Post-Modernism

Post-modernism is wide-ranging term which is applied to literature, art, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and cultural and literary criticism, among others. Postmodernism a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality. Basically instead of thinking that there is a definite answer for everything that can be explained through a certain method it says that nothing can be fully explained and that things will always be changing. For this reason, postmodernism is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles, knowing always that the outcome of one's own experience will necessarily be relative, rather than certain.

With reference to music videos post-modernism is shown through questioning idea's and world pratices.
For instance in the song Diamonds by Kanye West he talks about how people are abusing the human rights of people in Africa by making them work incredibly long hours with little pay to get hold of diamonds (from which the concept blood diamonds arrives). In the video it shows young people in caves and constrasts them to rich people in America who earn their money from the blood money.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92FCRmggNqQ (Kanye West- Diamonds youtube link)

Another song of a differnt genre that imports post-modern idea's into the music video is Beautiful by Christina Aguilera. This soulful song is based on a simple concept that basically everyone is beautiful no matter how they look or what their sexuality is. It combats modern thinking by some people that some groups of people like emo's, goth's, gay's and people who stand out are lesser than other people. The video features clips of these groups first looking unhappy and then towards the end looking more confident as the song becomes more upbeat. The message is also very clear in the lyrics "You are beautiful no matter what they say, words can't bring you down. You are beautiful in every single way. Yes. Words can't bring you down. Don't you bring me down today." Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAfyFTzZDMM

Music Video analysis Eminem - Cleanin out my closet

This is a song about Eminem’s childhood with him reflecting on his past experiences. In the song, Eminem introspectively examines his life reflecting on such topics as his troubled childhood, marital conflicts, and resentful feud with his mother. Also in the song, he describes how others protest his lyrics. He expresses the anger that he feels towards his family and how he is better off without them now. This is portrayed in the video using close-ups and making what we see in the video correspond to what he is saying.The video helps the audience to understand how his mother treated him as a child and how it has shaped how he thinks today. 

 

With reference to post modernism, it encourages people to change the way they think about rap music which is often associated with violence , explicit language and women being portrayed in a particulary provactive manner. Instead, the video is more emotional and the woman in the video, Eminem's mother, is portrayed as the anagonist and is not on sexual display.