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Twilight is post-modernism
Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 15:52
by VikingBoyBilly
I just heard that one of the goals of post-modernism is to get audiences to draw conclusions that the author had never intended. Every rant about Twilight I've ever seen is about oodles and oodles of unfortunate implications that Meyer never meant literally and decunstructing all of the values she was promoting while she wasn't thinking about what she was writing. It's a masterpiece of post-modernism!
Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 18:57
by Paramultart
I thought I told you that Twilight gives me PTSD?
Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 19:19
by ScarletFlame
A lot of fantasy young adult novels follow the same trend as twilight.
Misunderstood teenager living in modern day with supernatural powers or knowledge of something supernatural is upset because of it and hides their power or information while dealing with problems at school and home.
Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 19:27
by VikingBoyBilly
Paramultart wrote:I thought I told you that Twilight gives me PTSD?
Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 22:57
by Levellass
Postmodernism is also a great excuse for garbage. See a brief discussion of that here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsuWIIzYvZg
Aside from that your theory is hogwash. (You need to study some art theory.)
Postmodernism is at its core a disregard for existing styles and theories, an assertion that there is no 'right way' to do something. In many areas this is an inventive approach. Paintings don't need to use proper perspective, movies don't need the traditional three act structure. In other areas it's disastrous. (Buildings DO need to be structurally sound, science IS better than witch doctors.)
Twilight might possibly be considered postmodern if it set out to be 'deliberately bad'; to avoid the cliches and structures used by the mainstream. But it doesn't as a whole, it's plenty cliched. But importantly, postmodernism is something the creator(s) deliberately choose; it in itself is a style with its own approach.
Unintented conclusions might be related to 'death of the author' but in general is just what happens, especially in poorly written works. People have a different perspective on things and so any work, from Prometheus to the bible is up for various interpretations. (And if you're going to argue the bible is postmodern I shall have to bash your head in with a large art book.)
Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 23:21
by Paramultart
Postmodernism to me is simply "fixing" that which is not broken.
"The English language is boring... I KNOW! Let's add TXTSPEAK to the dictionary!"
"Gender roles are boring... I KNOW! Let's encourage everyone to be androgynous!"
Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2015 5:17
by Keening_Product
Paramultart wrote:"Gender roles are boring... I KNOW! Let's encourage everyone to be androgynous!"
Oh for crying out loud...
Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2015 12:02
by VikingBoyBilly
Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2015 12:26
by Paramultart
Stop oppressing me.
Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2015 5:43
by Levellass
Indeed leave it to me; as a woman I cannot oppress anyone.
Paramultart wrote:Postmodernism to me is simply "fixing" that which is not broken.
"The English language is boring... I KNOW! Let's add TXTSPEAK to the dictionary!"
This I really don't get, so I'm assuming it's trolling. Most people complain the English language is too unintuitive. They whine about how well, whine and wine are said the same but spelled different. They talk about phonics and eliminating the letter q. Nobody ever listens to them. (But the rise of textspeak proves that doing such drastic changes would be pretty easy would it not.)
Whenever people whine about the dictionary they're usually speaking about the online versions of various publications whose bars for entry are much lower. And you'd be surprised at the roots of some words; twerk has been around decades. It's a simple fusion of twist and jerk.
And to what end do they whine? Dictionaries have new words in them? Gasp! How shocking! I mean look at the youth these days talking about their 'laptops' and their 'email'! Why can't we just use olde timey words for such things? Laptops are portable electric typewriters, email is just digital letter messages. Texts are typed phone paragraphs!
You know who polices their language using a bunch of old men in a university somewhere? France! You want to be France? Or Nazi Germany? You want to have an approved list of names you can call your children like Iceland? You want to end up like Blaer Eidsdottir who had to be known as 'girl' on all documents because the state refused to recognize her illegal name? In Iceland there is a list of 1,853 female names, and 1,712 male ones, and parents must pick from these lists or seek permission from a special committee.
Today it's keeping 'stupid words' out of the dictionary. Tomorrow it's policing thoughtcrime.
Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2015 6:48
by Paramultart
Thoughtcrime is a bit of an exaggeration.
Anyway, it's not just that junk is being added to our English and cluttering up the pages, it's that old, uncommonly used words are being removed.
The bar is definitely being lowered, and you shouldn't be surprised.
Art, music and culture have all been bastardized, so why not language?
Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2015 9:26
by ScarletFlame
Paramultart wrote:
Art, music and culture have all been bastardized, so why not language?
That's what memes are for
Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2015 10:43
by Paramultart
Memes don't belong in a dictionary. They belong in a memecyclopedia.
Posted: Sat Sep 19, 2015 6:19
by Levellass
Paramultart wrote:Thoughtcrime is a bit of an exaggeration.
Anyway, it's not just that junk is being added to our English and cluttering up the pages, it's that old, uncommonly used words are being removed.
And that's a bad thing? If something has no use then why keep it around? We don't speak of the cinquepace anymore, does that matter to anyone? And it's not like the words are being deleted from knowledge; they're kept in dictionaries of unused words along with things like baldrick (belt) noting (woman's parts) and daffed.
It's like watching some old guy waving a cane outside a museum, loudly declaring to noddy in particular that dammit, that old telegraph shouldn't be an exhibit, it should be at the nearest Naval base in use because dammit the world shouldn't change!
Posted: Sat Sep 19, 2015 21:53
by GoldenRishi
Levellass wrote:Postmodernism is also a great excuse for garbage. See a brief discussion of that here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsuWIIzYvZg
Aside from that your theory is hogwash. (You need to study some art theory.)
Postmodernism is at its core a disregard for existing styles and theories, an assertion that there is no 'right way' to do something. In many areas this is an inventive approach. Paintings don't need to use proper perspective, movies don't need the traditional three act structure. In other areas it's disastrous. (Buildings DO need to be structurally sound, science IS better than witch doctors.)
Twilight might possibly be considered postmodern if it set out to be 'deliberately bad'; to avoid the cliches and structures used by the mainstream. But it doesn't as a whole, it's plenty cliched. But importantly, postmodernism is something the creator(s) deliberately choose; it in itself is a style with its own approach.
Unintented conclusions might be related to 'death of the author' but in general is just what happens, especially in poorly written works. People have a different perspective on things and so any work, from Prometheus to the bible is up for various interpretations. (And if you're going to argue the bible is postmodern I shall have to bash your head in with a large art book.)
Preach.
I also like Noam Chompsky's take on
post-modernist philosophy.
>: 
