In conversation on the way home tonight "post-modernism" cropped up. It was in relation to comedy. Dave suggested that in this context anywhere the words "post modern" appear they can be replaced by "not funny" with no loss of meaning.
I took the more nuanced view that they mean self-knowing and self-referential, comedians in sit-coms who knowingly refer to the fact they are in sit-coms, for example.
Giving it some further thought I have decided to combine both our definitions into a new one.
A post-modern comedian tells you a thirty second joke and then spends five minutes explaining why it's funny. You don't laugh at all during the whole process.
3 comments:
This sums up my view. However, I should concede that, even though I have sold weighty books on the subject of the Post Modern, I still cannot claim to really understand what it's all about. Could someone offer a single sentence definition and convince me that I should stop mentally substituing the word "tripe" every time I hear the term.
(Actually my substitute word isn't exactly "tripe" but I would hate to offend the sensitivities of your family readership).
David
According to Wikipedia "Postmodernism is a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the rejection of objective truth and global cultural narrative or meta-narrative."
ANy wiser?
Well, granted it's a single sentence. I suppose I should have added that a comprehensible one would help. Maybe some of your erudite followers could help me.
David
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