Post Class Blog- Jameson

I was really intrigued and almost stuck on the concept presented by Jameson that “pastiche eclipses parody” on page 415 of his work The culture logic of late capitalism. This idea is most evidently seen to me as present within cinema. Much like how I discussed in class this is seen in films like Quinten Tarantino’s Once upon a time in Hollywood and Damian Chazelle’s LaLa Land. Both films jump from a scene that looks identical to the 1950s and then skips to the 1980s, or even midwest in the early eighteen hundreds then jumps to the 1970s in the very next frame. These films show a “bricolage” or eclectic sense of time, space, style, technologies, and linguistic references. Leaving the viewer guessing and piecing together what they see and relate to prior texts or representations of the timeframes referenced in these films. Personally having seen both of these films and not able to fully connect which parts of each film to an entire place and time I felt this sense of confusion mixed with the nostalgia for a time I didn’t exist within. I was not alive in the eighteen hundreds, the 1950s, 1960s, or 1970s, yet, from my own consumption of previous cultural texts from those times, I am able to intertextually connect to certain objects, style, or technology. Yet, not as accurate as someone who may have actually lived during that cultural time. 

On this same thought, the idea of style again comes into play. I for one am almost notoriously known for liking, wearing, and representing a large range of different “styles.” This is directly reflecting this same logic of late capitalism that Jameson is offering in this text. The fact that some days I want to dress with inspiration from the 1970s and other days drawing inspiration from the early 2000s and the like I am borrowing and combining aspects of all to give me a bricolage of my own personal expression through style. A true postmodern logic of expression, observed in myself. 

Instead of doing a playful representation of a time period in the past, combining a variety of different time periods is what these films really embody. Jameson’s theories on the cultural logic of late capitalism seem to directly fit in the representations that these films utilize.