Table of contents Introduction 3 Mission 4 Method 4 Theory 5
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Characteristics of the Postironical literatureWithin the Postironical there seems to be an increased focus on family, where a postmodern view would be a focus on society and the System. In postironical literature, the ties to society seem to be replaced with the ties to family and this becomes a counter-system to the System. According to Andersen, this changed focus is perhaps caused by the endless sitcoms that writers like Wallace have been brought up on, but the influence of Don DeLillo’s White Noise should also be taken into account because of the family-centred narrative.26 However, the families of postironical literature are often dysfunctional. Andersen mentions authors like Rick Moody, where the family in The Ice Storm (1994) is falling apart due to infidelity and hypocrisy, and in Purple America (1997) also by Moody, a man leaves his sclerotic wife because he simply does not have the energy to nurse her anymore. Another characteristic would be the inclusion of reality into the world of fiction, which can manifest itself as simple insistence that the author is telling a true story or by through the inclusion of the author’s own as a subject matter. Again Andersen mentions Moody as an example, where he in his short story Demonology (2001) tells the story of the tragic death of his sister, and ends it with apologizing to the reader that he was not able to fictionalize the account more than was the case. This incorporation of reality and personal notions in literature is at the same time a clear contrast to the postmodern claim that everything including human identity is a fiction, which also makes the postironical self-consciousness seem self-revealing and painful as supposed to a cool aesthetic calculation, as often seen in postmodern literature. Furthermore, within the postironical focus on near things such as family and the personal there is a slight adjustment of postmodernism because the focus on near things does not exclude political awareness in favor of self-centered contemplation, as one might think. The adjustment can be seen in the way postmodernism often represents us as products and slaves of the System, whereas postironical literature seems to be aware of that we in fact constitute the System. This means that our role as helpless victims of this establishment is often caused by our own free choices or habit of not taking responsibility. The most important characteristic of the postironical is of course the reckoning with the irony mainstream culture has taken and made it a norm without critical value. Andersen makes the point that the mainstream culture of television has taken over the previously effective catalogue of countercultural strategies and as a consequence of that the rebellious and ironical attitudes, as earlier mentioned, of early postmodernism can today be traced in the majority of popular culture. Here, Andersen uses the advertising slogan of Macintosh, as an example that states “Think different” which can be seen as rebellious compared to advertisement of the sixties. During the fifties and the seventies even, advertising celebrated community and played on the fear of being different, whereas today you have to stand outside in order to be a part of the community.27 Furthermore, the issue continues within American television entertainment where a cynical irony pervades a wide spectrum of sitcoms and also constitutes the dominant rhetorical mode in late night talk shows. And the film industry of Hollywood is also influenced by the mainstream cultures’ take on irony. This is seen through several movies such as Pulp Fiction, where the narrative pattern is broken up and replaced with a-chronological fragmented patterns which characterized the literature of the sixties. Andersen also uses the film Pulp Fiction as an example of irony’s transformation from genuine critical art to mainstream culture. According to Andersen, in the best postmodern literature, irony serves a clear purpose and is directed toward a defined goal and is a means of communicating a political message. But the irony used in Quentin Tarantino’s film does not serve a visible purpose besides maintaining the shiny facades of the characters. This is an example of what Fredric Jameson calls ‘blank irony’28 which can be compared with what pastiche is to parody. Where parody is an imitation of a peculiar or unique style, pastiche is the same but with a neutral practice of such mimicry and without any of parody’s ulterior motives. As such blank irony becomes an imitation of irony and can be seen as directionless irony, which is not committed to anything but a sly grin and which has lost all oppositional force. According to Andersen, these observations lead to a less than desirable effect, As a consequence of its assimilation into mainstream culture, irony has become a ubiquitous cool attitude, which has misplaced its critical potential and instead – in an implicit confirmation of the status quo – exempts its practitioners from taking a responsibility.29 This reckoning is then the central issue of the Postironical, but at the same time it is paradoxically also the weakest part. As an example Andersen uses Danish film director Lars Von Trier who he claims has a problem in being taken seriously due to his early works such as The Element of Crime, Epidemic etc. which all contained a great deal of irony and metafictive elements. Trier now faces the difficulty of employing pathos within his work because of his previous films. To further substantiate this claim, Andersen makes his point by saying, Irony is a stronger and less fragile rhetorical mode than pathos, since it is always already attacking itself, making a show of undermining itself and thus pre-empting attacks from without.30 The example mentioned above concerning film is something I will return to later, where I will incorporate the aspect of the Postironical within film. An important point made by Andersen is his notion of post ironists’ tendency to forget that the enemy is not postmodernism itself, but it is the assimilated weak version created in mainstream culture. As a result of this, according to Andersen, the critical attacks are often aimed at postmodern literature itself or more precisely a constructed version of it made especially for this very purpose. Furthermore the Postironical focus on irony is also valuable because it emphasizes how important a part of modern American literature and culture irony is. When examining the characteristics mentioned here, it becomes apparent that they exist within the same as found in postmodern characteristic, however with some pivotal differences. But the close similarity should not come as a surprise because as mentioned earlier the aspect of the Postironical should not be seen as a clean break with Postmodernism, but rather a revised continuation, which is simultaneously a break and an extension. It employs formal traits from its predecessor, while at the same time exposing its aporia. |