Post modern game

The Sims

The Sims consist of multiple examples of post-modenism.


It is hyper-real, there are features such as aliens, wear wolves, vampires etc. You can also make the sims look anyway you want, no matter how crazy this is.

It is also a simulation, given away by the name Sims.

It could also be considered, by the way you play the game, that it is more about style over substance. This is because you could spend hours designing the person/people and their home and not really be bothered about the actual story they will live. This has developed even more over time, as you can change colours and designs of almost everything in the Sims now, whereas in the first Sims there was little to choose from.

It can be seen that the Sims does not consider morality. In the Sims you can cause death, affairs and bullies. In the newest of Sims, Sims 4, you can give your Sims traits. Some of these can be seen as immoral, e.g hates children and mean. 

You can also make the Sim isolated and have individualism in the game. You could shut them off from all communication possible, give them no phone or computer. Or you could lock them in a room/house so they are trapped. This is like a panopticon - you are always watching your Sim but they cannot escape.

The Sims also collapses the boundries between real and artificial. The Sims makes you feel as though your Sims have feelings and are almost real. You are immersed into the game and want to give them the best life possible. 

Post modernism

1. 3 types of post modernism

- Historical

- Aesthetic

- Philosophy
(exam - will ask a question, use the 3 types of post modernism)

2. 3 big theorists

- Baudrillard - swimming in a sea of science - simulacra

- Jameson - hybridity

- Lyotard - structures collapsing - first theorist to realise this

3. binary opposites - post modernism and moderism, 

Post modernism - Collapsing of structures, rejection (like a relationship breakdown - gradual)

Modernism - Traditional structures

4. The foundation of post modernism is Consumerism (money) and technology - Western

5. Emptiness - wanting more, achieving aspirations - no beliefs

6. Historical event ending modernism - Second World War - doing something post modern was antisocial. 1960's 1970's
Atomic bomb - technology to wipe out the world

post modernism - the rejection in believing what you are being told is normal

Superficial & Empty - Something that appears real until looking into it further and seeing its not real. Feeling of emptiness and wanting more and more.

Parody - like intertextuality, taking ideas from other films and making a new film using these ideas. Remake of a video "taking the mick"

Pastiche - Imitating artistic work from another artist or period

Bricolage - Mixing up genres and styles

Homage - Imitation from a respectful standpoint

Hybridity - The mixing of different genres

Self Reflexivity - Is the text that it is itself a constructed simulation or reproduction.

Hyperreality - Blurring of what is real and simulated

Simulacra - Where you cannot differentiate between what is real and what is hyperreal.

Blurring of boundaries - Boundaries of time and periods in history have been blurred and have no time and no place.

Disjointed narrative structures - No typical happy ending in film.

Nostalgia - things that already exist from the past that provide pleasure when looking back on it. Not looking at the future, to escape. Create this using intertextuality