here's an idea community is a postmodern
masterpiece so in case you're suffering
a sudden bout of changnesia we'll do a
little recap created by Dan Harmon
community is and probably soon will have
been an NBC sitcom about a group of
friends attending Greendale Community
College Abed and Britta Jeff Pierce
Shirley and Troy our seven students from
couldn't be more different but actually
weirdly related backgrounds who become
friends but also like actual friends
when they join a Spanish study group the
show focuses on this differently
functional group they're constantly
shifting interpersonal relationships
their Community College its theatrical
Dean and unique instructors Spanish
genius monkey steel pens this guy has
starburns Leonard gets told to shut up
and in the process we are led to number
either or not there really is such a
thing as objective truth okay so but
really much of community suggests that
it might put on your seat belts be
perfectly postmodern television but
before we talk about communities Pomona
is a more in-depth let's just jump right
into the briar patch and ask what is
post-modernism
I'll give the philosophy and art history
students a moment to finish their
collective oh and we're done first to be
clear as far as any label impressionist
brony nerd minimalist job is problematic
post-modernism is quite possibly the
most problematic referring to visual art
literature philosophy film architecture
music the postmodern condition describes
a skeptical often playful response to
established concepts French philosopher
Jean Francois Lyotard described
post-modernism as an incredulity towards
meta-narratives a sort of skepticism
towards the stories which help us
organize all other stories for example
capitalism is a meta-narrative which
legitimizes economic and political
narratives religion is a meta-narrative
that organizes and legitimizes countless
economic political and cultural
narratives for post modernists
meta-narratives like these and even
truth progress reason and science lose
their luster in a world that is totally
constructed managed and representational
it's sort of like we don't know whether
or not we're living in the Imaginarium
or as Jeff wing or so aptly put it I
discovered at a very early age that if I
talk long enough I could make anything
right or wrong so either I'm God or
truth is relative now post
is potentially problematic because the
disassembly of meta-narratives might
itself be a meta-narrative thus leading
to some sort of theoretical auto
sarcophagi but that's a rabbit hole that
we're not gonna jump into postmodern
artworks like those of John Cage Rob's
rauschenberg and Ryman Lawrence vena
Yves Klein and countless others are
characterized by confident uncertainty
an admission of the fact that universal
acceptance or enjoyment of something is
impossible lack of interest in
progressions narratives of course and
the constant pervasive presence of
contradiction or not because again there
is no such thing as a shared truth so
why give it such a high diene
distinction many postmodern works are
built on reference pastiche genre
agnosticism and not so much the betrayal
of expectation as the question of
whether expectations are even important
in the first place
expectations are kind of like Glee
they're built on empty narratives which
are compelling only to teenagers with
low IQs so how does community fit into
all of this well I'm glad you asked
allow me to Diezel actually we're just
I'm not gonna do that anymore first and
foremost many if not most episodes of
community are send ups or pastiche --is
of well-worn narrative forms the Western
the love story the action film the
sci-fi adventure the heist the feel-good
movie the documentaries the morning show
the list guess what
it goes on and whatever elements micro
and macro which are not lampooning the
more travelled paths in the yellow wood
are strongly critical they are
self-consciously referential skeptical
and playfully judgmental of culture they
are generally not in service of and
sometimes even hostile to
meta-narratives like two quick examples
community confronts the meta-narrative a
family by replacing it with a study
group and the metadata vegetation
through a book learning setting which is
dysfunctional at best not to mention the
show is built on contradiction or not a
lawyer who doesn't practice law an
inactive activist an innocent naive
homeless former drug addict and the most
kind compassionate outgoing character is
the one who stereotypically would be the
hardest to interact with surely would
you consider spinning off with me just
riffing but we could open a hair salon
together I don't understand is this you
being mecha the Spanish study group
doesn't study Spanish and even the theme
song seems to calm the question the very
existence of the show
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now am i saying that community is the
only postmodern television show no no
not at all the Simpsons the office how I
Met Your Mother and even most reality TV
shows have elements of the postmodern
practice Arrested Development - is
highly critical referential
self-conscious narrative ly
disinterested but not nearly as many
streets ahead as community after ask
your streets fine in death of the author
Rowan Barth says that we know the text
is not a line of words releasing a
single theological meaning but a
multi-dimensional space in which a
variety of writings none of them
original blend and clash the text is a
tissue of quotations drawn from the
innumerable centers of culture community
almost one by one absorbs comments on
and challenges the legitimacy of all of
the elements in that multi-dimensional
space and it does it more often more
critically and I think more successfully
than Arrested Development Family Guy and
all the other highly self-conscious
television shows or maybe this is the
AT&T of idea channel claims and
community isn't postmodern but just
contemporary or post postmodern or post
post-postmodern or wherever we are we
need a Jesus movie for the post
postmodern world much of post-modernism
has found its way into our everything is
a remix comment as content media
practice and maybe instead of being
smart and challenging and critical
community is just performing disinterest
in an attempt to be hip and cool cool
cool what do you guys think is community
a postmodern masterpiece let us know in
the comments and a subscription is not a
meta-narrative so you don't have to be
skeptical of it I took a Venn diagram of
idea channel subscribers and people who
went to go see John Carter is a circle
well see what you guys had to say about
Kickstarter would first just to be
really clear I loved Real Steel it's
Hugh Jackman in Rock'em Sock'em robots
the movie what is there not to love -
intro maker FTW and everyone else asking
for closed captions this is the thing
that we are gonna try really hard to get
better at bear with us but we're gonna
figure it out we promised Michael hammer
says that Kickstarter isn't gonna
replace Hollywood any time soon because
Hollywood is great at recognizing
courting and employing talent and that's
something that as an industry
Kickstarter just doesn't doesn't come
close to if so that's a good point I
don't know what to say to this
so I'm not gonna say anything a bunch of
people pointed out that there is in fact
a Twin Peaks movie it's called fire walk
with me which I totally forgot about
maybe I just want someone to kick-start
a better Twin Peaks movie huh Nina 86 ng
and triangle time is say that it would
be great if there was a version of
Kickstarter where you could actually
invest and get some money back which um
yeah it's complicated because a
Kickstarter would then have to be
regulated by the SEC which is the whole
other really complicated thing but this
is a legal thing that you can do it just
the service doesn't exist yet so when it
does
yeah moviemaking is probably going to
change a lot and this is actually
written about in the JOBS Act from a few
years ago so we'll put a link in the
description so you can check it out it's
really it's fascinating
Daniel Johnson points out that another
thing working against Kickstarter is the
fact that it's hard to actually earn
money from most Kickstarter projects and
so you're not gonna get a lot of big
bangs or people who want lots of zeros
the answer their paychecks are in court
night this is yeah this is a really
interesting topic and if you missed it
vice actually recently did a really
interesting piece we'll put a link in
the description uh oh yeah we have some
ideas maybe maybe someday that brought
back thanks that Kickstarter is just
going to end up being part of the
marketing process of a lot of Hollywood
movies as a way to just get the word out
for a movie and to blind some more
pockets in the process which um yeah I
mean I could I could see that being the
case and yeah you make a really good
point about whether or not it edges out
indie other indie movies yet to be told
this just a million times this this
week's episode was brought to you by the
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the tweet of the week comes from Spock a
girl who points us towards Liam Dryden's
video about the ethics of shipping real
people which you should watch I will put
a link in the description and also if
you have a television there are gonna be
some idea channel promos on the TV after
Nova tonight and on the 10th of April
it's gonna be weird you should watch it
you
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