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American Postmodernism and Beyond

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I. Introduction Postmodernism is an age which is more than difficult to grasp or define. There is no point in history that can be marked as the beginning of the postmodern era. It was more of a slow change in critique, philosophy and practice. Several philosophers, historians and writers tried to capture postmodern features, but this itself already is an antagonism to the postmodernism aim. There is no such thing as an explanation of the world and its theories. No one shall claim to have the one right answer, or as the philosopher Jean-François Lyotard names it, a meta-narrative. The people being associated to this period of time seem to have had a rebellious attitude towards the society at that point. Things weren’t taken for granted anymore. Major theories were questioned and severely criticized. It wasn’t all about finding solution anymore, but challenging the problem itself. One of the most well-known postmodern concerns according to this is the term deconstruction, developed by Jacques Derrida. His approach is to identify with certain strategies of reading and writing texts. He therefore criticizes the liberation of function over meaning that, according to him, has taken place in this epoch. There are no opposites only differences and something that is absent can be as important as the present. Another famous postmodernist of that time was Jean Boudrillard, a French philosopher, who wrote the well-known book “Simulacra and Simulation”. It introduces the concept of seeking for interrogation with the relationship among reality and society. Most important about his work is the introduction to his theses of a hyperreality. The perceived reality blurs and splits up within four phases until no relationship to any reality is left. Reality – the big issue in postmodernism, because its definition is highly discussed. And this leads to the main problem and criticism of postmodern theories itself. If they claim that there is no absolute truth and no one right explanation for how the world works, then isn’t this an objection in itself? Isn’t this a statement and a truth, too? The movie based on Ira Levin’s book “The Stepford Wives” is a good example of how Postmodernism and its theories are displayed throughout a film or furthermore a story plot. Many of the fundamental postmodern statements can be found here and in an illustrated way be understood. Even if the movie might not be a masterpiece of art and at some point exaggerates the plot in every kind of way, it maybe just because of this mirror postmodernism better than several other films. II. Postmodern Structures in Comparison: “The Stepford Wives” and Philosophical Theses “The Stepford Wives” was written by Ira Levin in 1972. It tells the story of a young mother and career women called Joanna Eberhardt who fails in her job, gets fired and moves to a new town called Stepford together with h

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