Postmodernism & Pulp Fiction

Mary Kate Gowl

04/02/10

Artistic Movements

Professor Hammond

Postmodernism & Pulp Fiction

On initial viewing Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction is an array of visual and mental stimuli; a multi-faceted cult movie that has somehow made the difficult crossover to the mainstream, achieving widespread recognition both from audiences and the film industry itself. The picture's self-reflexivity, unconventional structure, and extensive use of respect and pastiche have led critics to describe it as a prime example of postmodern film. Considered by some critics a black comedy, the film is also frequently labeled a “neo-noir”. Critic Geoffrey O’Brien argues otherwise: “The old-time noir passions, the brooding melancholy and operatic death scenes, would be altogether out of place in the crisp and brightly lit wonderland that Tarantino conjures up. It is neither neo-noir nor a parody of noir”.

Postmodernism is a movement in the humanities characterized by denial of objective truth and global cultural narrative. It emphasizes the role of language, power relations, and motivations. In terms of rhetoric, postmodern philosophers examine texts in terms of the motives of the person making it. It emphasizes the role of language, and of power relations involved in being male (versus female), straight (versus gay), white (versus colored), and imperial (versus colonial). Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from modern approaches that had previously been dominant.

The thought of writer-director Quentin Tarantino's when he wrote Pulp Fiction was postmodernist. He presented the narrative out of sequence. It is structured around three distinct but interrelated storylines—in Tarantino's conception, mob hit man Vincent Vega is the lead of the first story, prizefighter Butch Coolidge is the lead of the second, and Vincent's fellow contract killer, Jules Winnfield, is the lead of the third. Although each storyline focuses on a different series of incidents, they connect and intersect in various ways. The film starts out with a diner hold-up staged by “Pumpkin” and “Honey Bunny”, then picks up the stories of Vincent, Jules, Butch, and several other important characters, including mob kingpin Marsellus Wallace, his wife, Mia, and underworld problem-solver Winston Wolf. It finally returns to where it began, in the diner: Vincent and Jules, who have stopped in for a bite, find themselves embroiled in the hold-up.

The three stories, 'Vincent Vega and Marcellus Wallace's Wife', 'The Gold Watch' and 'The Bonnie Situation' - encapsulated by what is perhaps best described as a preface and prologue at the very beginning and very end of the film. These are the metanarratives that Jean-Francois Lyotard speaks of when he speaks of postmodernism's “incredulity towards metanarratives”, and the narratives that Peter Barry refers to when he speaks of the shift away from ''grand narratives of ... human perfectibility towards metanarratives which are provisional, contingent, temporary ... and which provide a basis for the actions of specific groups in particular local circumstances”.

Pulp Fiction shows generic situations with moments of the everyday pervading the narrative fabric. In fact, in postmodern terms, what the text is offering is the fourth stage of Jean Baudrillard's 'four stages of real' - the hyper real. Stage one's concept of “real” is based on an appearance, hence appearing like a generic tale, whereas the fourth stage's hyper real presents the removing of this “appearance” - this generic content - and showing moments of trueness, or as Baudrillard refers to them, “simulacra”. This element of the hyper real is key to an understanding of Pulp Fiction, forming the hypothetical reason for structural, thematic and textual details.

Since the term postmodernism was first used in the 1870’s it has contradicted itself and its derivatives are widely applied. It is a category and a phenomenon in the analysis of contemporary culture. It can be seen in not only movies like Pulp Fiction but in music, architecture, and literature. The world of postmodernism, much like the world that Quentin Tarantino established in Pulp Fiction, is a place where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain.