Disneyland vs. the Simpsons...Post-Modernism

The focus on pastiche and parody in the short post-modernism article was fascinating. Certainly our own cultural preoccupation with these literary forms (the Office, other mockumentaries, the Simpsons, Family Guy, Southpark etc.) seems to embody the feedback loop where we jump from symbol to symbol to symbol without finding any underlying reality.

I was caught by the idea and implication of Disneyland as the symbol with no basis in reality. It symbolizes something that itself only exists in the minds of the people (if there, anymore).

I have noticed with my high school students, that many of them have been exposed to a vast quantity of Americana and cultural lore, but are unable to access it except through the ironic post-modern sensibility because they have no experience of the things themselves, experiencing them only through the send-ups they encounter in these various parody television shows/movies. This of course means they have no knowledge of the original, and more interestingly and inherently more post-modern, they don't even realize that what they are seeing is a parody of something else, and so think that many of these things originated in the vast flow of parodies parodying parodies of other parodies in layers so deep that the "truth" behind the shifting signs is lost.

In other words, I run into tons of students who believe the things these shows make fun of turned up for the first time in the very programs...most pure embodiment of the hyper reality the text discusses.

I also found myself hoisted on my own petard in discovering that my own respect for those who (like myself of course) combine a deep appreciation for/knowledge of both hi-culture and pop-culture is not some unique thing reserved for a special few, but instead a manifestation of the same string of thought that produces the ultra-jaded, ironic attitude that I so detest. Once again enlightenment and the expansion of knowledge throws light on hypocrisy. I don't know that I'll change at all, or even change my opinions, but at least I'm aware they're hypocritical!