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The term postmodern has been gratuitously splattered about more times than Rocky’s face but ask someone to give
you a definition and you may be met with a chilly stare and gritted teeth. Richard Smith has found the perfect
example to tell you everything you need to know about postmodernism – The Mighty Boosh.
It seems that we media folk love to bathe
in postmodern paradise with its intertextual
delights and its playful self-referencing (we’ll
move on to those momentarily) but we rarely
have any examples that go beyond a Tarantino
production or Craven’s over-analysed Scream
(1996). What we forget is that the perfect
playground for postmodern television is within
the realms of the situation comedy: this is where
the imagination can run riot without the massive
financial loss from a possible failure.
Postmodernism defies easy definition;
dictionaries do not do it justice but it generally
comprises of a set of core ideas and key concepts
that work collaboratively to shape it. The more
of these ideas and concepts it embellishes, the
more of a postmodern text it becomes. Enter
The Mighty Boosh (BBC, 2004): two zoo keepers,
one owner, one shaman and a gorilla. The BBC3-
born surrealist sitcom gives Spaced (C4, 1999)
a run for its postmodern money with plots
revolving around trips to monkey hell, a granny
of death and kangaroo boxing to name but a
few. In an attempt to define the Boosh’s playful
postmodern form, let’s consider some of the
factors involved.
1. Eclecticism
A wide range of influences,
contributions and techniques
Take your personal DVD collection. Being
media enthusiasts, I could almost guarantee
you have a wide variety of genres, directors,
mainstream movies and independent movies.
This eclectic mix of taste shines through
postmodernism: an array of identifiable
influences are used to the extent that you
can never quite pin down the one genre it is
committed to. The Boosh slide from Fantasy
(‘Welcome to mirror world!’) to Eighties Pop (‘I
am electro boy...’); from Science Fiction (‘I come
fully equipped with a papoose!’) to Romantic
Comedy (‘Her teeth are like hard, shiny, pegs of
cream’.).
Eclecticism also shines through the varied
characters they portray and the range of musical
styles they adopt. Put simply: you just never
know what you are going to get.
english and media centre | February 2008 | MediaMagazine 7
MM23S&G13.02.08.indd 7 14/2/08 12:30:03
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