I think this takes a fairly good but longwinded wack at the subject

“Sorry John but Michael’s comment is borderline idiotic. Shakespeare and the Bible and Goethe and Homer and all sorts of classic literature that has held up through for hundreds and sometimes thousands of years are FILLED with references to references to references and it hasn’t taken the shine off any of these great works.”

I think the point is not that those don’t have references, but they don’t DEPEND on their references. There’s a big difference between something full of references that sucks if you don’t know the referenced material and something full of references that is brilliant either way.

And the Matrix movies being heavy on references to contemporary culture? None come to mind, what were they? Seems like most of the references were to “classic” things like mythology and history. Heavy on references, but I don’t think they are necessary to get at all to appreciate the movie, and I don’t think they are references that will be any less familiar years from now than when the movie was released.

In that case, you don’t need to understand the reference, at least not literally. All you need to get is that there is not, in fact, an exciting future in Plastics anymore than there’s an exciting future in, say, fiber optic cables. A reference becomes incomprehensible not because it’s removed from it’s times but because the story doesn’t provide you with enough information to make sense of it. A SNL skit fits the bill because the whole joke is based on the specifics (Tina Fey imitating Sarah Palin doesn’t say anything about say politicians or women politicians in general, it says something very specific about an unlikely Vice Presidential candidate in a particular moment in American political history. If you weren’t there, you wouldn’t get it. But a joke about a politician picking an unqualified female candidate in order to pander to the female vote will make sense in years to come because it says something about the general tendency of politicians to do what it takes to win.

A great example of this is that the final line doesn’t call Batman the hero Gotham deserves but not the one it needs. It says he’s not the one it needs “right now”. Instead of truly questioning the role of superheroes, it pulls its punch and says “Well, in this situation they need this other hero but eventually they’ll be back.” The final lines “he’ll be our watchful guardian, our Dark Knight” basically insinuates that the people could still use Batman’s protection but he needs to be a little more on the DL for the time being.

Another example is the eavesdropping machine, an interesting development that was ruined by having the pre-programmed password to destroy it. It took the question of “Is this right or wrong?” and diminished it to a self-defense plea – yes I was wrong but there were extreme circumstances that required an exception.

Of course, that’s the problem with a capitalist post-modern work. You can deconstruct all you want but, in the end, have to put it back together again or else you don’t have room for countless sequels.

Also,

“And don’t forget all that stuff where Batman violates the civil liberties of every citizen in the city, that’s the opposite of what a “real” superhero would do. That’s why it’s postmodern.”

I think that’s a very dated concept of what a “real” superhero would do. Not only do we have comic book heroes like The Punisher who kills people just to protect himself and countless movie heroes who seemingly shoot first ask question never, hardly worry about warrants, and would gladly beat the information out of someone but today even guys like Superman go beyond what’s legal. Is Superman flying above the clouds eavesdropping on Metropolis really any different than what Batman did to Gotham? Isn’t the only difference that The Dark Knight constantly reminded us that it was trying to be post-modern?

THE DARK KNIGHT ends with Batman alone, on the run, a fugitive, and hated by the citizens of Gotham. It’s not the complication at the second act that leads to a happy ending. It’s the resolution. Harvey Dent is the real hero; Batman is just some joker in a stupid costume who’s caused as many problems as he’s solved. They even smash the bat-signal! That deconstructs the whole super hero thing. And don’t forget all that stuff where Batman violates the civil liberties of every citizen in the city, that’s the opposite of what a “real” superhero would do. That’s why it’s postmodern.

Quick history of deconstruction, since I think a lot of people here are on different pages. Invented by a crazy French guy. He started “deconstructing” philosophical texts. He took them, picked them apart, and proved that they say the opposite of what they say. This is important. He didn’t prove that the authors accidentally said something they didn’t mean due to sloppy thinking. His claim was that the texts actually said the opposite of what they said. This was kind of a big deal in philosophy circles. The theory jumped the pond and guys at Yale started deconstructing as literary criticism. Basically a bunch of intellectual masturbation.

So here’s a quick deconstruction anyone who knows film can do. Watch the original Star Wars trilogy. Write up something that shows it’s a trilogy about a bunch of terrorists (the Rebels) who are trying to destroy the legally established and legitimate government (the Empire) to install a monarchy, of all things. If you’re too lazy to do it, there’s plenty of people on the internet who’ve already done it. It’s fun. It’s clear who the good guys and bad guys are really supposed to be. But you could write up this interpretation and it’s not completely invalid.

So then deconstruction goes back from the critics into the artist’s court. They start intentionally deconstructing genres. Or they make stuff that says what it doesn’t say (along the lines of saying the opposite of what it says.) This is a postmodern phenomenon.

One movie people probably wouldn’t think of as post-modern: UNFORGIVEN. No jokes, no references, none of that. But the movie deconstructs the entire Western genre. It says that everything you know about westerns is wrong. It obliterates the entire genre in 90 minutes.

So on the one hand, UNFORGIVEN couldn’t exist without the previous westerns. “Couldn’t” might be a harsh word, maybe someone would come up with something similar out of nowhere. But it originally exists as a reaction and a deconstruction of traditional westerns. So it’s postmodern.

And it’s another postmodern thing that doesn’t just mercilessly ape and parody existing culture. It stands up on it’s own right. Knowing the western genre and it’s history and the movies roots makes the movie more interesting. But even if you’ve never seen a western in your life the movie makes sense. It’s cohesive. It works on it’s own.

And there’s plenty of postmodern stuff that works on these levels. So postmodernism will not eat itself.

On the other hand, I agree that even in the future people will be able to “get” postmodern movies even without knowing where each influence comes from. Popular culture is informing everyone’s life, and some images and sounds will be passed on from person to person, from film to film. To reference other people’s work is not always an intellectual, conscious process, and I guess that’s why Tarantino’s movies, or even more, Lynch’s movie, works regardless the viewer knowledge of the references being made in their movies.