Postmodernism & Deutschland 83

Media Magazine - A Postmodern Reimagining of the Past

Postmodernism: a late 20th-century style and concept in the arts, architecture, and criticism, which represents a departure from modernism and is characterized by the self-conscious use of earlier styles and conventions, a mixing of different artistic styles and media, and a general distrust of theories. 

Postmodernism is characterised by the self-conscious use of historical styles and conventions, a mixing of different artistic styles and media, including the playful use of intertextuality, blending of fact, fiction and genre hybridisation, pastiche, parody and irony. So, for Media Studies students Deutschland 83 is a particularly good starting point for an analysis of postmodern treatments.

Media Magazine 73 has a feature exploring Deutschland 83 as a postmodern media product. Read ‘Deutschland 83 - A Postmodern Reimagining of the Past’ in MM73  (p18). You'll find our Media Magazine archive here - remember you'll need your Greenford Google login to access. Answer the following questions:

1) What were the classic media representations of the Cold War?

Representations of Cold War-era Germany often fit a stereotypical binary ‘good vs evil’ The Cold War – the state of tension and hostility between the Soviet bloc countries and the West from 1945 to 1990 – has inspired a series of film and media texts within the spy genre. These texts often present the East and West as binary opposites through codes and conventions. The communist East is presented grey and stark, no billboards, culture or entertainment and strict limitations of citizens’ movements and availability of certain foods (e.g. coffee and bananas). The capitalist West, in contrast, is a world of department stores, restaurants and cars, pop-culture and entertainment and free movement.

2) Why does Deutschland 83 provide a particularly good example for postmodern analysis? 

Deutschland 83 however is not your typical Cold War text for a number of reasons; but perhaps the most significant is that it has a young Stasi officer as its main protagonist. It is an example of a text that re-imagines the past by blurring the established views of the Cold War through a postmodern treatment, perhaps accounting for its success (it was the first German language TV programme to air on a USA network; it has become the highest-rated foreign-language drama in UK history).

3) Pick out some of the aspects of the opening of episode 1 and explain why they are significant.

- All postmodern texts create a relationship with the past and the first episode of Deutschland 83, ‘Quantum Jump’, does this with intertitles that frame its historical context.

-The location is the ‘East German Diplomatic mission’ situated in Bonn, West Germany in 1983. A woman is listening to US president Ronald Reagan’s ‘Evil Empire’ speech on a television set. This intertextual footage with its message to ‘pray’ for those who live in ‘totalitarian darkness’ creates ambiguity – Reagan talks of the ‘quiet men’ who conceive and order this ‘greatest evil’ in ‘carpeted well-lit offices.’

-An interrogation sequence of two young actors in East Berlin who have bought some Shakespeare plays on the black market. This is conducted by our communist protagonist Martin Rauch and a colleague. The sequence in part parodies typical interrogation scenes from the spy genre – the crime is not serious and it ends with the release of the two men and a trading of the texts by Shakespeare with those by Marx. It finishes in a comedic fashion with both guards bursting into laughter as the actors leave

-We return to a conversation between Lenora and another high-ranking Stasi official about sending Martin to West Germany to spy on General Edel, who is thought to be colluding with America. The decision is made in an office that recreates 1980s mise-en-scène alongside tense and reflective exchanges that perfectly imitate and pastiche the period.

4) How does the party scene at Martin's mum's house subvert stereotypes of East Germany in the Cold War?

Martin arrives and embraces family members in a bright, sunlit garden setting. In the living room, young people (including his girlfriend, Annett) are drinking beers and dancing and singing to the Cold War era protest song ‘99 Luftballoons’ that is later played in the West German barracks too. This scene reimagines the representation of the East beyond the operators of the restrictive state to the humanity, care and affection of everyday family and friends. The vibrant youth camaraderie, anthemic rock music and positivity are in contrast to Lenora who represents the callous manipulative officialdom that is more stereotypically present in representations of East Germany.

5) What aspects of the episode set in West Germany offer postmodern elements?

-Martin’s first glimpse of West Germany connotes western opulence – a chandelier, the lavishly colourful images of Gustav Klimt’s painting ‘The Kiss’ strategically placed within the wide shot. 

-However, Martin’s first taste of western consumerism, in the supermarket scene is playfully underscored by the Eurythmics 1980’s pop song ‘Sweet Dreams are Made of This’ as Martin wonders at the volume and choice of products available in the West.

-In homage to the gadget-saturated spy genre (think of Q in the James Bond movies) there is a sequence where Martin’s mentor, Tobias Tischbier, trains him in espionage techniques. The surveillance equipment used in the scene encodes the spy genre. However, the montage editing, jump cuts, soundtrack and humorous insertion of pop culture references as Martin learns different pronunciations of German words blends different artistic styles into an effective pastiche.

6) Finally, how does the article apply postmodern theory to Deutschland 83 and link it to the potential target audience?

Ultimately though, the fact that our protagonist is a communist who is being manipulated by his own side indicates that this text is appealing to a post-unification audience who are ready to challenge fixed Cold War versions of ‘reality’. A key theorist at A level is Jean Baudrillard with his ideas of ‘Simulacra’ – representations that depict things that have no original. We cannot know for certain how Eastern and Western Europeans behaved during this time – what we are seeing is only a reimagining and one that is influenced by the present. According to postmodern theorist Baudrillard, Simulacra reveal that there is no fixed, absolute truth; and Deutschland 83 certainly challenges our preconceptions of this period of history.

Postmodernism Factsheet

Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet #54: Introduction to Postmodernism. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets. If you need to access this from home you can find our factsheet archive here (you'll need to use your Greenford login).

1) Read the section on Strinati's five ways to define postmodernity. What examples are provided of the breakdown of the distinction between culture and society (media-isation)?

-Advertising can make or break a company irrespective of the quality of the product they are selling, a poor quality product can be commercially successful if it has great advertising whilst an excellent product can fail without it. Where once the reality of the product would create its success or failure (e.g. how well it worked), now the media reality of advertising determines the success of products.

-The characters Bruno and Borat have more ‘reality’ for film audiences than their creator Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen’s films rely on the fact that the characters he creates are seen as ‘real’ people and he is able to get away with saying and doing things that a ‘real’ person could not. Cohen is only ever interviewed ‘in character’ so his creations have a voice but he does not.

-In The X Factor contestants perform cover versions of cover versions of songs (they copy copies). In a Queen themed night John and Edward sang 'We Will Rock You’ – but they performed ‘the Five version’.

2) What is Fredric Jameson's idea of 'historical deafness'? How can the idea of 'historical deafness' be applied to Deutschland 83?

According to Jameson, is the idea of historical deafness. He argues that as mediaization increases so the culture finds itself losing a sense of historical context. History is now reduced to ‘talking heads’ documentaries and historical knowledge is often based on media representations.

3) What examples and theories are provided for the idea of 'style over substance'?

-People are strongly influenced by branding when buying products. The label sometimes becomes more important than the product itself and packaging more important than the contents. People will pay high prices for products which bear the logo of a fashionable label regardless of the actual quality of the product.

-The modern rise of celebrities launched through reality television programmes such as Big Brother can be seen as the culture celebrating style over substance. Many celebrities are now famous for being famous rather than for an identifiable talent or ability.

Theories: Jameson argues that this creates a cultural depthlessness. Like Baudrillard he sees the culture as being one where meaning is lost and all that is left is surface representation. However he also argues that this is sometimes countered by outrageous claims for extreme moments of intense emotion, for example, the shared cultural grief after the death of a celebrity.

4) What examples from music are provided for the breakdown of the distinction between art and popular culture? Can this be applied to Deutschland 83?

-Pop music (low art) often samples classical music (high art)

- Advertising (low art) often makes reference to visual art (high art) or uses classical music (high art) to help sell its products

5) What is bricolage? What examples of bricolage can be found in Deutschland 83?

This idea of mixing references is referred to as bricolage (meaning jumbled). Bricolage refers to the process of adapting and juxtaposing old and new texts, images, ideas or narratives to produce whole new meanings.

Example:Some see the bringing together of high art and low art as being a ‘democratising’ process – making art available to everyone. Others however see the breakdown of the distinction between the two as removing the meaning from high art and reducing it to advertising/pop images and sound.

6) How can the audience pleasures of Deutschland 83 be linked to postmodernism? Read 'The decline of meta-narratives' and 'Media texts and the postmodern' to help answer this.

Meta-narratives (or grand narratives (Lyotard) literally meaning ‘big stories’) are the ideas and concepts that have been used to attempt to explain the way the world is and the way it should be. Human history is full of these grand narratives from religion to political/economic theories. This can be linked to Deutschland 83 as audience pleasures such as surveillance can be seen through the use of real footage from the time to inform audiences of what was going on in the world at the time while also having some examples of escapism as the events depicted are mostly fictional.

7) Now look at page 4 of the factsheet. How does Deutschland 83 demonstrate aspects of the postmodern in its construction and ideological positioning?

Deutschland 83 demonstrates aspects of postmodernism in its construction and ideological positioning as it is written from the perspective of a young Stasi officer in east Germany which is not what is usually seen with pieces of media from this time.

8) Which key scenes from Deutschland 83 best provide examples of postmodernism? Why?

The scene that best provides an example of postmodernism in Deutschland 83 is the supermarket scene where he runs into the supermarket after fleeing from his aunt where he is then presented with a supermarket with filled shelves mirroring the work of Andy Worhol while a pop song "Sweet dreams are made of these" plays in the background with the lyrics "Some of them want to use you... Some of them want to abuse you" possibly showing how Martin feels internally at the time.

(There is no simple definition of ‘postmodern’ but as a contextual issue it offers a number of useful ways to consider the type of culture we live in. The theoretical ideas do not provide simple answers to questions but instead offer a way to deal with the complexity of the modern world and, in turn, the complicated nature of many contemporary media texts.)