Madonna as a postmodern artist

Madonna has been in the music industry and the public eye since 1982 when she signed a record deal with Sire, a major label that belonged to Warner Bros' Records.

She has released 11 studeo albums aswell as Greatest Hits CD's like the recent 'Celebration'. And has realeased around 75 singles, 12 of which were US number ones and 13 Uk number ones. Madonna has a grand total of 59 UK top ten hits.

Being in the music industry for 4 decades has made Madonna an icon whos musical and fashion style is constantly changing.


80's music and fashion

When Madonna first came out in 1982 she immidiately fit in with the style of music that was around at the time. Some would say this is 'cheesy pop'

80's pop is still very popular today and so is the fashion.

80's fashion is things like, leg warmers, rara skirts, studded belts, fingerless gloves, laced gloves, leggins/footless tights, bangles, beads, crosses and head scarf's with black nail varnish and black lipstick - all these things are back in fashion now!!

You can watch any film, TV or music video's set in or from the 80's these are the types of things people wear, Madonna started this trend off.

The best video to show this fashion is 'Like A Virgin' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgkOCJ9PGkk

The song 'Open Your Heart' was the song that brought the famous pointy bra into the scene, and is probably Madonna's most memorable outfit which is popular with fancy dress and other celebrities. Madonna has warn on 'the pointy' on her biggest world tour 'Blonde Ambition' which made the pointy bra most famous.

New pop stars like Lady Gaga and Katy Perry have been inpired to used this in their video's -

Sexuality

Madonna is known for using her sexuality in order to grab people's attention and sell records. The pointy bra is a sexual image that's supposed to be a turn on because it gives the image of nipples. The videos to 'Erotica' and 'Justify My Love' are known to be two of the sexiest video's ever...

Like A Prayer controversy

When Madonna released 'Like A Prayer', although it reached number one in 7 countries, the video caused a lot of controversy because it features a black Jesus which is seen as blasphemy to a lot of people. (it also contains flaming crucifixes and she kisses Jesus' feet which disrespected a lot of people)

This video was actually banned when it was first released.

Vogue

'Vogue' is one of Madonna's most popular songs ever, it topped the charts in over 30 countries and has won awards for both the song and video.

Madonna was inspired by vogue dancers Jose and Luis Xtravaganza who are famous vogue dancers. 'Voguing' was a new thing in the 90's that is simply just adding movement to poses, so Madonna saw this as an opportunity and made voguing the new, popular thing to do.

Film soundtracks

Madonna has done a number of songs for films, her most popular one is most likely to be 'Die Another Day' for the James Bond film.

But she also did 'Beautiful Stranger' for Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, which is a kind of parody of secret agent films like James Bond. Because Austin Powers is set in the 60's the musical sound of this song changed slightly to go with the film.

Sampled music

Madonna had a come-back in 2005 with the song 'Hung Up' which went straight to number 1 in 9 countries after a few years with some flopped singles.

I think the song was so successful because it uses a sample of music from ABBA's 'Gimme Gimme Gimme' which is a really, really popular song.

An American rap group called Young Black Teenagers used a sample from Madonna's song 'Justify My Love' to make the song 'To My Donna'

Lady Gaga Madonna copycat?

Ever since Lady Gaga came onto the music scene, people have debated whether she is just a rip off of Madonna by wearing extravagant outfit's etc.

The tune to the chorus of Lady Gaga's song 'Born This Way' is very, very, very similar to Madonna's 'Express Yourself' so Lady Gaga might be trying to be like 'the modern day Madonna'

Even though I like them both, I do think Gaga is a complete rip off of Madonna! especially with this song!

Country

Madonna briefly changed her sound to a slightly more country than pop. She did this when she did a cover of Don McLean's classic 'American Pie' to recount 'the day the music died' when the plane that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper crashed.

During this period, Madonna released the album 'Music' that contained a lot of more country sounding songs, like 'Don't Tell Me'

Different styles

Throughout her career, Madonna has had loads of memorable styles, and on the Madonna special of Glee there is a point in the song Finn and Rachel sing where if you look in the background you see people wearing outfits from different era's of Madonna's music.

Celebration

Madonna's most recent greatest hits album is in the style of the most famous Andy Warhol painting the Marylin Monroe one.

Madonna had already used Marylin Monroe as a reference in her video for 'Material Girl' where she references the film 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' and the part of it when Marylin Monroe sings 'Diamonds are a girls best friend'

First 10 songs on shuffle...

Lady Gaga ft. Beyonce - Telephone

Tavares - Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel

Love Inc. - Your a Superstar

The Whispers - And The Beat Goes On

Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Kylie Minogue - In Your Eyes

The Village People - YMCA

Pixie Lott - Cry Me Out

Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You

Harry Belafonte - The Banana Boat Son (Day-O)

Timeline of music

1956- Rock 'n' Roll; Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran

1960- Elvis joins the army, end of Rock 'n' Roll. 'Safe pop' begins; Ricky Nelson, Bobby Vee, Adam Faith

1963/4- Start of the 'beat boom'; The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Kings, Gerry and the Pacemakers

1967- Psychedelia; Pink Floyd, Traffic, Jefferson Airplane

1967-1969- Led Zepplin, Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath

1971-1972- Glam Rock; T-Rex, The Sweet, Gary Glitter

1976/77- Punk + Disco; Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Clash

1979/80- Post Punk; Gary Numan, Joy Division, The Cure

1982- New Romantics; Visage, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Human League, Wham!

1983/84/85- British invasion; Duran Duran, Culture Club, Flock of Seagulls, Human League

1988/89- Acid House, Techno, House (UK + USA)

1991/92- Grunge; Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Nivana

1994-1997- Brit Pop; Oasis, Blur, Pulp

1994-1997- Pop; Spice Girls, Take That, Boyzone, Westlife

Timeless artists- The timeline above has missed out some of the most popular artists ever because they do not fit to one certain time as their music is played, remastered, re-released over and over again.

Abba: Became popular in the 70's but their music continues to be played and sold worldwide, the release and broadway show of Mamma Mia! is one of the main things that keeps this music going.

David Bowie: Became popular in the 70's and continued to be a huge star in the 80's. His music is still played now and some of his songs have been re-released as covers by Craig David and the X factor finalists.

Prince: Became popular in the 80's and is known as 'one of the sexiest men ever' because of the way he performs and sounds. His music is still played and performed by other artists now.

Madonna: Became popular in the 80's and is still continuing to make and sell records in the noughties. She's the most successful female artist of all time with around 30 top 40 hits and 6 number ones in the UK alone. She is still making and performing at the age of 52!

Michael Jackson: Became popular in the 60's when he was in Jackson 5 but his solo career is what he's famous for, he continued making music 'til the day he died in 2009. But even after his death his music continues to be released re-mastered or samples are found and released. His album 'Thriller' still to this day remains the biggest selling album of all time, and his dance moves i.e. the moonwalk are still imitated all over the world.

In what ways can Inglourious Basterds and Fight Club be considered postmodern?

Inglorious Basterds and Fight Club can be as 'Postmodern' films in many ways. They both possess postmodern elements and can be compared with other postmodern films such as; 'Kick-Ass' and 'Scott Pilgrim vs. The World' because of this.

Inglorious Basterds, being a Quentin Tarentino movie, has numerous postmodern elements. It has lots of intertextual references throughout the text. Particular camera shots from 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly' are used in Inglorious Basterds, for example, when they are in the bar and they have a Mexican Stand-off (which also came from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly/Spaghetti Western films). The scene in the cinema where Hitler gets shot, for me, had references to Scarface in the way they were continuously shooting at Hitler with Tommy guns. The film they watch at the cinema 'Nation's Pride' also has intertextual references to 'The Battleship Potemkin', like many films do, with the Odessa steps scene. It is also referenced when the soldier gets shot in the eye.

'Nation's Pride' itself is a postmodern element because it is a film-within-a-film.

Tarentino has a foot fetish, and he always includes a reference to feet in his films. In Kill Bill he has a scene where Una Thurman's character is wriggling her toes for the first time after being paralysed, this includes a series of close-ups on her feet, in Pulp Fiction he has a scene where Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta's characters have a long conversation about a foot massage and in Inglorious Basterds, he includes the scene where a woman’s shoe is found by the German soldiers in the tavern after everybody is killed.

The music used throughout this film is taken from other films, another postmodern element. The majority of the music used in Inglorious Basterds is by Ennio Morricone who has produced hundreds of pieces of music for many films, most popularly, ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’. Music in this film doesn’t fit with the time frame the film is set, because the film is set around the 1930’s/40’s as it is World War 2, but the music is taken from decades up to the 1980’s, for example, the David Bowie track used when Brigitte Von Hammersmark is getting ready.

Postmodern films, particularly Tarentino’s, like to remind the audience they are watching a film, which is a fantasy and not real. The film starts with a title, which reminds the audience that they are watching a film, that says ‘Once Upon A Time’ which links to the idea it is a fantasy because that’s how fairy tales start, and they are fantasies. The film is then split into chapters like a fairy tale, and the way it ends in a woods is a popular setting for fairy tales, Little Red Riding Hood for example.

Linking to theme of it being a fantasy, the ending of this film, baring in mind it’s supposed to be set in World War 2, is completely fictional. The American’s are made out to be heroes because the British soldier dies whilst the Americans kill Hitler when in actual fact, Hitler killed himself. By showing the Americans kill Hilter links the element that Tarentino wants his audience to know it is only a film, and isn’t real. This can also be linked to the acting in the way in which the accents are really enforced and over-the-top, for example, Aldo, Briggite Von Hammersmark, Hitler and any Englishman. Throughout the film some of the costumes remain perfect and unmarked despite laying on the floor etc. Brad Pitt’s character ‘Aldo’ is a perfect example of this as he has a sack over his head for some of the film but when it’s removed there isn’t one hair out of place, or a tiny spec of dirt on his white tuxedo despite having been on the floor in the middle of a woods.


Fight Club can be considered as a postmodern film for very different reasons Inglorious Basterds is because, unlike Tarentino who wants his audience to know what they are watching is a fantasy, David Fincher wanted to make Fight Club realistic to real life scenario’s. The film is successful in this by the way the violence is portrayed. Which is very hardcore, gory and sometimes a bit hard to watch. Throughout the film the fighting is shown in a realistic way in the way in which the men react how a real person would react in a fight rather than not be affected at all like in other films. This makes the violence visceral and more seemingly realistic I.e. the sound effects used in the fights. The film itself isn’t trying to be real, but by including the elements and effect that is does, that then makes it realistic.

Although the film is very realistic, Fincher also makes the audience aware it’s only a film when certain characters break the fourth wall and address the audience, for example when Ed Norton tells the audience about this cigarette burns on the screen. The scene where Ed Norton’s character is walking through his apartment flicking through an IKEA catalogue can be seen as postmodern too, because text appears on the screen like it would in an IKEA catalogue, labelling each object he has in his apartment, this also makes the audience aware they are watching a film, not real life. It makes the point that his life is all about possessions and that he is very materialistic- ‘what you own ends up owning you’ is a line said by Ed Norton’s character which links to the point about how pointless life is.

‘everything is a copy of a copy of a copy’ is said by Ed Norton’s character which is a postmodern statement, because all postmodern films copy other films e.g. Kick Ass with superhero movies. The subliminals that are revealed throughout the film could be seen as a ‘film-within-a-film’ like Inglorious Basterds because, when Tyler Durden works at the cinema he places a subliminal of a penis in a children’s movie so the people who are watching that are aware it’s a film that is being controlled by somebody, so when there are subliminal placed in Fight Club, the audience are made aware they are watching a film, not reality.

There aren’t many intetextual references in Fight Club, but there are little parts of the film where a connection can be made, an obvious one would be when Tyler says ‘run Forrest, run’ (a popular quote from the film Forrest Gump). Intertextual references could also be made when talking about the character of Marla Singer, because she isn’t a typical heroine that’s usually in films like this, because the film is very dark a typical ‘blonde-haired, big-boobed’ actress wouldn’t have fitted the role like Helena Bonham-Carter does because she is known for her quirkiness in many Tim Burton films, which are dark.