UNDERSTANDING MEDIA | BOURNEMOUTH UNIVERSITY | CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement that influenced the arts and critical thinking in the early twentieth century. Its foundations lie in embracing the emerging new culture and social life. In the late 1990s, Henry Jenkins, an American scholar, coined the word "textual poaching" . This analysis is based on the television show Modern Family and it uses the concepts postmodernism and textual poaching. This analysis defines postmodernism and textual poaching, as well as includes a brief overview of the case study, Modern Family. It then goes into why the case study is a postmodernist film, using references from the show to demonstrate how the characters matched the intense stereotypes and repeatedly broke the fourth wall. The analysis also goes into the various forms of textual poaching and how they are used by the characters in the case study as well as by viewers using information from the episode. It further goes into the different categories of contributors and how this study will influence my media use. It was discovered that I am an intermittent contributor and that I have done some textual poaching.
Postmodernism is a periodizing philosophy that links the introduction of new institutional elements of society with the emergence of new types of social life and economic order (Foster and Jameson 1985). Long-held perceptions in objective reality, moral structures, human culture, and social reform, among other aspects, are commonly opposed by postmodernism. Irony, pastiche, hyperreality, intertextuality, mystical realism, unpredictability, time distortion, and paranoia themes are popular features (Bedard 2020). There is no such thing as pure postmodernism. It lacks a standard idea of how things are and does not have easy answers. It is always prepared to say 'yes, but...'. In the early twentieth century, postmodernism was a disapproval of bourgeois values. Bourgeois' principles are values that, when expressed, attempt to mask, through the use of particular language words or euphemistic behaviour, any truth that offends against a predetermined general sensibility. These ideals include presence, identity, historical progress, epistemic certainty, and univocity of meaning. Postmodernism is difficult to define, in part because the theory seeks to reject commonly accepted conceptions of critique and description. The concept 'textual poaching' was coined by fandom scholar Henry Jenkins to describe the ways in which devoted fans respond to mass media. Fans become active participants in the creation and dissemination of literary meanings in this concept, rather than becoming passive recipients of famous texts (Jenkins 2013) . Textual poaching is a practice in which fans (re)claim texts and 'rebel' against a text's officially licensed meanings in order to suit their own purposes. .Jenkins highlights fans as creators of new cultural material: fans 'poach' their favorite texts to deliver a number of innovative analytical and artistic works. Message boards and blog posts, self-published zines, fanfiction, poetry, films, memes, filk videos, and fan videos are examples of these works (Tosenberger 2021). Memes may be thought of as a kind of textual poaching. Fans can remix / recreate media texts by producing fan films, spoof trailers, memes, gifs, fan fiction, tweets as characters, and so on. Modern Family is an 11-season mockumentary family comedy television series created by Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan in 2009 that ran till 2020. It follows three diverse family setups in Los Angeles. The series, told from the viewpoint of an unknown documentary filmmaker, provides an authentic, often-hilarious look at family life. Phil and Claire, the parents, want a genuine, open relationship with their three children, but their daughter who is working too hard to grow up, another who is too clever for her own good, and a mischievous young son make it difficult. Claire's father, Jay, and his Latina wife Gloria are raising two sons together, but some people mistake Jay for Gloria's father. Jay's gay son Mitchell and his partner Cameron have adopted a young Asian daughter, Lily, completing a large — heterosexual, gay, ethnic, traditional, and happy — family ( Jwelch5742, 2021).
The television show Modern Family has a lot of postmodernism features and many of the characters match the extreme stereotypes. Mitchell and Cam, a gay couple, with their adopted Asian child, Lily; Jay, the older man, who is married to Gloria, a young, beautiful foreign woman who seems to be only with him for his wealth; Phil is a dumb, happy-go-lucky guy with a nagging wife, Claire, and two girls, one bookish, Alex, and the other ditzy and cute, Haley, as well as a mischievous and dim son, Luke. During this tv show, they always crack the fourth wall. The fourth wall is the fictitious barrier that exists between the actors of a show or performance and the viewer. Characters in Modern Family make regular asides and conduct confessional interviews in the manner of a reality show. The distinction is that they are not speaking to someone other than us, the audience. A selection of these confessional interviews is seen below.
(Modern Family, 2009)
The first interview shows Cam and Mitchell, the gay couple, who were discussing what they were doing a few minutes before the interview in this episode, which was searching for someone to look after Lilly, the adopted Asian child, if something happened to them. The second scene featured Gloria and her second husband Jay discussing her dreams of raising a female child, and she was about to reveal a secret to the viewers, that the other characters were unaware of. The third was about Claire claiming not to be on top of everything with her smartest child, Alex, after going to class with her. The final scene featured some of the actors expressing their fears. The most important feature of the video was seeing the actors repeatedly break the fourth wall in the show.
Some may not see how Modern Family is a postmodernist show, but it is more evident than it seems. As I previously said, postmodernism is a rejection of bourgeois values such as presence, identity, and others. It can argue that it is a rejection of the traditional gender identities/sexualities that were known in the early twentieth century. These emerging gender identities/sexualities were welcomed by the show, modern family. Gay marriage was not legal in the United States until 2015 (BBC News 2015), and in England and Wales until 2014. (Dryden 2021). The frequent cracking of the fourth wall is another important characteristic of Modern Family that distinguishes it as a postmodernist show.
(Modern Family, 2009)
The video above contains scenes from the first episode, which aired in 2009 featuring the family. You will see how the characters suit the intense stereotypes, how they embrace new identities/sexualities, the nontraditional family that wasn't famous in 2009 and how they crack the fourth wall to converse with us, the viewers, updating us about themselves or simply joking about stuff that happened in the episode on occasion. That kind of big, diverse multicultural family was rare for a sitcom, which usually had a nuclear family arrangement, if not a small twist on it. However, with the strong ratings for “Modern Family,” which averaged about 10 million viewers per episode in its first season, it indicated that fans were looking for something different (Yahr 2019). Brooks (2019, cited by Yahr 2019) said “it had a little bit of everything: the gay couple with a child, the nuclear family, the stepfamily, all rolled into one”.
Textual poaching is a method by which devoted fans respond to mass media. Fans use their favourite texts to create a variety of artistic works. Memes, fanfictions, films, poems, gifs, tweets as characters are examples of these creative works. Textual poaching could also be the act of referencing other movies or tv shows, or simply media outside of the 'world' created by the show or movie. There were a few textual poaches in Modern Family, but here's one.
(Modern Family, 2009)
This scene is from Season 7, Episode 10, Playdate. In this episode, Phil and Claire's children fail to remember to buy a present for their uncle, Mitchell. They meet popular actor Ray Liotta, who takes them to Barbra Streisand's home. She is a well-known musician, actor, and filmmaker from the United States. Mitchell absolutely loves her, as shown by his reaction to the surprise. In this scene, Barbra is not a made-up Modern Family character. She is well-known for her other films and albums. This is textual poaching since they are referencing people from real life, which is outside of Modern Family's made-up 'world.'
Textual poaching occurs outside of the world of the show as well. Fans do this style of poaching. Jenkins referred to fans as poachers who get to keep everything they take and use their looted merchandise to build an alternate cultural culture.
(Modern Family, 2009)
Fans generated the memes, gifs, and videos seen above. The texts on each of them were obviously taken out of context. That was not said on the show or in that episode, but fans interpreted the video or image in their own way. Based on the TV show Modern Family, there are approximately 138 separate fanfictions created by various fans (Fanfictions.net 2021). According to Henry Jenkins (2013), fan writing draws on the interpretive activities of the fan culture, using the collective meta-text as a foundation to create a diverse variety of media-related stories. These fan fictions are all based on the show and its characters, but the writers add their own spin to it. These internet fan fictions are most likely not the only ones. There may be hundreds of handwritten documents. Small newsletters and letter zines commenting on aired episodes to full-length comics, comic books, songbooks, cookbooks, programme manuals, and essay collections are examples of zines. Not unexpectedly, the majority of zine publishing focuses on programmes with broad fan bases (Jenkins 2013). Modern Family is one of the series or movies that have a large fan base, which explains why there are so many fanfictions.
In terms of my connection to this case study, I classify myself as a user, one of the 9% of sporadic contributors (Nielsen 2006). I am interested in the show, but I do not participate. I have created a few memes in the past, but they are rare. Not participating doesn't mean I'm a lurker. I'm not a lurker so I participate. A lurker is someone who is intrigued but does not participate in any way, preferring to listen or watch, or both, depending on the type of media (Nielsen 2006). I've learned a lot from watching this film. First and foremost, I discovered some fascinating facts, such as how the show openly depicted gay marriage on the show despite the fact that it wasn't completely legal in the United States. Second, I discovered what postmodernism is and isn't. Before I began this research, I had no idea what postmodernism was. Textual poaching is the same. I was aware of memes, gifs, animations, and fanfictions, but I had no idea they had a name for the activity or that it is a way to participate. I have discovered that there is a media loop regarding textual poaching. A show, such as Modern Families, speaks about another show, a movie, or stuff that does not exist in that show's made-up 'world,' and another show does the same thing. For example, Modern Family references other shows, and some wind up referencing or borrowing from them, as seen on the various Tonight shows. Many postmodernist performances have also caught my eye. I've also identified the TV programme Community as a postmodernist show. I've even discovered further instances of textual poaching. When doing this research, it occurred to me that I had engaged in some textual poaching without even realizing it. My television consumption will be enhanced as a result of this study. I can now poach or contribute actively. I had no idea there were three categories of contributors: lurkers, intermittent contributors, and heavy contributors. Now that I'm aware of this, when I'm producing in the future, I'll keep an eye out for this and it will be nice to know who my contributors are.
This analysis has shown that Modern Family is a postmodernist program, as well as examples of textual poaching by characters in the show and by fans outside the show. The TV show's characters have shown traits that match the numerous extreme stereotypes. Textual poaching has also been shown by both viewers and the program. It's described the various kinds of contributors (fans) that different shows have, the different types of textual poaching, and perhaps we've all done some textual poaching in the past.
References
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