H-Dawg
5th Period
Final Exam Blogpost
Postmodernism on a New Level
In today’s world, where digital media constantly reshapes how we interact with reality, the boundaries between what’s "real" and what’s "hyper-real" seem to disappear more every day. Postmodernism, which challenges the grand narrative, has found a natural home in this digital landscape. It’s as though the world of films, music, and literature has transformed into a space where dark humor, use of many narratives, and magical realism aren’t just techniques—they’re ways of seeing and understanding the world around us. The shift away from traditional storytelling reflects the playful absurdity of contemporary life, where everything is interconnected, remixed, and constantly in flux. In this essay, I’ll explore how digital media interrogates the nature of truth, identity, and reality by analyzing works such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Velociraptors Are Still On The Loose, But That’s No Reason To Not Reopen Jurassic Park, Making a Fist by Naomi Nye, and Gorillaz’s "Humility." Through these works, we can see how postmodern themes such as fragmentation, intertextuality, and the destabilization of the self which both critique and offer catharsis for a world increasingly consumed by mediated, virtual realities.
Summary of Element one - Black Humor
Dark humor often blends the morbid with comedy, challenging serious norms and showing how absurd modern life can be. In the Jurassic Park piece, the dark humor comes from the ridiculousness of reopening a dangerous theme park with velociraptors still roaming free. It pokes fun at corporate greed and human nature, turning a life-or-death situation into a satirical commentary. This is a key feature of postmodernism, which loves irony and questioning authority. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, we see similar dark humor when Gawain faces life-or-death challenges like when “Gawain, that good knight, took up the axe And with one stroke he struck the Green Knight’s neck.", but the situation is absurd in how it mixes serious stakes with a ridiculous game. The Green Knight’s challenge shows how the poem critiques the idea of chivalry, just like postmodern texts question traditional values. Both works use humor to expose the flaws in societal ideals—whether it's the empty bravado of knights or the greed driving a deadly theme park—and show the absurdities behind these narratives. The humor in both cases reveals the contradictions in how we view heroism, power, and society.
Summary of Element Two - Use of Multiple Voices
Postmodernism often uses multiple voices, showing different perspectives and tones to create a more complex and layered view of the world. This challenges the idea of one single truth and offers a more democratic way of storytelling. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, multiple voices appear through shifts in narrative tone and character dialogue. For example, the narrator’s voice reflects Gawain’s guilt and fear, while the Green Knight speaks in a more playful, mocking tone. This change in voices mirrors postmodern techniques, giving a fuller, more complicated understanding of the world. In Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “Making a Fist,” the speaker reflects on pain and survival through different layers of meaning until she “can no longer make a fist.”, contrasting the wisdom of her mother with her own younger perspective. Like Sir Gawain, Nye’s poem shows how multiple voices can reveal complex personal growth. Both works use this technique to explore their themes in a deeper way, offering a fuller, more fragmented view of emotions, ideals, and struggles.
Summary of Element Three - Magical Realism
Magical realism mixes the strange with the everyday, making the unreal feel normal. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, this shows up when the Green Knight gets his head cut off but picks it up and walks away: “Yet still he stood there stiff on strong legs, / Heaved his head high, holding it in his hand”. It’s a shocking moment that breaks the rules of logic and makes us question what’s real. It also reflects postmodern ideas like identity not being fixed and truth being hard to pin down. Another example is the magic girdle that’s supposed to protect Gawain. But its power comes from belief, not fact which shows that meaning is made up, not given, which connects to postmodern themes of subjective truth. In the Gorillaz video “Humility,” the cartoon character 2-D skates through the real world, blending animation with live action. This mix of fantasy and reality is a modern version of magical realism. Like in Sir Gawain, it makes us question what’s real and reminds us that media and stories often blur the lines between fiction and reality. Both Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Humility use magical realism to explore identity and perception, asking us to look beyond what seems real to find deeper meaning—just like postmodernism does.
Conclusion
In today’s digital world, where TikToks, memes, and AI blur the lines between what’s real and what’s made up, postmodernism feels more relevant than ever. It gives us the tools to question the stories we’ve been told; about truth, identity, and even reality itself. Through dark humor, shifting perspectives, and touches of the surreal, pieces like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gorillaz’s “Humility,” Making a Fist, and The Velociraptors Are Still On The Loose… pull back the curtain on the chaos of modern life. They don’t just tell stories—they remix them, twist them, and laugh at them, showing us that the world isn’t as solid or serious as it pretends to be. And maybe that’s the point. Postmodernism doesn’t offer clean answers, but it does give us a way to navigate the weirdness—one ironic, self-aware step at a time.
Work Cited
Gawain Poet. Sir Gawain & the Green Knight, 14th Century. York University, 1999,
www.yorku.ca/inpar/sggk_weston.pdf 2019. Accessed 14 May 2025.
Giphy. “Jurassic Park; Dilophosaurus.” 2015. Giphy.Com, 2017.
www.giphy.com/gifs/jurassic-park-wayne-knight-dennis-nedry-q3UEQuCN32ucw. Accessed 14 May 2025.
Giphy. “Official Millwall Fc.” 2025. Giphy.Com, 2025.
www.giphy.com/gifs/OfficialMillwallFC-goal-fist-pump-ryan- longman-LnblQ55RsDh216yQ73. Accessed 14 May 2025.
Gorillaz. “Humility” Music Video 2019. Youtube, 2019.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5yFcdPAGv0. Accessed 14 May 2025.
Giphy. “Gorillaz’s Humility.” 2018. Giphy.Com, 2019.
www.giphy.com/gifs/gorillaz-humility-XZYRM1Tb2ThQyNVNkv. Accessed 14 May 2025.
Greaves, Carlos. “Sure, The Velociraptors Are Still on The Loose, But That’s No Reason Not to Reopen Jurassic Park.” McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Daily Humor Almost Every Day Since 1998. McSweeney’s Publishing LLC, 6 May 2020, www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/sure-the-velociraptors-are-still-on-the-loose-but-thats-no- reason-not-toreopen-jurassic-park. Accessed 14 May 2025.
Nye, Naomi. “Making a Fist.” 1988. Poetry Foundation, 2025,
www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54308/making-a-fist. Accessed 14 May 2025.
The fact that the first two sources being based on the idea of challenging authority is really cool in my opinion. From what i remember about sir gawain and the green knight the whole passage was the challenge of authority and the fact that H-dawg reflected this and connected it to two sources is really impressive