Q. How is WIR post modern?

Intertextual references in WIR:

Mario cart

Halo/Call of Duty

Pac Man

Fix it Felix

Q*bert

300 word micro essay

Wreck it Ralph breaks down structure, uses a lack of traditional ideas and has a lack of belief in human progress. WIR includes many intertextual references, such as Mario Cart, Halo, Call of Duty, Pac man, Fix it Felix and Q*bert, showing it is post modern. This is post modern, because in the post modernity age we have a lack of belief that we can create original ideas, so a bricolage or cultural recycling has to be built to create a new idea. The audience includes the mainstream young target audience because it is a Disney pixar film and their target audience is children, but also adults who lived through the 90's, because of the nostalgia of the familiar games they played as children, teens and adults. To the older audience the film is richer, because of these memories of these games, other members of the audience may see it as style over substance because of the way it looks 'retro'. WIR also uses some of Jameson's theory's, the text shows pastiche and parody, it pays homage to some of the games such as Fix it Felix, but parody to Q*bert in the way it shows the characters from that game comically.

Having all of these intertexual references means structure which were widely used in modernity are collapsing which is also making this text post modern. The genres of each reference are different, Halo is an action/shooter game whereas Wreck it Ralph is an arcade genre, as Ralph from Wreck it Ralph enters the Heros Duty these boundaries are literally blurring together to create a bricolage and a new idea. Disney usually create very modern texts, this one has to be post modern in order to relate to a wider audience, it also has added more context to the characters to relate and create more meaning this this older audience. Cowhorn has emotion and too is masculine(a post modern representation of gender), as do the rest of the characters, she looks back to her wedding day, characters of video games can't hold emotion but these can, making the film hyper real and a simulacra, following Baudrillard's post modern theories.

The film changes the way you see the text, it targets an older audience to a children cartoon film, by using intertextual references and creating a bricolage and giving the characters emotion so they become realistic. The lack of belief and collapsing of structures, makes this text post modern, yet there are still some ideas which are modern such as the nuclear family and patriotism. WIR also is traditional in the way it has a belief in religion, with the high angle and god like power, as the out of order sign is placed on the arcade machine. This goes against Lyotard's theory of their being a lack of belief in post modernity. Other scenes, such as when Cowhourne and Felix get married shows they have a belief in the nuclear family, again against Lyotard's theory. WIR is post modern in how it represents good vs evil, traditionally Ralph is evil because he is disruptive and he is also shown to be 'grouped' with other villains from other games. Shown in a counseling group, much like an alcoholics anonymous group. But this gets complicated, as this modern structure collapse, as Ralph helps Venvelope build her car and saves Felix. So this grand narrative is blurred in turns of the binary opposites of Good vs Evil.

Although there are a lot of modernist structures still, there are also a lot of post modernist points, but has Disney done this on purpose? I think they have in order to reach the larger audience. So yes WIR is a post modern text, because it wants to gain a larger and older target audience.