Postmodernism in She Hulk

 

Describe a text, or texts, which are essentially postmodernism

Postmodernism is the rejection of modernism, where everything is a copy of a copy. It has been discussed extensively by the Frenchman Jean Baudrillard, who conceived four key components of postmodernism, which are the following: hyper reality, meaning implosion, and simulacra. These components can be found in postmodern texts found today. The characteristics of a postmodern text include intertextuality, parody, bricolage, irony, and many more. In this essay, I will analyse a postmodern text and identify its postmodern elements.

The She Hulk series released by Marcel is a textbook example of a postmodern text. it contains lots of self-reflexivity, intertextuality, parody, satire, loss of reality, just to name a few. Throughout the show, especially towards the end, we witness the main character, She Hulk, personally addressing herself and communicating with the real audience by facing the camera. This is an example of self-reflexivity, or breaking the fourth wall. We were introduced to a robotic, machine like creature named KEVIN. He was introduced to us as the person, or machine, who creates stories for Marvel. This humongous robot is an example of loss of reality, because obviously we can't and won't be seeing a talking, self-autonomous robot until like the next three centuries. The main character also mocked KEVIN the robot, itself being a parody of Marvel's leader, which parallels the existing debate of whether Marvel has been recycling their superhero ideas, resulting in a lack of innovation and diverse stories in their movies. This criticism of the system can be classified as satire. 

One of Baudrillard’s idea of postmodernism is hyperreality. It can be defined as when we are unable to draw the line of whats real and what’s fake when portrayed in media. He even believes that audiences in the postmodern world would prefer consuming hyperreality media than to actually experience things themselves, for example, people would watch other people playing video games than to play games themselves. An example of a documentary with heightened reality is David Attenborough's A Life on Our Planet. This scientific documentary is about the environment and how it has changed and how it will change in the future. It is presented as reality, however, there are several scenes in the documentary which raises suspicion on how real it is. For example, there was a scene where he discusses about the forest. It included a video of a tree falling, presumably intentionally cut down, with a camera hooked on the tree trunk. The way this scene was being presented to the audience is as if it was a natural thing, the tree falling or being cut down by lumberjacks. However, what are the chances that David's tree with a camera on was targeted by lumberjacks? Obviously this is a set up by the filming crew, being presented as reality. Therefore, it isn't real. There are heaps of other examples in the documentary, like the inclusion of sound effects. Another example of a hyper reality documentary is the show Keeping up with the Kardashians.This reality TV show gives us a glimpse into the life of the Kardashian family, showing us their everyday activities and happenings. The authenticity and how real these events can be questioned. However, this would make sense for the directors to do (scripting drama), because as I have already mentioned, Baudriallrd believes that audiences prefer hyperreality, meaning they find it more interesting to see other people fighting and having drama.

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