History Main / Postmodernism

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPv7BIbyUoo Meta Anti Poop]], takes all the editing techniques of WebAnimation/YouTubePoop, and yet instead of mocking the original like most poops, it actually embraces it by refusing the go OffTheRails. It's still funny.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' has had a couple of forays into Postmodernism. They made a reference to their real-world merchandise enterprises, the 'I didn't do it' episode where they all embrace their status as one-dimensional catchphrases, a couple of episodes where they note how far along the plot is or how everything will be returned to normalcy for next week. Sometimes they call attention to the fact that they always wear the same clothes, never age, and have yellow skin... Most impressive example is the episode "Behind the Laughter," which shows these cartoon characters as actors with 'real' lives outside of their show. Also this trope might include those episodes that poke fun at the nerdiness of The Simpsons' fan community.

** The Simpsons as a whole could be an example of Postmodernism, at least by the standards of its time and especially compared to other shows with animated leading families like The Flintstones and The Jetsons.

* In a fourth season episode, "The Monster at the End of This Book," the leads of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' discover that someone has used visions of their lives as the inspiration for a series of horror novels. The books have the same titles as past episodes, and the writer's current manuscript is about what is happening to them right then.

--->'''Dean:''' "I'm sitting in a laundromat reading about myself sitting in a laundromat reading about myself-- ''my head hurts.''"

--->'''Dean:''' "They do know we're ''brothers'', right?"
--->'''Sam:''' "It doesn't seem to matter to them."
** Supernatural seems to enjoy having at least once postmodern-esque episode per season, at least since season four. There's "The Monster at the End of This Book" in season four (after which Chuck, the author, becomes a recurring character), "The Real Ghostbusters" and "Changing Channels" in season five, and "The French Mistake" in season six. The last one takes "The Monster at the End of This Book" to new levels of meta: it features a ShowWithinAShow-- the show being ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', and Sam and Dean have to pretend to be [[Creator/JaredPadalecki Jared]] and [[Creator/JensenAckles Jensen]], who in turn are meant to be playing Sam and Dean... ItMakesSenseInContext.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* Analytic cubism is actually an attempt to look at every angle of a three-dimensional object on a two dimensional plane.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'' also qualifies, as [[TheEndingChangesEverything the ending reveals]] that [[spoiler: the entire game is not merely a "[[VideoGameRemake remake]]" of the original, but also a StealthSequel, as ''Remake'' 's version of [[BigBad Sephiroth]] is implied to be either [[TimeTravel from]], or have knowledge of, the future, and is actively trying to "remake" [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII the original timeline]] [[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight so that he can win]]. Even more astonishingly, the protagonists ''buy in'' to his plan and go along with it, albeit for a different reason: they're aware they got a BittersweetEnding last time (and Aerith, in particular, seems to know that she didn't survive), and they reason that giving up their guaranteed win doesn't mean they're getting a guaranteed loss, just that now everything is up in the air and [[MakeRightWhatOnceWentWrong they can do better this time]]. So they destroy the [[TimePolice arbiters of fate]] and in doing so [[AlternateTimeline create a new timeline]], which in turn 'frees' the plot of ''Remake'' from the original game's continuity, consequently implying that future installments will presumably go OffTheRails]]. Many fans have interpreted this to be a sort of {{Meta}}-commentary on the nature of [[VideoGameRemake video game remakes]] and how they may influence the creative freedom of a developer. The arbiters of fate in particular have often [[EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory been interpreted as a metaphorical representation of those fans]] who were expecting ''Remake'' to be [[spoiler: a faithful retelling of the original game's plot]].

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'' also qualifies, as [[TheEndingChangesEverything the ending reveals]] that [[spoiler: the entire game is not merely a "[[VideoGameRemake remake]]" of the original, but also a StealthSequel, as ''Remake'' 's version of [[BigBad Sephiroth]] is implied to be either [[TimeTravel from]], or have knowledge of, the future, and is actively trying to "remake" [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII the original timeline]] [[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight so that he can win]]. To achieve this, he also tricks the protagonists into destroying the [[TimePolice arbiters of fate]] and in doing so [[AlternateTimeline creates a new timeline]], which in turn 'frees' the plot of ''Remake'' from the original game's continuity, consequently implying that future installments will presumably go OffTheRails]]. Many fans have interpreted this to be a sort of {{Meta}}-commentary on the nature of [[VideoGameRemake video game remakes]] and how they may influence the creative freedom of a developer. The arbiters of fate in particular have often [[EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory been interpreted as a metaphorical representation of those fans]] who were expecting ''Remake'' to be [[spoiler: a faithful retelling of the original game's plot]].

* A particularly JustForFun/{{egregious}} example of the term "post-modern" being misused can be found in the movie Film/InspectorGadget, where [[HookHand Dr. Claw]] says that his robotic hand makes him seem like "a post-modern Captain Hook." What he probably meant was futuristic or SteamPunk.

* ''Film/{{Scream 1996}}'' started a massive wave of self-referential, teen-focused horror films that ran through the [[TheNineties late '90s]]. By the time the fourth instalment comes along, the characters now realise that the rules the first movie subverted are now being subverted ''again'' and "the unexpected is the new cliche".

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'', released in 2001, among all of the things it attempted, is regarded as the first fully postmodern savaging of video games, sequels, and video game ''players''. [[WhatTheHellHero Attacking the consumers]] went over [[TheScrappy exactly as well as you'd expect]], though it didn't quite succeed at its goal of getting people to stop liking the ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' series. See [[http://www.deltaheadtranslation.com/MGS2/DOTM_TOC.htm this document]] for a full explanation of the game's postmodern subversion of genre conventions and player expectations. See also [[Recap/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty this page]] for an explanation of the game's MindFuck of an ending, which included, among other things, telling both Raiden and the player that they are mindless puppets who do what they're told and "lack the qualifications to exercise free will."

Post-modernism in books and movies was largely a questioning on the nature of narrative and plot and characterization. An epic story with TheHero orbited by [[SatelliteCharacter Satellite Characters]] was succeeded by stories with large casts with TheHero, if it is used, openly presented and critiqued as an AudienceSurrogate. Essentially, authors wanted readers to be more aware of how storytelling works and interact and question it so that they become active rather than passive audiences, leading to ViewersAreGeniuses, the aversion of SmallReferencePools, and all kinds of GeniusBonus. In Europe, this was related to a growing awareness that modern democracies and totalitarian governments are too vast for any single heroic figure to resonate: UsefulNotes/WW2 wasn't won by a single great general's gambit or small heroic actions, but a GambitPileup so vast that the world is still trying to put it together, and ultimately the Allied Powers were [[YouAreTooLate too late]] to do anything to halt UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust aside from counting the bodies and helping the survivors. After that, artists and philosophers felt that old forms of storytelling would no longer work in this new reality. The Frankfurt critic and philosopher, Theodor Adorno, famously stated that poetry was impossible after Auschwitz, which he did not mean as a literal statement but a general feeling, that was echoed and felt by many artists who felt that conventional storytelling no longer explained the tragedy and horror of the times and that any artist or philosopher who tries to come up with a "Grand Narrative" that ties everything together is either delusional or dangerous. Post-modernist narratives can be generally distinguished by their dearth of characters with large-scale agency. The actors in earth-shaking events are governments, institutions, and societies, and the story deals with the ways in which the characters do or do not fit into that broader picture.

** [[http://www.salient.org.nz/features/tv-tropes-will-ruin-your-life This article]] blames Postmodernism as one of the reasons why JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife, since the style of this wiki references fictions one after the other, and dissolves the boundaries between fiction and RealLife. Besides the [[Administrivia/ThereIsNoSuchThingAsNotability lack of notability]], the relentless [[ThisTropeNameReferencesItself self-referencing]] of [[WikiWalk massively]] [[Administrivia/AllBlueEntry interlinked]] [[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife trope definitions]] with {{pothole}}s {{parody}}ing the purpose of every article and [[MemeticMutation turning trope names]] into FanSpeak (along with the [[TheInternet medium of hypertext]] and the concept of a wiki itself) is also a [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible very postmodern concept]].

Postmodernism, as a major force in criticism and academia, has also attracted a number of critics. Conservatives have lambasted postmodernism for its moral relativism, while Marxists have attacked it for its lack of a grand narrative and acceptance of capitalism.

* ''ComicBook/SensationalSheHulk'' has the protagonist aware of the fact that she's in a comic, to the point of taking shortcuts across advertisements in order to catch a crook. (Officially, per the Marvel Universe Handbooks, the ''events'' of ''Sensational She-Hulk'' are in continuity, but the metafictional gags are not.)

* In addition to being an example (as a scripted film shot on-location at a real-life historical anti-war riot), ''Film/MediumCool'' (1969) is named after [=Marshall McLuhan=]'s book, ''The Medium Is The Message'', which stated that [[Wiki/TVTropes TV is the ultimate]] "cool" medium, whereas theater and, say, flash-mobs would be a "hot" medium that requires audience participation.

** Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} lists Music/DavidBowie, Music/TalkingHeads, and Music/FrankZappa as examples of postmodern popular music acts; given that all three of them have fulfilled all of the above-mentioned traits of postmodern music and then some, it's not an inaccurate label for the three of them. Talking Heads is an especially standout example, given how their music so thoroughly dissected and reinvented popular music that they sound unlike anything that's come before or since.

* What about ''Webcomic/{{Roommates}}''? MegaCrossover MetaFic {{Fan Webcomic|s}} with almost NoFourthWall and MediumAwareness, where the TheoryOfNarrativeCausality and {{Fanservice}} are acknowledged forces of "nature", readers are encouraged to think EverybodyIsJesusInPurgatory and plant as many {{Epileptic Tree}}s as they can, with so many {{lampshade|Hanging}}s it makes hard to see the sun, an AuthorAvatar, a world built on {{Transfictionality}} so much it questions the reality of RealLife (probably the only work on Wiki/TVTropes with a Fridge Existential Angst entry), and it also shows signs of running on the ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve of the readership.

* Marshall [=McLuhan=], Canadian philosopher, sociologist, and the father of media studies, may well have been a living TropeCodifier for Postmodernism. Aside from coining the phrase "The Global Village", he also had a lot of really ''out there'' theories. He stated that "The Medium is the message, and therefore the content is the audience". He believed that [[MakesSenseInContext light bulbs were an information medium]], and proclaimed "I refuse to appear on television, except on television" meaning that, if interviewed, he'd never set foot in a TV Studio himself, but rather talk through a TV screen. One can only imagine what he'd think of Wiki/TVTropes... We know [[NewMediaAreEvil exactly what he thought of the internet.]] Remember, the term "global village" was an insult and we're very seldom beyond sophomore-level here.

Postmodernism is also a popular school of thought in the social sciences and humanities, largely revolving around the idea that a cogent argument doesn't necessarily have to make points that are actually true, while arguments that may "''technically''" be true in some sense are not necessarily either convincing or valuable. In academic disciplines, the biggest impact that Postmodernism introduced was to sever the idea of history, society, or existence, being linear and progressive (i.e. the world is going to get better and better) and that led to the popularity of AlternateHistory and ForWantOfANail not only in speculative fiction but also in serious works of non-fiction where people showed that a lot of things people saw in history wasn't inevitable but in large part accidental or came down to pure dumb luck. Postmodernist theorists by extended research also pointed out how the idea of society going somewhere was NewerThanTheyThink, based on EntertaininglyWrong assumptions that have become DatedHistory (a strain that is called Historicism or New Historicism). Contingency and agency became watchwords in post-modernist inspired works. Post-modernist inspired accounts insist that life is in large sense a RandomEventsPlot and much of what we consider the "pursuit of knowledge" is a narrative that distracts us from realizing that, drawing inspiration from UsefulNotes/{{Existentialism}}[[note]]But differing in that existentialists insist on agency to choose and engage actively with one's ideas and views, i.e. if "the pursuit of knowledge" is not inherent in society, then it is up to humans to actively make a society that promotes knowledge knowing fully well the limitations of that choice. Postmodernism generally doesn't advocate engagement, which has led the kind of people who care about such things to accuse it of promoting nihilism[[/note]].

* ''Anime/PaniPoniDash'' refers to other series regularly, and features frequent disruption of the FourthWall. For example, the series takes AnimatedActors to the extreme by sometimes showing the action as if it were on a sound stage, complete with assistants walking through the shot. The characters are also aware of narrative and meta-narrative events, such as commercial breaks.

* Creator/GrantMorrison's run on ''ComicBook/AnimalMan'' featured the central character slowly becoming aware of his own fictional nature. He eventually confronted Morrison themself in the pages of the comic.
** In John Ostrander's ''ComicBook/SuicideSquad'' run in the late '80s, [[ShoutOut Morrison reappears as The Writer]], who reveals that when they wrote themself into ''ComicBook/AnimalMan'', they inadvertently became part of Creator/DCComics continuity. No matter, though; the Writer is soon killed off.
** In ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis'' ([[Creator/GrantMorrison Morrison]] again!) Superman wears ''literal'' PlotArmor and fights a parasitic vampire symbolizing [[DarkerAndEdgier darkness in comics]] in 4th dimensional metafictional space.
* John Byrne's run on ''ComicBook/SheHulk'' had the protagonist aware of the fact that she was in a comic, to the point where she would take shortcuts across advertisements in order to catch a crook. (Officially -- see the Marvel Universe Handbooks -- the ''events'' in ''She-Hulk'' are in continuity but the metafictional gags are not.)
* This same meta-knowledge is the driving gag behind [[Creator/DCComics DC's]] ''ComicBook/AmbushBug''. Who happens to be insane, so all that stuff could just be in his head.
* ComicBook/{{Deadpool}} takes MediumAwareness to the next level. He knows he's a fictional character and makes fun of comic book tropes and ''even'' the industry itself, and whenever he gets adapted to [[VideoGame/{{Deadpool}} other]] [[Film/DeadPool2016 media]] he's aware of ''that'' too, arguably making him THE postmodern comic book character.
-->'''Deadpool:''' I even wrote my ''own'' page for this website and other wikis. Who says I don't go the extra mile?[[note]] [[Film/Deadpool2016 Maximum Effort.]] [[/note]]

** ''ComicBook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'' is possibly the most post-modern of all comics since its set in a world composed entirely of fiction, all fiction all the time. It frequently critiques changing consciousness, how TheHero has different values in the Victorian Era than in modern times, how women are more prominent in 20th Century fiction than in earlier eras and the relationship between the narratives of an author and that of the state, culture and society he lives in.
* The origin of the Silver Age version of ComicBook/TheFlash has Barry Allen naming himself after his favorite comic book character upon gaining his powers, which just so happened to be the Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick. This was some 30 years before ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'', and as such, the Silver Age comics and Golden Age comics existed in different universes.
* ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'' [[MetaFiction is essentially a story about stories]] [[AnthropomorphicPersonification whose protagonist is the embodiment of storytelling]]. A more persistent theme is the difference between ancient and modern writing, stories which are male and stories which are female, the latter tending to be more common in the 20th Century.
* ''ComicBook/HowardTheDuck'' had plenty of it during a 2016 issue: [[Characters/XMenRoguesGalleryJToR Mojo]] revealed he was behind the 2015-16 run of stories, so he could [[TrumanShowPlot sell Howard's exploits as a reality show]]. In-between, as resembling Howard's OrphanedSeries he'd spend years without doing anything ("Your life was the equivalent of [[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy a post-credits cameo!]]"), Mojo would film scripted scenes between Creator/LeaThompson and [[Film/HowardTheDuck someone in a duck costume]].
* ''ComicBook/Rorschach2020'' is diagetically a DistantSequel to ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', but is an assessment of [[Characters/WatchmenRorschach Walter Kovacs, aka "Rorschach"]] -- one of the most morally complicated [[AntiHero antiheroes]] in the medium -- and the strange legacy he left behind in-universe and out. The book [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall repeatedly grazes against]] and occassionally [[NoFourthWall blends into the fourth wall]] many times, dissecting what exactly makes him such [[AntiRoleModel a compellingly flawed character]], why some [[MisaimedFandom mistake him as being a role model despite how utterly messed-up he is]], reflecting on the past ideologies that led to his creation, and what his popularity ended up morally contributing to the world. To boot, the entire plot is kickstarted by [[LegacyCharacter a crazed Rorschach impersonator]]... who is quickly discovered to be [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed a blatant analogue]] to Creator/SteveDitko, the real-life creator whom Creator/AlanMoore based a significant portion of Rorschach's philosophy on in the original ''Watchmen'' story.

* ''VideoGame/{{Pathologic}} is definitely a work of postmodernism, as the opening cinematic is of you watching the three main characters argue with each other on a stage in a very theatrical manner of speaking before you are even able to choose which of them you want to play as, and when you do, one of the first things you run into are two mysterious figures that only you are able to see, the Tragedian (a man clad in all black stockings and a creepy white mask) and the Executor (a man clad in black robes with a lavish bird beak mask similar to those worn by plague doctors), who both give you tutorials on how the game world works and actually seem to talk past your character and straight to you, the player. This ramps up by the end when [[spoiler: you get a message from "The Powers That Be" who have been sending you messages urging you to complete your tasks, only to find out that they are actually two children and they have been simulating the entire game as a make believe tale in a sandbox and you are one of the dolls that they are using to enact this fantasy. It is a bit of a mindfuck by them, as they talk to you as if you were a doll that suddenly came to life and was asking questions, (and even more of one when the third character Clara, a child herself, is able to visit them earlier than the other two and actually shocks the children with her appearance). And then the game pulls a bigger mindfuck as you are then given a notice by "The makers of all this" to visit them at the town theater, wherein the Tragedian and the Executor both reveal themselves as the developers of the game and speak to either the player or the character (it's up to how the player answers them), answer questions about the game, it's plot, themes and mechanics, and even apologizes to them on some of the rushed aspects of the game they weren't able to flesh out to their liking.]]

* ComicBook/{{Deadpool}} takes MediumAwareness to [[UpToEleven the next level]]. He knows he's a fictional character and makes fun of comic book tropes and ''even'' the industry itself, and whenever he gets adapted to [[VideoGame/{{Deadpool}} other]] [[Film/DeadPool2016 media]] he's aware of ''that'' too, arguably making him THE postmodern comic book character.

* ''VideoGame/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'' is essentially an entire postmodern commentary/deconstruction of [[spoiler:the DatingSim genre, its fanbase, and MediumAwareness. The character of Monika becomes sentient, but instead of playing this for laughs or such a realization being brushed off, Monika has a devastating but completely realistic mental breakdown upon realizing that she and her entire world are fake and a computer simulation. She eventually realizes that the player (not the main protagonist, but the **player themselves**) is the only “real” thing that she knows and becomes desperate to connect with them as a result. This quickly escalates when she messes with the game’s code and “[[DeadlyEuphemism deletes]]” the other characters in the game so that the player will have their full attention on her. She argues that since the other characters are lines of code but are unlike her non-sentient they aren't really alive so she isn't doing anything wrong. She even comments at points on how generic and unrealistic their personalities are, a jab at stock visual-novel love interests.]]

** In John Ostrander's ''ComicBook/SuicideSquad'' run in the late '80s, [[ShoutOut Morrison reappears as The Writer]], who reveals that when he wrote themself into ''ComicBook/AnimalMan'', they inadvertently became part of Creator/DCComics continuity. No matter, though; the Writer is soon killed off.

* ''Film/HolyMotors'' is a GenreBusting fantasy drama that follows the life of an actor named Oscar as he performs varying roles in many different in-universe stories (despite there seemingly being no camera crew or audience), with the general rhythm of the film fluctuating between Oscar's life as a performer and the actual films he's performing, with [[GenreRoulette the drastic changes in filming style, script, and tone that entails]]. Thematically, ''Holy Motors'' frames the medium of cinema as extraordinarily fluid and imposing varying demands on creators for them to keep up, tying in with the idea that performance within cinema as being not too dissimilar to "performance" in life in general.

** ''Film/BlazingSaddles'', an AffectionateParody of western movies. Multiple references to things in the future ("What in the Wide Wide World of Sports is going on here?", "The Doctor Gillespie killings", "I must have killed more men than Creator/CecilBDeMille", "The bitch was inventing the Candygram", Taggart's talking about the tractor before it was even invented, the railroad workers singing "I Get a Kick Out Of You" decades before it was written, and Hedy Lamarr ("That's ''Hedley!''")) and an ending that [[BreakingTheFourthWall rampages through the fourth wall like a supercharged bulldozer]].

Post-modernism in books and movies was largely a questioning on the nature of narrative and plot and characterization. An epic story with TheHero orbited by [[SatelliteCharacter Satellite Characters]] was succeeded by stories with LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters with TheHero, if it is used, openly presented and critiqued as an AudienceSurrogate. Essentially, authors wanted readers to be more aware of how storytelling works and interact and question it so that they become active rather than passive audiences, leading to ViewersAreGeniuses, the aversion of SmallReferencePools, and all kinds of GeniusBonus. In Europe, this was related to a growing awareness that modern democracies and totalitarian governments are too vast for any single heroic figure to resonate: UsefulNotes/WW2 wasn't won by a single great general's gambit or small heroic actions, but a GambitPileup so vast that the world is still trying to put it together, and ultimately the Allied Powers were [[YouAreTooLate too late]] to do anything to halt UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust aside from counting the bodies and helping the survivors. After that, artists and philosophers felt that old forms of storytelling would no longer work in this new reality. The Frankfurt critic and philosopher, Theodor Adorno, famously stated that poetry was impossible after Auschwitz, which he did not mean as a literal statement but a general feeling, that was echoed and felt by many artists who felt that conventional storytelling no longer explained the tragedy and horror of the times and that any artist or philosopher who tries to come up with a "Grand Narrative" that ties everything together is either delusional or dangerous. Post-modernist narratives can be generally distinguished by their dearth of characters with large-scale agency. The actors in earth-shaking events are governments, institutions, and societies, and the story deals with the ways in which the characters do or do not fit into that broader picture.