Postmodernism In Scott Pilgrim VS The World

In what ways can Scott Pilgrim be considered Postmodern?

Postmodernism is used in many different types of media, being music, music videos, television shows and films.  There are many films which I have seen which use postmodernism however Scott Pilgrim is very different from all of those.  It can be considered Postmodern in a variety of different ways and the one main way it is Postmodern is the use of Intertextuality which has been put into the film.

There is many uses of intertextuality throughout the whole of ‘Scott Pilgrim VS The World’ which come from many different video games and TV shows which are made blatantly obvious to anyone who watches the film as there would be defiantly one thing which someone will spot in the film which they can say they have seen before somewhere else or will remind them of something they have played or seen.  At the opening of the film we see the Universal logo and soundtrack, however it has been changed to an 8 bit style of music and the graphics of the ‘earth’ on the logo has been reduced and immediately this foreshadows the film to be related to videogames as this use of 8 bit soundtrack has been taken from Mario games.  Whenever we see new characters in the film there appears a little black box stating their name and different little details which is like a character profile you would see in an action game and this gets the audience to see as well as hear who the person is in the film as they would in a video game so that they can get used to who they are and begin to decide whether to like them or not as the film goes on.  In a scene where Scott is urinating we see a ‘pee bar’ pop up in the corner, which begins to go down as he urinates to show him using up his wee, which is something seen in many video games when a ‘power up’ has been collected and then used to let the player know when they have used it all.  When Scott is hitting the first of the evils ex’s in their fight we see in the top corner a hit count which is seen in many fighting games and this has been used as it is a fight scene and it shows the characters as if they are part of a game themselves as well as the ‘VS’ which comes onto the screen when the two characters are about to fight which is an intertextual reference to martial arts fighting games such as ‘Mortal Kombat’.  As the second ex leaves his Winnebago we hear the Universal soundtrack play in the background and this is a reference to the film as it is Universal itself but also because the second ex is a film star and is on a movie set so it is kind of a pastiche to actors as the film producers have had this as the characters ‘entrance music’ so to speak.  Games such as Pokémon and Dragon ball Z are referenced when Scott and Lee are running towards each other as we see the backgrounds of the two characters as like fast moving flashes of light with a base colour between them to show the characters as if they are running amazingly fast and almost at the speed of light to increase the tension of the fight that is about to begin as this is used in a similar way in Pokémon when a battle is going on.  When Knives hears about Scott once dating Envy her face goes into shock and then instantly changes to a shock face emoticon which is a reference to MSN, Facebook and other computer software which enable people to chat with one another.  There is a good use of intertextuality when we see Envy’s boyfriend Todd Ingram who plays Superman in the latest Superman film and in Scott Pilgrim he has ‘Vegan powers’ which enable him to have superhuman powers which is a reference to Superman as well as when the Vegan police come to take away his powers for abusing his Veganality, they point green laser lights at him which are a reference to vegetables and also kryptonite which is also green and is superman’s weakness in the Superman films and so some people find this very amusing as it is like the film features Superman.  There are also intertextual references to comic books in the film where in many of the scenes we see words appear on the screen which kind of speak the sounds we are hearing for example when the door bell rings we see a big ‘Ding Dong’ appear on screen which is in a similar font and style of a comic book, because if you were to pause the film when this appears you can easily see in the shot that the doorbell is being rung and this can be easily understood if it was put into a comic book if someone was to read it.  There is also the use of this in fighting scenes where when Scott is fighting Mathew Perry, we see a big ‘KPOK’ which is used to again describe the sound that is heard which is Scott deflecting Matthew’s punch. 

The film also uses irony at parts for example when ‘The Clash At Demonhead’ are playing their song the lead singers first words are ‘Hello, hello, friend of a friend’ which is ironic as this girl is Scott’s ex girlfriend and she is singing it towards him and so having this song choice is ironic.

In one of the scenes when Scott and Ramona kiss there is a sound played which is a crowd going ‘awe’ which plays homage to any US sitcom where there would be a live audience watching and this scene is romantic for the characters so having the crowd pay in the background is un usual for a film but at the same time understandable for what is going on and is also like a foreshadowing as viewers are now expecting to hear more of a crowd again in the film.  As the scene moves to Wallace’s flat we hear Seinfeld Sitcom music being played which is an iconic US soundtrack and it gets the audience involved as if they were now briefly watching a sitcom from the way in which the movie soundtracks Scott’s actions with audio cues ripped right from the sitcom including the laughter track.

The film uses Bricolage for example when the fight scenes are taking place we see the characters as if they were part of a fighting game and then we have the comic book text put on screen when punches and blows are made which has mixed up both of these so that the audience can feel as if they are both watching a game being played and seeing a comic book.  The whole film itself therefore can be considered Bricolage as almost every scene uses conventions which would not normally go together in a film like comic books and video games in the fighting scenes and also black boxes appearing on screen which are put in after and the characters aren’t meant to see them, detailing what is in a room and who everyone is.

For all of these reasons I feel Scott Pilgrim can be considered Postmodern as there is a lot of intertextual references throughout the whole of the film as well as Bricolage, homage, pastiches and irony and all of these things are part of Postmodernism and many reject Modernism when used in the film.