How is Grand Theft Auto 5 postmodern?
Postmodern media rejects the idea that any media product or text is of any greater value than another. All judgments are merely taste. It suggests that anything can be art, anything can deserve to reach an audience, and culture ‘eats itself’ as there is no longer anything new to produce or distribute.
Modernism and postmodernism as modernism is the ‘traditional’ view of life, for example they believe in a hierarchy whereas postmodernism has a loss of centralized control. Also modernism is seen to have a sense of clear generic boundaries and wholeness whereas postmodernism is described to have promiscuous genres, hybridity, intertextuality and pastiche.
Postmodernism in media is made up of the some key features and term such as intertextuality, pastiche, bricolage, homage, hyper-reality, etc.
Modernism and postmodernism as modernism is the ‘traditional’ view of life, for example they believe in a hierarchy whereas postmodernism has a loss of centralized control. Also modernism is seen to have a sense of clear generic boundaries and wholeness whereas postmodernism is described to have promiscuous genres, hybridity, intertextuality and pastiche.
Postmodernism in media is made up of the some key features and term such as intertextuality, pastiche, bricolage, homage, hyper-reality, etc.
All of these are clear in the case study of a video game i have chosen. I chose to study the video game Grand Theft Auto (GTA) 5 for my case study as it has many different aspects of postmodernism within and throughout the game such as, hyperreality, nostalgia, bricolage, acts against modernism.
The game GTA 5 includes the postmodern feature of simulation of reality (hyper-reality) which is postmodern as the theorist Jean Baudrillard suggests that the media can now create such idealistic representations of reality that out perform actual reality. where the audience is left feeling depressed as their own life doesn't live up to artificial reality. Grand Theft Auto 5 uses hyper-reality throughout the game as it is virtually a different reality, and it is a first person player as the gamer is free to roam wherever they like in the game and do whatever they like without any boundaries for example, you can choose the car you drive, run over pedestrians, go to strip clubs etc. the line and boundaries of life and virtuality can become blurred.
Within the game GTA 5 there is a decline of Meta Narrative, which supports Lyotard's theory, as within the game your character plays a villain who is infact a hero, and there are many people who aid and help you through the game but it is not clear whether they are good or bad. The narrative of the game is constructed by your actions and interactions as a gamer, for example, one person may play the game very well not breaking typical rules of real life, whereas another person may do the complete opposite.
Grand Theft Auto 5 is also full of the postmodern aspect Pastiche and Intertextuality- which supports the theory from Jameson. Within the video game the producers Leslie Benzies & Imran Sarwar included a wide range of cars that you are able to drive which are based upon real like cars/ motorcycles, such as the ‘Truffade Adder’ in the video game is a virtual version of the real life Bugatti EB16.4 Veyron Pur sang, the ‘Vapid Bullet’ is a Ford GT, a ‘Pegassi Vacca’ is a Lamborghini Gallardo.
The video game also incorporates a radio station for when you are driving around the city of ‘Los Santos’ which plays song by real-life well known hip-hop artists such as A$AP Rocky- “R-Cali”, Gucci Mane- “Too Hard”, Travi$ Scott- “Upper Echelon” and Schoolboy Q- “Collard Greens”.
The name of the city within the game is ‘Los Santos’ which is a representation of the famous city ‘Los Angeles’.
All of these aspects within the game portray how this videogame is postmodern.
The video game also incorporates a radio station for when you are driving around the city of ‘Los Santos’ which plays song by real-life well known hip-hop artists such as A$AP Rocky- “R-Cali”, Gucci Mane- “Too Hard”, Travi$ Scott- “Upper Echelon” and Schoolboy Q- “Collard Greens”.
The name of the city within the game is ‘Los Santos’ which is a representation of the famous city ‘Los Angeles’.
