Postmodernism in animation - Research Paper Example

Baudrillard and Frederic Jameson to popular animation series such as Beavis and Butt-head, Drawn Together and Harvey Birdman that aimed to target adult audiences with their content and themes. The first part of the paper intends to explore the specific theories presented by commentators on postmodernism, in order to apply the elements of the concepts with regards to the animated television series under discussion thereby concluding that aspects of postmodernism and its cultural components are visible in the animated representations of popular culture.

Lyotard’s description and assessment of the world, in his essay titled “The Postmodern Condition” puts forward the limitations of believing in the positivity associated with a social and cultural agreement, thereby, postulating that postmodernism should in fact strive to work against the foundations of this widespread consensus which is an unattainable or utopian state due to the aspects related to the emergence and progress of popular culture which preaches plurality rather than singularity, this assertion led to the development of the concept of metanarratives and recognized the need to promote knowledge that is held by the general population rather than what is advocated by dominant cultural and political forces through the means of Grand narratives (til B.

A-prófs and Björnsson 2006). However, for Baudrillard (1994) the notions of postmodernism are associated with the representation of what he terms as hyperreality, such that in the society of today symbols or signs are no longer associable to their existence in reality but due to the emergence of a simulacrum can be traced to the subsistence of other elements. Perhaps, the most viable link of Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality can be traced to the projections of media such as film and television which create the hyperreality and then propogate it (til B.

A-prófs and Björnsson 2006). With its comprehensions of society and culture, postmodernism has