Is Community A Postmodern Masterpiece? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios

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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:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0u_rKqqzFY
Vice - 3D Printing Guns Documentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DconsfGsXyA
The Jobs Act - CROWDFUNDING
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr3606enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr3606enr.pdf

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
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PostModernism
http://scrawledinwax.com/2010/04/05/lady-gaga-community-and-the-thing-that-comes-after-postmodernism/

Music:
Roglok: http://vimeo.com/musicstore/track/21166
Level 5: Room for the Homeless http://www.jamendo.com/en/list/a101325/level-5
Clockwork - Titan (geometry remix) https://soundcloud.com/wompworthy/clockwork-titan-geometry-remix
Chiptune - Kenzalol https://soundcloud.com/chiptune/kenzalol

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