How are music videos postmodern?

Music videos lack originality and typically reproduce the same clips and lyrics throughout, thus presenting the audience with no solid narrative/plot. There is generally frequent use of intertextual references throughout the clip that represent certain films of music videos within another. Another form of intertextual referencing is through product placement, when a specific product or brand is shown in a video. This creates a sense of reality for the viewer as they are likely to recognise this intertextuality and may feel smart when they do. Post modern music videos may also represent a cross-over between historical and chronological events. They can also blur the distinctions between them and past events are made to seem contemporary alongside modern scenes, as seen in Love Story by Taylor Swift. The mass media also plays a role in blurring the distinctions between reality and hyperreality within channels that show music videos. This is mainly through advertising as it suggests that society is run through the images and representations we are shown. When we watch music videos, we are lead to believe that they are reality. However, adverts prove this wrong as they are the pure reality that exists before the music video. Music videos may be seen as mimicking reality and that, in itself is a post-modern approach. Therefore, music videos imply a hyper-reality as experienced through simulacrum.

Love Story Taylor Swift

The Love Story Music video takes the well known 'Romeo & Juliet' narrative and adopts it in a pastich form. Rather than parodying the original in a humorous way, the video is more of a celebration of the story and various scenes are recreated in a serious and professional manner. For example, Taylor is pictured with Romeo at a formal dance where they are seen wearing traditional clothing from the Shakespearean period. There is also a scene where the couple are walking through the garden, which is an iconic scene from the film. Another way that the video is post modern is due to the whole thing being an intertextual reference to one of Shakespeare's well known plays. The lyrics even directly refer to its characters, Romeo and Juliet. For example "Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone". It is obvious to the viewer that this is the case however the video assists in the blurring of historical and chronological distinctions. The video relies on repeated lyrics and shots and therefore reinforces a feature of post modernism, that being reproduction: "We can expect the production of both image and sound to become more and more a matter of combining and altering already existing images and sounds extracted from one or other information store." (Wollen 230-31)