Some argue that there is no such thing as auteur, because of the "death of an author" idea by Roland Barthes, which suggests that there is no such thing as a real original story-the same thing is just told and retold in various disguises. It also relates to the audience reception of the idea- the audience can interpret the story however they want to, destroying the original meaning.
Matrix
The Matrix is a postmodern film effected by Baudrillard's ideas about postmodernism. This is because it links to the idea of media consuming the audience and the world being so saturated and controlled by media that there is no such thing as reality. The Matrix uses this idea by having a literal cyberspace which people believe to be reality and is controlled by machines- which Neo among others wakes up from. This is a reflection of our own reality, where we are controlled by media to run all aspects of life. The matrix is also postmodern due to it's self referential aspect-its inside itself. It can be thought to be a zeitgeist. (idea which defines an age.)
Memes
A meme is an idea or creative item passed on virally form person to person to the point that it becomes well known and used.
An example of an internet meme is words such as "fail" "Lol"etc- these have infact passed on to feature as a regular phrase for the english lanaguage. these orginated on internet forums such as Lolcats and MSN.
However there can also be other types of meme- the kind of signs we get used to in life which often beomes symbols as they are so well known. For example, the meme of Banksy, which is passed on through curiousity about him. His unknown, intertexual and playful art is symbolic of the our world. He is also simple, and for a meme to spread quickly, they have to be simple and easy to replicate. (like cells, which replicate to spread quickly.)
Examples of Memes:
"Leave Brtiney alone!" This is a very good example of a meme. It began with an emotional teenager (Chris Crocker) getting angry and upset about Britney (video below)(HOPEFEULLY)
This spawned a huge amount of media off this. If you explore the "related videos" there are huge numbers of people imiating him, and videos of people talking about him or "putting him in a blender." The catch phrase of "leave britney alone" is repeated many times there, and spread across to other media. It is apparent on Lolcats, another site, and appeared on internet forums etc. Soon it made him an internet celebrity, he appeared on many TV shows, there is merchandise with the phrase written on, and it has become part of our culture. (when we want to seem rediculous or exaggerated.
Scream meme
The scream movies are very postmodern. This is for many reasons. They are very intertexual, mentioning Black eyed peas, has pyscho music/scene etc and the scream mask being a reffernce to the scream picturee by Edvard Munch. It is also in a cinema, there is an audience within an audience and a film within film. (metafiction). The movie plays with the conventions of a scary movie, refferncing the conventions of dumb, vulnerable women being attacked within the script, making you aware that the film knows its meant to sacry, and suggesting that the convention might change. The scream became very popular, and the sign of the scream mask became sybolic and has been used in paradies many times. It is reconized both as scary now but also as funny- it has been made fun of so many times, the meme is now amusing. However, the fascination did have bad effetcs- there were several killings by people pretending to be a scream man, who found that the blurring of vioelnce onscreen and off screen meant they were distanced, desensitzed and unable to see wrong in their crime.
These scary movies are paradied by "The Scary Movie" which has been described as the "death of Horror" as it uses every single convention of horror and laughs at it, along with dierctly paradying scenes from popular horror movies, thus reducing their fear. An example is using the scene from signs with the corn feild. The scary movie use the long track to create tension but also to make the actor look stupid as he walks funny. The scream of the child is broken due to him peeing, and the final "sign" left by teh aleins says "attck here" breaking down enigma. In other times, the use of paradoying the scream by having a girl alone in ahouse with a phone, but by emhasising her dumbness, sexuality and her self referential name (she plays herself) this is amsuing. Some people claim that this laughter at violence can lead to a distance from violnce and inablityt o distinguish violnce as real and bad- caused a moral panic.
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