these images. However, representations of America shown is as less powerful. It could probably be considered that the reality doesn't belong to anyone, and is created and represented at the same time. (Although it could be argued that the more powerful nations have a more powerful say in this, and so it belongs to the "west" more than anyone else.) Good film for discussing this: Stranger than fiction: it discusses the idea of belonging to someone Else's story and being controlled.

Extras
This is very postmodern for a number of reasons. It has a huge number of representations in it- of big brother and celebreties (who are just representations of media texts anyway) and representations of media construction, with a studio audience. it has a meta fiction, comedy within a comedy, so very self referential.