Perspectives: 5 Reasons Why Funny Games is Postmodern

1: The film challenges the ideological genre of horror films. The director Michael Haneke draws the audience in but deviates the expectation of the horror genre. In the horror genre the viewer is expected to see the most brutal scenes, Haneke has deconstructed and flipped this making the most macabre parts of the film unimportant to its understanding showing it as an anti-horror horror film. A loud gunshot is heard but shown while one of the Antagonists Paul is seen casually making a sandwich.

2: Haneke appropriated his own film as the original was German, Haneke remade it shot for shot for the American audience with American actors.

3: Heneke also breaks the boundaries of horror genre with the set design and costumes, usually we are familiar with the antagonists wearing dark colours and the set reflecting the scenes which unfold in horror with dark hues prevalent, however Paul and Peter the main protagonists are seen wearing white which represents purity and innocence while the house is also of light colours.

4: Parts of the film are non linear and fragmented as Paul and Peter make a bet with the family that they will be dead or alive before sunset, Paul turns to the camera and asks the viewer "who are you betting on". Paul and Peter are also seen towards the end of film dictating the pastiched way in which the horror genre is structured saying"struggle is boring" and "we want a real ending with a plausible plot". The most unfathomable scene in the film is after the mother Ann shoots Peter and then Paul picks up the remote to the TV and rewinds the whole scene to revert back to before her grabbing the gun to which he then now knows to reach for it before she gets the change to kill his sidekick Peter.

5: Funny Games is a simulacra of film. The ending sees Paul and Peter saying "But isn’t fiction real" “Why?” “Well you can see it in the movie, right?” fiction is described as not being real but if our viewing of something is the only connection to the outside world, and if both “fiction” and “reality” can be seen, how can someone distinguish between them?. speaking of the self referral parts of Funny Games where Paul speaks to the camera Haneke describes "It allowed me to understand illusion intellectually.”

Perspectives: Lecture 3 - Key words

Metanarrative: A more comprehensive idea behind the story.  In critical theory, and particularly postmodernism, a metanarrative (from meta-narrative, sometimes also known as a master- or grand narrative) is an abstract idea that is thought to be a comprehensive explanation of historical experience or knowledge. According to John Stephens it "is a global or totalizing cultural narrative schema which orders and explains knowledge and experience". The prefix meta- means "beyond" and is here used to mean "about", and narrative is a story constructed in a sequential fashion. Therefore, a metanarrative is a story about a story, encompassing and explaining other "little stories" within totalizing schemes.

Essentialism: The metaphysical view that in reality there exists not only individual objects, but also essences.

Utopian: Opposite of dystopian, A heavenly place or state of things in which everything is perfect.

Axiomatic: Self Evident or obvious

Dystopian:  A place or state in which everything is troubling and appalling, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one.

Scepticism: To be sceptical of something, to question the truth.

Relativism: The Denial of absolute truths or absolute facts, and the claim that the truths and facts achieve their "truthfulness" or "factualness"  only relative to other "truths" or "facts" which are themselves relative to yet other "truths" or "facts".

Pluralism: refers to a society, system of government, or organization that has different groups that keep their identities while existing with other groups or a more dominant group. Rather than just one group, subgroup, or culture dictating how things go, pluralism recognizes a larger number of competing interest groups that share the power.

Postmodernism Key Words

High Modernism:  High modernism (also known as "high modernity") is a form of modernity, characterized by an unfaltering confidence in science and technology as means to reorder the social and natural world.



Capitalist:  capitalism describes an industrial society in which consumerism and private ownership are the order of the day and competition is the name of the game.



Superabundance:  excessively abundant



Disconnected: Not feeling one with reality



Pop: Abbreviation for pop culture, modern popular culture transmitted via the mass media and aimed particularly at younger people.



Fragmentary: Consisting of small disconnected or incomplete parts



Superficiality: Lack of thoroughness, depth of character, or serious thought.



Eclectic nostalgia: Having a sense of nostalgia that relates to the past deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources



Simulacra: copies that depict things that either had no original to begin with, or that no longer have an original



Schizoid: Disconnected, non linear



Depthless: Shallow and superficial



Fabulation: To engage in the composition of fables or stories, especially those featuring a strong element of fantasy:



Flippant: not showing a serious or respectful attitude



Pastiche: A style that imitates another style



Bricolage: A creation from a diverse range of available things




Aleatory: Something that is random