Is Community A Postmodern Masterpiece? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
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Here's an idea: Community is a postmodern masterpiece.
Though the TV show Community has never achieved huge ratings, it has a passionate cult following, including us here at Idea Channel. The show plays with genre and narrative in such a creative way that it brings to mind the cultural and artistic theory of Postmodernism. Previous TV series have been self-referential and culturally reflective, but none so successfully as Community. The show flips traditional expectations so consistently that it questions their importance in the first place. And it has brought the word "meta" into the cultural vernacular, to boot.
Special thanks to @Beerandnosh for the opening line and other community joke references
Links:
Liam Dryden talks about shipping real people:
• Why Do We Ship Real Pe...
Vice - 3D Printing Guns Documentary:
• Video
The Jobs Act - CROWDFUNDING
www.gpo.gov/fds...
Sources:
Jean-Francois Lyotard - Post-modern Condition
Christopher Butler - Postmodernism, a Very Short Introduction
Nicholas Zurburgg - The Parameters of Post Modernism
Roland Barthes - Image, Music, Text
tvtropes.org/pm...
scrawledinwax.c...
Music:
Roglok: vimeo.com/music...
Level 5: Room for the Homeless www.jamendo.com...
Clockwork - Titan (geometry remix) / clockwork-titan-geomet...
Chiptune - Kenzalol / kenzalol
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Post-modern or not, it's a masterpiece anyhow.
I agree, but these are quite interesting thoughts about the concept of the show.
@caporal pistachio I guess you perfectly described the difference between Community and Rick and Morty. Not saying one's better than the other, but both are tackled in very different ways.
Santiago Bauzá it’s good to see other people returning to this UA-cam channel as well :)
Streets ahead
I give this video 5 MeowMeowBeenz.
This video is streets ahead
DREAMATORIUM NOT IMAGINARIUM OMGGG
So if Jeff is the lawyer who doesn't practice law, Britta is the inactive activist, Troy is the athlete who hates sports, Annie is the ruthless innocent, Shirley is the mother whose family we barely see, Abed is the heart of the group yet is socially dysfunctional - Who is Pierce?
Just an old guy?
I'm seriously asking :)
Ivo Sotirov Well, he's an old guy who's been attending community college for the past decade...
Arthur Lance Every other character has a duality of character. They have defining characteristics that are opposite. I cant think of what Pierce would be?
Ivo Sotirov he's a member of the group who is not considered a member of the group
Jeremy Reff
He also is a wise old man who isn't wise.
Ivo Sotirov A mistake. An amalgamation of the modern human.
OUR FUTURE.
(I suggest you all commit!)
"I watched an episode of Community, it's not that good" You have to watch more than one episode.
Definitely. A friend of mine watched it once or twice but didn't like it. I showed her the pilot and then she got it. I think it helps if you start from the beginning.
I like Community a lot, but i don't love it, so does that mean i don't think is a masterpiece?
lamecasuelas2 Maybe? Who knows.
Enthused Norseman i mention that because what everyone thinks is good or bad is a completely subjective thing, and in order to consider something a masterpiece you have to really, really like it.
HUGE fan of the show, but I totally agree, I had to watch at least the first five episodes, the show really took off as all the characters got their development, and now, I can never stop watching this show every year. I'm starting my fifth re-watch of the show as season six slowly approaches.
This wrinkled my brain
THAT wrinkled my brain
Well it's a masterpiece one way or another.
Community is post modern as far as being self referential, but their is a lot of feeling underlying to meta humor. There is sincere messaging. The contradicting characters have real values and care for each other. If anything it's a masterpiece of the "New Sincerity"
Yeaahhhhhh, a masterpiece of the post post modernism (we gotta find it a better name, along the lines of "new sincerity")
Metamodernism
But isn't it's sincerity in the face of cold meta-humor another binary contradiction that defines the show? Family Guy has meta-humor, but it lacks genuine feeling, so the contradiction is in how both sincerity and meta-narratives are the engine the show runs upon.
@caporal pistachio Meta-narratives are part of the postmodernist movement. Postmodernism is the movement that acknowledged meta-narratives and decided to put meta as an idea in play. For example, Modern Warfare is a postmodern pastiche of every action movie ever, therefore breaking down the meta-narrative of the action movie. Meta is self-reflexive, acknowledging that it is playing on every action movie trope ever, but the postmodern part comes in when we see these tropes in a new form, i.e., a paintball game.
Community is the biggest and most effective way to make us think how we perceive life in the context of our culture. If we end up hating our culture and criticizing it or if we love it and worship it is up to us. The show is uninterested on purpose to make us reflect on that.
Did I just see the Donnie Darko rabbit tell me to take the red pill in an internet video about Community?!?!
Community is now on Netflix and I have finally watched it. Revisiting this video is crazy weird. RIP Idea Channel, you have been all but forgotten to the shifting landscape of time and culture.
Also, Long Live Mike Rugnetta.
Every time i come back to one of their videos, having learned many more things, i realize how densely pack with ideas and inspiring this show was. One of the rare channels that actually asks you to think
Can I just say the way Season 5 ends fits with the intro by “The 88”. They all just slowly leave one by one.
Thank you so much, I'm writing a uni essay about Community and postmodernity, and so my lecturer showed me this. :D you're totally streets ahead :P
I once read somewhere that the show is metamodernist (no pun intended), which makes sense considering it's more self-aware, rational and even optimistic (or naïve?) than most postmodern things. Yeah it's a remix but everything is and always has been, pure art is a farce and that's the problem with postmodernism as well: it's too critical/cynical to sustain itself which why the arts are becoming more classical but that's something completely different than just a tv show that is probably one of the best designed since the Fresh Prince (you read that right, I love that Smith)
Beyond being Postmodern, I just love how funny this show is, and the character interactions are amazing! I watched the first episode, right after it aired, and right away I knew it would be my favorite show of all time. I love every season, EVEN season 4, and while I feel it's pastiche/parody element, along with the continuing story lines of Greendale being saved, are getting a little tired, it continues to be one of the funniest, best written and challenging shows on TV.
Community is one the best TV shows ever made, arguably the best sitcom ever.
There's no argument...it's the best
Most definitely, I cant think of a better or.
If you pay attention to everything Abed says, he seems to be fully aware that he is in a television show. At one point, Jeff even says "he thinks his life is a television show", and they mock Abed for thinking everything was made of clay during the Christmas episode. Abed even narrates or pushes the episodes to fall into the molds of a stereotypical metanarrative.
Big Bang Theory is good, Community is just streets ahead. Thank goodness Yahoo picked them up for season 6. #6seasonsandamovie
big bang theory is an awful show lmaooooo
If you try watching BBT without the laugh track, the show becomes absolute garbage. Plus it is the worst stereotype of "nerds"
Agreed, can't believe I used to think it was any good.
@@123rtXd Before watching community
I was watching The Big Bang Theory
And i know Chuck Lorre's Approach to Sitcoms is outdated while trying to use pop culture to appeal to current generation
Playing with stereotypes
And laugh tracks
Using Girl next door lol
While with community
Dan Harmon approach
Is Postmodern
BBT is not good
Isn't the idea of a postmodern "masterpiece" contradictatory in it of itself? Or could that be the very thing that makes it a masterpiece? Which, in turn, would make iit not contradicatory in the fact that it's contradictatory... I am so confused right now.
Community is a post-modern masterpiece. But I'm commenting because of something else. At the end you talked about Fire Walk with Me, and I have an interesting story about that. I was a freshman at NYU when that came out. We walked out of our dorm to go see that, and as we did my roommates called on people in the streets to join us. As we walked to the cineplex (this was 1990) people from the university and the neighborhood joined us. (NYU has no real campus. We made up most of Greeenwhich Village) people just started joining us, both from the college and from the neighborhood. By the time we got to the cinema, we had a crowd who had joined us. We ended up filling most of the screening and the next. It was really an amazing time.
just glad it was kept alive as long as it did, something i'd binge constantly
Community is just a masterpiece. My friends and I talked about that show a lot when it was airing. And now we're talking about it again, with it being on Netflix now.
Community is my favorite show
everything is a post-modern master piece...with enough argumentation.
his dean puns sound scarily accurate
I love when you talk about Roland Barthes. His theory here reminds me of Ezra Pound's logopoeia, or historical rhyme. Pound defined logopoeia as the dance of the intellect among words, pointing out the referential qualities of language. Basically, Pound believed that each word has a layer beyond its straightforward meaning and auditory qualities; words carry and build upon their past uses and thus endlessly reference other works. Historical rhyme involves restating past events, literature, art, etc. in new contexts, weaving seemingly disparate moments in time to create a commentary on the present. Seems to me that Community engages in these highly referential, critical practices. I think Community is a postmodern masterpiece! Great idea!
In other words, Community is the Deadpool of shows.
WOW. You just wrinkled my brain. o.O
but funny
No cuz deadpool is still a generic superhero movie
I've heard that before and I thoroughly disagree. Deadpool simply breaks the fourth wall, whereas Community does much, much more clever stuff. They play with the rules of the genre, play with fabula and syuzhet, have a character impose the the rules of the genre on reality, have the reality impose the rules of the genre on characters, explore complex framing devices and much more.
One amazing example of postmodernism in Community is the clip show episode where it pokes fun at other sitcom clip shows by having scenes that never actually happened, which adds to the comedy of it.
my favorite series of all time
same
You, my friend, hit the nail on the Chang. I thought the same thing when watching this video. Whether this show is being meta or postmodern it's biggest strengths are the heart, hilarity, and the richness of the characters. If it didn't stand on it's own in those respects we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Can you please do MORE Community stuff??
Oh my God. That was a flawless Dean impression right at the start. High five
Im certain of Community's place in the world, but I'm absolutely certain that the writing of that segment was incredibly awesome.
This guy is so hyped up I can't tell if he is breathing in and exhaling while he's talking a 100 WPM
if you don’t watch community your streets behind
You know how when somebody says something that you didn't expect, that is so weird that you're left speechless, and all you can say is "What's wrong with you?"
I'm feeling the opposite. This is awesome. What's right with you?
Wow, I love pretty much EVERY show you mentioned.
I didn't know what "postmodernism" was and I didn't really understand what "meta" meant til I watched this video. I almost want to rewatch it now!
Thanks for the video! Subscribed :D
I spent most of this video sat here going,
"SAY WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?"
*Confoozed*
postpostmodern is obviously METAmodern, it's first signs are upon us
I would agree, furthermore I see Community more like metamodernist work or New Sincerety, also, the literature example in this video Infinite Jest by D.F. Wallace is also much more metamodernist than postmodern, imho.
Kasparas Varžinskas I heard New Sincerity a few times before but the things described to belong to this wave don't tell me its clear motives. Could you explain to me what New Sincerity is?
DarkAngelEU Well I guess it was best described by same Wallace as a new cultural wave which denies irony and searches for the forms of sincerity which were abandoned when postmodernism took the place. I'm just an enthusiast for this stuff, but I guess the bottom line of New Sincerity is coming back to what actually postmodernism distanced and avoided by the means of irony - thrive for proximity and honesty.
Kasparas Varžinskas Oh cool, so I guess it fits my theory on truth :)
I'm a student photographer and lately I've been thinking alot about how philosophy has changed societies as it is the highest form of art (besides painting imo).
Greeks and Romans had truth in the mind, what you could think of was true. This is reflected in their myths and art, truth was an ideal.
After that, especially in the middle ages, truth became a fatalism or sheer acceptance: the Lord had written your path and there was no way you could change it. If you were born a farmer you shouldn't dream of becoming a scientist. In art it kinda shows people just the way they are, those denying their fate die and the rich are being portrayed as the only ones that matter for they are denizens of God. Modernists saw at truth as a construction because of industrialization, Cartier-Bresson is a good example who mixes construction (framing) and fate (the decisive moment) to show this change of thinking.
However after WWII truth became a product, you could buy truth with a tv. Make-up changed your appearance, we have come to the point that truth is so fake we don't even know if we'll ever find it. We're blinded by the light, it has become too bright so we choose to hide behind small screens that only show small rays of truth, only a filtered truth.
Sorry for the long text but I believe this is what drives humans and always will drive us for living until tomorrow: a search for truth. A search for actual enlightenment. If you ask me, it can only come from experience and the memories out of those. Lemme know what you think :)
I think the third season had some of the show's best episodes. "Digital Estate Planning" is my all-time favorite.
Man that show went downhill. Dan harmon getting fired is equal to, if not worse than the cancellation of firefly. As far as cinematic calamities go.
Luckily he came back :D
this is the ONLY thing, or at least the first, that helped me fully grasp what postmodernism is for my cultural studies class, thank you so much PBS!!! (i have seen the show but i would've understood this anyhow)
this aged well
It is definitely A masterpiece. Let's not put it in any other box tho🤷🏻♂️ let's just say its something special
You showed 'Infinite Jest', some people list Wallace as 'post-post-modernism'. Welcome to the 21st century, it's hilarious
For me, shows that come on when I go to sleep or wake up on the channels I like to watch will be unexpected pots of gold. Community, Seinfeld, some of the many shows I have discovered by waking up and it simply being on my TV.
I didn't know the lyrics of Community's theme song until I watched this video.
Took me ages to find actually make out what they were saying
I think Dan Harmon's show on cartoon network's adult swim(Rick and Morty) is more of the post modern masterpiece that we should watch. In a sense, it's actually just like this show. It deals with problem of existentialism and cosmic conception.
My brain
I kind of always saw it like the average dad vs the average step dad. The dad isn't always the best dad, but he tries his best to teach you and help you grow. The step dad, in trying to impress you and make you like him, he throws goodies your way and doesn't exactly let you earn your gifts.
I still have no idea what post modernism means.
+Zenith Wills no one does, it's impossible to define as it is a series of somewhat truths as opposed to an absolute truth :D
+Zenith Wills I call it a generational bandwagon full of limelight seeking philosophers and drunks exploiting the past.
+Greg Washington Is it ok if I quote you in my thesis?
I'm just super excited that you did an entire video about community :)
Community is so streets ahead.
Season six will be streets behind then.....
Living in England, I'd never even heard of 'community' before this. I then proceeded to watch the first episode, which then led me to watch every episode in a couple of days. And it was brilliant.
Forgive my ignorance, but postmodernism sounds sort of like deconstruction with a focus on being critical.
well, i guess it IS.
I love how Community's genius is being recognized. You can often almost hear some of Jeff or Abed's lines being spoken by the theorists you learn about in contemporary theory classes.
If there really is no objective truth then the statement "objective truth does not exist" would then be an objectively true statement but if an objectively true statement exist in the universe then that would make the statement "objective truth does not exist" wrong, but if it is wrong then no objective truth in the universe exists thus making the statement "objective truth does not exist" objectively true. I have just created a logic that proves then disproves itself simultaneously, a paradox. since paradoxes cannot exist there must exist some objective truths in the universe and the statement "objective truth does not exist" must be completely false.
Im agree to disagree...
That bring us to the question: Nicolas Cage - good or bad?
Migue Lo Easy, Paradox. We're on the same side here.
Migue Lo It's "Let's agree to disagree."
The statement "objective truth does not exist" would be a subjective opinion, if someone said "Brahman is the god of all creation" it may be true to that person; however someone else might say "Brahman does not exist" which would also be true for the person believing it, thus truth is subjective. Absolute truth is unknowable, because one would need to be omniscient in order to know truth from untruth.The concept of truth is contingent on mind, without mind there is no truth and therefore no objectivity.
I like that someone does a breakdown and analysis of Community, cause it's a very clever show. That being said, I do disagree that Community is a postmodern show for two reasons:
1. Community is more concerned with meta-fiction than postmodernism and not all meta-fiction is postmodern. In fact it predates post-modernism thousands of year, including works of Plato, 1001 Nights, Cervantes, Shakespeare and many more.
2. Not everything that doubts reality or objectivity is postmodern. That kind of doubt or perhaps even disdain for objectivity is an important part of postmodernism, but it does not have a copyright to it.
Overall, great video, mate!
You are completely wrong with ur understanding of what postmodern is.
Community thank fucking god is not a postmodern art.
And it is very, very good.
OnSergLine Then, pray tell, what is postmodernism? I like his definition just fine.
Honestly, I think it's more meta-modernist than anything else. Episodes like Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons parody old-school Christmas episodes and fantasy, but the characters grow and change through these parodies, sometimes in service of pretty interesting themes. Hell, he former episode's thene is about the importance of giving things meaning even when they don't intrinsically have any, and the show's best episodes add meaning to its post-modernist deconstructions. It's a lot like BoJack Horseman in that way: it's an exploration of how to find meaning in a world that doesn't have any.
Meh, I really dislike the postmodern worldview. It results in ultimately not being able to say anything.
I mean, if there were no truth, nothing could be discussed, because there would be no way to know whether the other even understands a single word you're saying. "You can test it", you could say, but would your results be true?
Anyway, I refuse to believe that there is no objective truth. It might be impossible to know all of it and people might see different parts of it, but it must be there.
As an aside, I also dislike the elephant simily (the one with three blind people touching an elephant and claiming it is like a snake/wall/tree depending on what part they're touching), because the people using that simily usually use it to claim that some conflicting views (religions, for example) are actually describing the same thing and thus the person using the simily is essentially insinuating that they can see but others are blind. Who are they to claim that it's one "animal" and not two or three different things, when they themselves are just as "blind" as everyone else?
joelproko I think you can, you just need to embrace the idea that no one cares about what you have to say. It's kind of liberating when you think about it. I mean, look at Ulysees.
Bradley Bradley But that's speaking to empty air, not a discussion.
+joelproko You are absolutely right. You can't prove that anybody can understand anything of what you are saying - which contradicts the definition of truth, or not? (by the way, you can look at the 'chinese room' thought experiment, which tackles this problem a bit, but within an other context [turing-test]). And that is kinda the point: real, universal truth can't be proven. Even science acknowledges that.
+Sigma Which is where I think the importance of truth arises in its existence as a cultural aspiration, rather than a physical reality, What I mean by this is that while Truth may not technically exist, the concept of truth can be highly motivating--motivation which is necessary for any kind of high-quality thinking, discussing, and indeed, culture. What happens when people stop aspiring to truth is that the quality of their thinking and argumentation deteriorates, and with that deterioration, we lose the capacity the capacity to think, account for variables and so. So, while truth might be impossible, the belief in truth is necessary to have anything resembling well...intelligence. Or, at least, intelligent thought. The philosopher Wittgenstein recognized this when he realized that aspiring to truth is the most important aspect of it--not whether you reach it or not.
YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!! I heart you idea channel. Once again you magically made a brilliantly awesome mini-lecture of some of the most interesting ideas from my college courses. Where do you find the time to compile all those photos and gifs that are random yet oh so perfect everytime?!
BRONYS AREN'T A PROBLEM!!! THEIR A BLESSING.... ALL GLORY TO THE NEW LUNAR EMPIRE AND PRINCESS LUNA!!!!
Community is just amazing at showing how even though we put ourselves, and each other into categories (religion, lifestyle, etc) you really cannot define someone by these categories. Being an Atheist doesn't mean we hate religion and being a nerd doesn't mean we're bad at sports.
That comment about Glee? Pretty snobby. Seems to me to be contradictory to the sort of anti-elistism/freedom post-modernism represents. And I don't even like Glee
***** How is what I said snobby?
Yup, really snobby - elitism
RosesFall
I took the crack about Glee as a reference to Community more than anything else, as one of their running jokes is bashing the "glee club", which in itself is the community writers taking a shot at the show Glee since it was one of their direct competitors.
oh no he's snobby, somebody do something
Glee is garbage
You used jacksfilms' twilight jacob I'm so happy
It's bracingly postmodern, not necessarily a masterpiece.
I was already sold the moment you use "Dean" as a pun.
Watching this in2018 community still awesome and am rewatching it
I have to say, the first one of these videos I watched, I was kinda put off by you. It could have been the rapid speech, or the way you moved your head around all the content put up in the back, but now. I just... I don't know, I mean...I think this is the coolest UA-cam channel around. It's my goto, gotta-kill-eight-minutes kinda place. And I thank you for that.
I LOVE the Arcade Fire album in the back :D
"A joke really requires a hidden ground of grievance, for which the joke is only a figure sitting out front." Marshall Mcluhan.
you killed it, dude. community is now a show about community.
A major of theme of Community is that truth is relative but life is fleeting. In many episodes cynicism morphs into circumstances which bring the group closer together. Such as the Cabin Pen episode and the Inspector Spacetime Con episode. In many ways the rallying cry of community is to break from meta-narratives in order to live fuller lives. Making Community remarkably different from other post-modern media which revels in its lampooning rather than strike against the meta-narrative.
Community would not have been the same without the existence of Arrested Development, especially since they have some directors in common.
Katie York Wrong, It would still exist without air.
I think the commentary on Let's chips also plays into the postmodern theme of the show, considering they're in EVERYTHING.
Liam Dryden also did an A Capella cover of the Community theme! (Which is linked in his video that is linked here, ironically enough!)
My whole shebang with the whole situation is that community is not the only show that employs meta narratives and self-referential post-modernist yadda yadda yadda, but it is the only one that does so *lovingly*, and in doing so, holds up a mirror to the audience reminding them that yes, the narratives we use to construct reality may be light as air, but we still keep coming back to them because they make us happy. A show about a make-shift dysfunctional family makes us very happy.
Even though subscription isn't a meta-narrative, the idea that I should only reject meta-narratives is a meta-narrative (one I've chosen to reject in fact) so I could reject subscription. As UA-cam's subscription interface gets closer to "here is what our AI thinks you should watch" and further from "here are your subscriptions these ones have updates you haven't seen", I continue to consider doing just that. However subscribing does seem to be a feedback mechanism by which I can let creators know I like their stuff and the world seems to be a loss right now for both a decent RSS reader and a decent way to get RSS feeds from UA-cam Channels so I'll conform for now.
I took a break from watching Community to go on UA-cam. This is what I found. I cannot escape it.
I feel validated when you link to videos I've already seen ...
I love this channel so much, but I must admit that some things/references go right over my head. BUT! This just makes me want to consume more creative works etc. so thank you so so much! I love this, and I live for this kind of thing.
I think Community isn't trying to hard to be anything. Watching it I just feel that everything comes from a really organic place. It may be post modern but it isn't all intellectual it has some real heart to it as well. That's why I love it.
A reviewer once said something along the lines of "season 2 of Community is about television in general, season 3 is about Community and season 4 looks like it's just going to be about Community's wikipedia page."
Community is the best tv show ever! This video is streets ahead!
Each episode of Community is like a mini movie. No other comedy- hell, even most dramas- can create a story each episode that can show genuine characterization and examine the basis of human interaction and how each of us can be flawed and yet learn to love not only each other but ourselves.
And all of this while being funny as hell.
I think Community just shows you that not everyone is as they seem. The cover doesn't define the person underneath. An old man who isn't full of hatred and racist remarks, a lawyer who isn't a non compassionate person with no morals, a jock who can be nerdy, etc. It shows that with the right friends who support you through anything, you can become a better person.
That was a really good Dean impression.
I definitely think Community is PostModern, I feel like it delves further though into an area of PostPostModernism/MetaModernism. I think the episode Paradigms of Human Memory is a good example. The scene that comes to mind is the Annie Jeff shipping scene, a direct homage to a UA-cam video Harmon saw. Already we have a parody homage based on an homage to a show. Harmon pays homage to an homage of his show. Then takes it a step further by parodying his homage with the Pierce and Abed ship. A parody of an homage of an homage to an original. The added absurdity is that this is a flashback episode, so we assume all seven of them are remembering all of the exact same moments between Jeff and Annie, along with close ups and the same Sara Bareillis song, as each other. The depth to that show is insane, and I think that's one example of many, that could prove Community's PostPost/MetaModernism.
I think you nailed it with your comment about Community being built on contradictions, the biggest of which is the contradiction of a show that dissects, remixes, and examines our culture to an almost clinical degree and still finds it full of goodness and good intentions (epitomized by Jeff's S3 finale speech… "I'm lying when I say there is no truth…")
I love the constant post-modern references throughout the video.
Community is sort of like this weird paradox world where Parody, Deconstruction, and Reconstruction come together in the most self-aware way possible. It acknowledges the things it makes references to, but those things happen in its world as well.
Oh god, that Dean voice is friggin' heavenly...
Season four may have started out with some rough patches but "Community" is almost entirely back on track now. After the episodes "Herstory of Dance" and "Intro to Felt Surrogacy," I wasn't that worried about the show anymore.
I really appreciate the tie to and break down of pomo here. Community is by far my favorite sitcom, partly because it is hilarious and also because of this exploration of expectation, and I think it is more than just a performance of disinterest. Even within pastiche episodes, Community asks us to identify with and see the complexity in each character/situation serving the particular pastiche as well as the season's story arc. It is not simply "us laughing at them" (cough* Big Bang Theory).
I think one of the best examples of the postmodernist narrative in community is the theme of romance, not only in the episode "Romantic Expressionism" with the weird and creepy looks at the end, but also in the series as a whole. It seems to take the romantic interrelationships that drive the plot of most sitcoms and pokes fun at it through things like the characters not caring when they find out who's sleeping together.
OMG!!!! There was an Are You Being Served GIF and I just lost it!!!! Love that show and it made my day that it was referenced!!!
Community is perfect, it's just really underrated. It's been almost cancelled 3 times now and they're in their fourth season. The only time I've ever seen any advertisements for it was during the actual show which defeats the purpose. UA-cam had ads for it at one point too, but no one pays attention to those and that's not even on tv. The show was suppose to start up in Oct, but instead it started a month or two ago so now all the holiday themed episodes are JUST being played. aoseildkfkd
I don't think I've ever read so long a comment before, but now I have a new book to find, thank you.
It all makes so much sense now!