"Fifteen Million Merits is not a postmodern text." Discuss this claim with reference to the Wachowski brothers' The Matrix and one other text.
Many would argue that Fifteen Million Merits is not a postmodern text due to the fact it faces post modernity or the postmodern condition within the short film. Post modernity is the state of condition and reaction to being postmodern. At the present moment we are in a state of postmodernity.
Throughout the film there is evidence that there is hegemony in place, for example in this film how the celebrities dominate the way in which people live in the film, there is a clear divide and they control all of the people working for merits and this is a way in which the short film deals with post modernity. Another key feature of post modernity within the short film is the way in which the main character Bing finally feels something real which is the singing of the girl Abi. This is post modernity as due to postmodernism the reaction of distortion of the real and the simulated has been blurred. This is a key feature of the theorist Baudrillard who believes that post modernism blurs the boundary of the real and the simulated. So the way in which Bing comments on Abi’s singing being ‘the most real thing he has seen in here’ relates to the film dealing with post modernity. This is a key concept of the theorist Jameson as he argues that we do not realise what is real or simulated anymore. The boundary between the real and simulated has been blurred, this is played around with a lot during the film narrative. The film also could arguably just be a metaphoric view of the modern life that we live. It could be seen as an exaggerated reality of how we live now, being surrounded by computers and media. The way in which we can't get away from adverts just like we see within the movie, the characters have to pay with their merits to avoid and skip the adverts just like we have to with some products such as applications on phones where you have to buy upgraded versions where we are promised no adverts. Also post modernism is referred to by the way bing says everything around is pointless and the items are ‘confetti’ and ‘shit’ or ‘stuff’, this links into the theorist jameson where things are built up of depthlessness and spectacle.
The text has a conventional linear narrative, however there are small amounts of intertextuality evident such as the parody of britains got talent and one character's likeness to Simon Cowell, however post modern features do not build up the whole text so it is not a post modern text. Another feature that is very conventional within the text is the way that we feel and have an emotional attachment to Bing and they way he gives his money to the main female character Abi only for it to be lost and wasted. This is a conventional feature not a postmodern feature as it creates a emotional depth into the text instead of all being spectacle.
The Matrix is similar in the way that it deals with a dystopian view of the future. The Matrix deals with the amount of machines making reality become a simulated one.However i feel that the matrix differs to fifteen million merits because it is a post modern text, as it includes lots of spectacle which decreases the depth of the film. Also it breaks a meta narrative and binary of either man or machine as there are machines. This refers to the theory of Lyotard, another post modern theorist that could be brought into the movie the matrix is Jameson as there are intertextual references to different genres such as kung fu movies when actually its a science fiction action film.
One final text that i am going to talk about is twitter once again this text could be heavily linked to Jean Baudrillard due to the way in which someone's twitter page could be seen to be them, and they are imaged as just being identical to all they post. However the person may actually not be anything like what they post or what there picture looks like, within websites like twitter it is possible to only let people see what you want them to and distort reality. Another theorist that could be applied to this text is Lyotard because the way in which the meta narratives are all broken down, there is what modernists would call high cultures and low cultures are mixed together on a news feed with all sexuality's and ethnic groups also.
In conclusion i feel that Fifteen Million Merits is not a postmodern text how ever it does deal with post modernity in depth. It is not post modern due to the many conventional features that are involved within the text. Along with the dystopian future we see shown from the metaphoric present time also.
One final text that i am going to talk about is twitter once again this text could be heavily linked to Jean Baudrillard due to the way in which someone's twitter page could be seen to be them, and they are imaged as just being identical to all they post. However the person may actually not be anything like what they post or what there picture looks like, within websites like twitter it is possible to only let people see what you want them to and distort reality. Another theorist that could be applied to this text is Lyotard because the way in which the meta narratives are all broken down, there is what modernists would call high cultures and low cultures are mixed together on a news feed with all sexuality's and ethnic groups also.
In conclusion i feel that Fifteen Million Merits is not a postmodern text how ever it does deal with post modernity in depth. It is not post modern due to the many conventional features that are involved within the text. Along with the dystopian future we see shown from the metaphoric present time also.