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This video essay makes the mistake liberals constantly make about trying to analyze development in art as something completely self-contained and not influenced by outside forces, especially economic forces. What I got from this video is that postmodernism postdates the collapse of the Soviet Union and metamodernism postdates the Great Recession. From this perspective, perhaps postmodernism is not just a reaction against modernism but also a reaction towards/against neoliberal triumphalism. Metamodernism could then be seen as a reaction against modernism and postmodernism as well as a reaction towards the Great Recession. There might also be industrial trends within Hollywood that mold films to be a certain way, which the video also doesn’t go over.
With that out of the way, I can’t say I’m a fan of metamodernism as he defines it. I completely rolled my eyes when he started talking to himself. “Oh great, he’s pulling a Contra” I said to myself. As we can see with Contrapoints, the oscillation between irony and sincerity can be completely employed towards completely cynical and self-serving ends. The characters she plays are what Contrapoints truly believes until she receives backlash, in which case they become fictional characters who don’t represent the views of Natalie Wynn. Contrapoints is Natalie when it’s convenient to be like that and Contrapoints is a Youtube channel when it’s convenient to be like that.
In a way, postmodernism is more honest because at least it doesn’t give itself wiggle room to flip-flop between two contradictory worldviews. Modernism is consistently sincere and postmodernism is consistently insincere. Meanwhile, metamodernism flip-flops between both, making it the least sincere of them all. It almost feels focus grouped in that regard. Some people get turned off by modernism’s corniness and some people get turned off by postmodernism with its head up its ass, so why don’t we smash both of them together to get as many people to blown their money on our garbage as possible?
With dedollarization and the sunset of US hegemony, a new artistic trend within Hollywood is inevitable. Maybe it’ll be called “hypermodernism” or “necromodernism” or “quasimodernism.”
Debord’s Spectacle intensifies :debord-tired:
Good post, BTW. I think I understand the bad vibes I felt while watching the video more thanks to your insight.
As an aside, unlike what the video suggests, people liking Top Gun has nothing to do with its alleged return to modernism. It has far more to do with that jingoistic film assuaging USians’ insecurity of US hegemony slipping. When they bomb the facility located in not-Iran, it’s just US copium expressed in film. This is what happens when your analysis completely silos off real life politics and assumes art development is self-contained.
I agree with your take. Art isn’t conjured in a vacuum and the mind palaces of “auteurs” are still influenced by the material world around them.
Idk, I feel like some of the commentary on “postmodern film” falls into the trap of just making statements without really trying to demonstrate with actual examples, it kinda feels like just repeating a narrative of “Oh yeah everyone got tired of that dang ol postmodernism deconstructing everything and just being an ironic asshole about it all.” A narrative that exists in people with opinions on basically any kind of art form.
Just didnt click for me, felt like a guy saying subjective stuff at me as if they were facts.
subjective stuff at me as if they were facts
How exactly is a subjective experience like a show or a movie supposed to be melted down and put in a centrifuge in a laboratory environment to determine how many goodness and badness particles are in it? :what-the-hell:
Thats the eternal problem of talking about art, but at least describing fairly solid things like how stories are being told or making an attempt at concretely describing the emotions conveyed through the films is better than repeating blanket narratives that cover basically all art discourse.
He’s got one example of the most blatant comedic deconstruction in Monty Python, but a lot of the other featured films arent particularly clear. And what definition he uses for which films are actually postmodern is just not really explained either.
I actually agree that they could have done a lot better with more examples and more specifics. I’m just burned out after :freeze-gamer: gate when it comes to the erroneous belief that there’s truly some nonpolitical no agenda “Objective/10” way to measure art.
Tbh I thought the video was kind of obnoxiously nonpolitical when talking about “modernist” film and repeating that stuff about how “postmodern” film just points to a bunch of problems with no ideas for solutions, reminded me of smug ascended liberal speak.
I won’t argue with you there.
I think a video could have been made with the same basic argument that was way less smug and vague. It could have been “this is what makes Rick and Morty’s fandom so toxic” and at least it’d have focus and better examples.
Rick and Morty is a weird example, cause it feels like (with the framing the video uses) a postmodern reaction against metamodernism. Its whole shtick is building up apparent sincerity within an ironic absurdist setting and then tearing that sincerity down again in a wave of nihilism as the punchline, before promptly resetting the board to convince the audience (not necessarily the actual audience though, the imagined one you, the viewer, get to feel superior to) to try to kick the sincerity football again.
I’m reading what you’re saying, but even while I don’t particularly agree with the video’s premise and I don’t identify with “metamodernism,” Rick and Morty just seems so irony poisoned in its own premise that it “cures” the poisoning just to inflict more poisoning because that would be extra poisonous irony which is totally funnier and smarter for real guys. I’d rather just not run that race than try to keep up with Justin Roiland in a drug fueled sprint, with one of his hands busy jerking himself off about how subversive and smart he thinks he is while the other hand is creep texting children and then sending racial slurs their way if they turn down his advances. :libertarian-alert:
I think “metamodernism” is too shifty in its own positions to really stand for anything in particular, so that’s why I said “at least dunking on Rick and Morty’s fandom would be a solid premise with solid examples” compared to whatever the video was trying to do.
It’s because he’s approaching the development of a particular medium of art as completely self-contained and not being influenced by outside forces, especially economic forces. In other words, he’s being undialectical.
just making statements without really trying to demonstrate with actual examples
I agree that his examples of films aren’t well explained or numerous but I think this essay is aimed at cinema junkies. Even though I haven’t seen all the films he talks about and disagree with some of his examples I do agree with his overall thesis that Meta-modernism is notable development storytelling as well as his definitions of modernism and post modernism in film.
Meta-modernism is notable development storytelling as well
So… that just happened, just like it would in a movie where that would happen! :soypoint-1:
I want to find his glasses frames so I can buy them.
Haven’t watched the video, but I prefer the term “New Sincerity” to metamodern just because it gets the point across better
I tend to lean “New Sincerity” myself. I see irony as a self congratulatory dead end in-joke at best and often it just normalizes things that shouldn’t be normalized, sometimes inviting non-ironic terrible people to do the once ironic terrible thing. See: 4chan.
With the way the video explained metamodernism, metamodernism comes off as an insincere art movement that isn’t even sincere about being insincere. For all of the many, many, many problems that comes with ironic detachment, at least postmodernism is honest about being insincere. It’s a question of sincerely insincere vs insincerely insincere.
To me, Contrapoints exemplifies insincere insincerity and it’s quite telling the video pulled a Contra to demonstrate how metamodernism breaks the fourth wall. Can we tell what Contra truly believes without using some tl;dr Twitter thread Natalie tweeted as paratext? Contra’s characters either mean what they say or mean the exact opposite of what they say depending on whether Natalie the person gets backlash on social media. While a postmodernist work can also suffers from this, unlike Contrapoints, it isn’t particularly relevant whether you can divine some truth from the work because ironic detachment is completely assumed to be a given. Meanwhile, the selling point of Contrapoints like most Youtubers is that we can establish a parasocial bond with her, meaning we can’t treat her work with ironic detachment but must actually have at least something in order to emotionally latch on to.
Based on how he explains the two art movements, postmodernism would be someone who lies all the time while metamodernism would be someone who lies half the time. A pathological liar isn’t that hard to deal with. You just go into every conversation assuming they’re completely full of shit and adjust your behavior accordingly. A serial bullshitter who tells entertaining stories is someone you could befriend as long as you treat them as someone who tells entertaining stories. But a person who lies half the time is far trickier to deal with because you’re constantly second-guessing yourself whether they’re actually honest or completely full of shit. It’s for this reason why most predators and abusers don’t actually lie all the time, but some of the time.
Far from being liberatory, metamodernism represents a further descent as films get further detached from any reflection of the human condition, where even insincerity is insincere.
I don’t identify with “metamodernism” because even the label feels clunky and, as you put it, insincere. You identified the problems with “metamodernism” well; now that I think about it it has the worst parts of ironic detachment as a defense mechanism but also has a crocodile-teared plea to be taken seriously when it suits it and seems safe.
Jesus christ when will people, artists especially, realize that we don’t have to do this. We just don’t have to make up cultural ‘trends’ to fit an abstract concept and wink-nudge everyone into playing along. No force is compelling us to “adapt” the narrative of movies to our Current Time like this. Fuck that actually, because our Current Time needs to fucking end. Nobody’s enjoying it, that’s even the topic of all these trustfund idiot-savants’ movies half the time, so why the fuck do they keep making exclusively meta-commentaries?! Why do they feel like rejected MKULTRA experiments to give you Aphantasia? Will a cabal kill them if they make normal art? NO! So just MAKE A DIFFERENT KIND OF FUCKING MOVIE!
See this pathetic sentiment a lot in film reviews, usually done by pseud poet-philosopher types. They describe postmodernism and the “End of History” like they’ve already won. As if the second one is even real, or possible. They go “Ouughhuhh its tooo badddd, it’s just part of our Postmodern Unreality…” CONSTANTLY as if they’re hoping you’ll start saying it. Like a dark ages peasant thinking rain makes you sad because he gets sad when it rains. There’s a step he’s missing - it’s called material reality. That’s what grows your emotions, farm fresh. Wakey wakey, goddamn narcissists.
You know that condition where you can’t imagine things you’ve never seen? Remember that wave of “gifted kids” who’d never done shit except watch Videos on their Phone but constantly referenced Gifted Kid Burnout? Imagine if everyone had that, because they were raised on this self-sucking media from birth like Baby Einsteins. I met 2 people in my 1 year at arts college who claimed they couldn’t make abstract images in their heads. In art school. Last year. Where some directors used to escape reality by making out-there and original worlds/stories/characters, the same old fucks and their doughy cartoon apprentices have now “changed the game” by crossing their arms, pursing their lips, and refusing to write about anything happening outside their bedroom and TV. They have to tell you if they’re about to do something “a little weird,” either bc theyre laughably insecure abt it (for an artist) or there really is some force behind the scenes talking them into this.
The superstructure of any society has always reflected its base and material issues, whether in the storyline of a movie or just the delivery of themes. More ‘unique’ works can still exist, they just don’t always have the same impact. But this kind of philosophy guarantees a superstructure that can only reflect reality, with an expectation that it’s the current reality, which feels actively malicious. Like a deliberate application of Capitalist Realism.
If you’re gonna make a movie that’s postmodern or self-referential or whatever, that’s cool. But for YHWH’s sake, don’t stick the labels on yourself. End of rant.
I met 2 people in my 1 year at arts college who claimed they couldn’t make abstract images in their heads. In art school. Last year. Where some directors used to escape reality by making out-there and original worlds/stories/characters, the same old fucks and their doughy cartoon apprentices have now “changed the game” by crossing their arms, pursing their lips, and refusing to write about anything happening outside their bedroom and TV. They have to tell you if they’re about to do something “a little weird,” either bc theyre laughably insecure abt it (for an artist) or there really is some force behind the scenes talking them into this.
I had college professors like that, too. They rejected what they called “genre fiction” but wanted infinite bleak and edgy “people cussing and smoking cigarettes while name brands of actual products are categorically listed by the narrator while the characters wallow in loathing” totally-not-a-genre-fiction and saw it as the pinnacle of literature and the only valid story. :grillman:
The only true Kino™ is when half the time is dedicated to characters talking about killing themselves and each other and smoking and fucking and the other half to killing themselves and each other and smoking and fucking
Can’t even enjoy normal historical fiction slop anymore it has to be some lame ass “””DARK COMEDY™””” about some Hitler Youth kid. Hitler bad, wow what a fucking profound revelation here’s your Oscar
:order-of-lenin:
:jesse-wtf:
I liked this video. I’ve never heard the term “metamodernism” until now but the way he explained it makes sense. It’s like people want to return to the escapism of older films but they can’t quite let go and be totally sincere about it, which is why you get soy banter and shit. I’ve always preferred what this essay terms “modernist” films and I suspect a lot of other Marxists do too, as Marxism itself is a very modernist philosophy, even if we are also aware of the terrible lessons taught by many films of that type.
