Paranorman

According to Susan Hayward, postmodernism it could be defined as a set of critical to question the modernism such as human progress, reason, and science (Hayward, S., 2013. p.284). It questions across arts, architecture, language, political issue, film cinema, literature and so on. Hence, it is said that to deliver the attitude of skepticism about modernist belief towards science, gender, and high art over popular culture. Other than that, she also states that postmodernism is the reflective of mentality. Thus, it is believed by many theorist that postmodernism is the symbol of the death of ideology where the false conscious would be destroyed. Additionally, postmodernism aims to refuse the difference between high and low art forms as both are valuable. Therefore, postmodernism theorists are encouraged to blend and combine different elements and styles and create them into a new outcome. “Postmodern style is often characterized by eclecticism, digression, collage, pastiche, irony, the return of ornament and historical reference, and the appropriation of popular media". (Waugh; 1992. P. 43) Postmodernism can be divided into mainstream mode as pastiche which is presented through imitation of past art work, while oppositional mode is when former art work presented ironically as parody. Both of this modes rely on 4 different and overlapping concepts which are simulation that combines parody and pastiche, prefabrication, bricolage which means genre bending, and lastly is intertextuality meaning how art makes reference to another art work. Thence, I would like to discuss how is the animated film Paranorman related to postmodernism. 

Simulation in postmodernism combines both parody and pastiche. Parody is an art that pays tribute to other art work by mocking the original art work. For example, filmmaker will insert a certain scenes in his film that taken from the other original film as when audiences watch it, they will laugh because what they have watched before in the original film are their expectations. However, when the filmmaker makes fun of the certain particular scenes, it subverts their expectation. On the other hand, pastiche is to pay tribute by honorary. it is probably because the original film is so perfect that other filmmakers will pastiche a particular scene into his own film too. Besides, postmodernism rejects the idea of comparison between the high art and the popular culture. Postmodernists suggest that both of these should be appreciated as an art form without comparing and differentiating which is better than another. "Construction of cultural identities is an active process of Bricolage, of tinkering with debris." (Bateman, A., Bennett, P., 2013. p.81). Prefabrication in a film is to insert particular fabricated scenes or sound from past art work which carry certain meaning. Bricolage refers to genre bending and hybrid genre which have brought to mixing genre in today's films. Thus, many authors agree with that it is getting harder to investigate any genre films today in a single way (Boardwell, D., Thompson, K., 2010. p. 328). For instance, this film we watched in the class combines horror, comedy, action and melodrama. Last but not least, the intertextuality describes that films are related and they act as intertextual references to one another.

Paranorman is a stop-motion animated which combines of horror, comedy, action and melodrama genre film produced in 2012 which is written and co-directed by Chris Butler. The story follows the little boy who named as Norman who is portrayed as a character that could constantly see and communicate with various ghosts that wondering around his town but most of everyone doesn't believe in him and he is even emotionally isolated from his family and friends except his best friend, Neil Downe. Nonetheless, with this born supernatural gift, he is the only one in the town who can save everyone's life from the centuries-old curse cursed by a witch. 

Paranorman is definitely a horror animated movie with unnatural sub-genre as it consists ghosts and zombies. The very first hint and signal being mentioned in the film to support that it is a horror genre movie is when Norman requests to his dad to turn up the heating as his grandmother tells him that she is feeling cold in the living room, however, his family refuses to believe him yet trying to convince Norman that his grandmother is dead. Additionally, Norman greets every ghost while on his way to the school when other people see him in the way of talking to himself. 

It is also an action film when the part of chasing between zombies and the characters who are trying to escape from the witch grave. Besides, at the beginning of the film, when Norman is watching a zombie movie on TV, it shows when the lady is nearly attacked by the zombie, a melodramatic music background can be heard to evoke the emotions of how scary the zombie is. 

Furthermore, I have spotted one scene when Norman's best friend, Neil invites him to play hockey, Neil who is standing outside the window wearing the signature hockey mask that is similar to Jason Voorhees's who stared in the horror film Friday the 13th with and hence I believe the director is paying tribute to that film and it is being parodied.