Postmodernism and Our Music Video

Postmodernism is very hard to define and has many characteristics. These characteristics include:

• No meta-narratives
• Non-linear storylines
• Borrows from past texts
• Blends genres
• Lack of morality
• Nothing is new

Our music video adopts many of these characteristics, and can therefore be seen as proportionally postmodern.

Firstly, and perhaps the most postmodern aspect of our video is the character of the detective. Where have we seen a clumsy, disorganised, trouble-attracting detective before? Oh yeah, Pink Panther! Borrowing from this attracts a whole new audience, which is outside of our target audience. Most of our target audience may not have seen the original Pink Panther set of films, but an older audience will almost definitely have seen them. By linking back to a brilliantly and iconic character such as Inspector Clueso (played by comedy genius Peter Sellers), it helps us attract viewers outside of the target audience, which is always a bonus!

Our video also draws many parallels with other music videos of the indie genre. The best example is Kasabian's 'Vlad the Impaler' which uses a single character out of his time, just like our detective.

Our music video is also postmodern as it blends genres. There are very few 'funny music videos' but we think we may have stumbled across one here. By combining comedy and the music video, we are crossing boundaries that are rarely crossed, and this is postmodern.

Our music video also has non-linear storylines. A normal storyline follows one person through a series of events, and ours does this until you find out the detective is undergoing these events at the same time as the band is playing, and us displaying these at different times makes it non-linear. The fact that the events the detective goes through are not 'one-after-the-other' also shows non-linear characteristics. One minute he is in a library, then one minute he is in the snow, giving the effect he has been walking for a very long time. This is also typical of a non-linear timeline.