Post-Modern Adverts

EE - Orange Wednesdays with Kevin Bacon (and Kevin Bacon, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Bacon....)

This advert combines the roles of the actor Kevin Bacon from several different films including Apollo 13 and Footloose, treating the characters as individual people, giving them the term 'bacons'. This generalisation and acceptance that the characters themselves are different beings, creates a hyper-real world, as we see the characters as one collective actor. The use of these characters, films and jokes surrounding the plotlines of the films make for an advert filled with intertextual references, paying homage to characters who aren't even featured such as 'Animal House Bacon'. Their trip to the cinema is presented in a hyper-real way also, as, we would never expect to see an astronaut sitting, raised above the seat eating popcorn, yet the rest of the audience acts as if nothing strange is happening.




Fox's Caffe Biscuits, presented by Vinnie the Panda

Not only is there a talking animated panda within the video, but he is also eating biscuits, it can be said this is weird for the sake of weird. The hyper-reality is that the world of the commercial accepts talking panda's and their plausibility. The Italian American twang featured in many gangster films such as The Godfather and the HBO series 'The Sopranos', implies the threat of violence, leaning on the stereotype of the accent, brought about by these texts. It can be argued that Fiske's theory of representation, means the accent is only seemingly threatening because of what we have witnessed in other texts.  Personally, I also think this has some relation to Kung Fu Panda, and although not drawing from it directly, the concept of a talking, eating panda links the two texts. 






Vodafone featuring Yoda

The main source of postmodernism within this advert is the use of the iconic character, Yoda. Taken from the Star Wars franchise, the 'jedi master' uses the same language, movement and power as he does within the original films; aka one MASSIVE intertextual reference. There isn't a clear link between Vodafone and Yoda, making the advert 'weirder' than necessary, a debatable feature of the postmodern style. Although as an audience we are aware of Yoda as a character, the 'world' within the advert can be seen as hyper-real; a place where it is normal for 'Yoda' to start talking to you as a real person, not as a film character.