ts empirical triumph. Postmodernist philosophy accurately reflects and describes the state of the postmodern world, but it does not condemn that world, and even when it does it cannot explain what is wrong with the world. The Frankfurt School do and can." (Bad Subjects, Web page).The reason that postmodernism theory and debate seems to have come to the forefront is the very same reason that Jameson illustrated before: Cultural dominance.One film that helps illustrate postmodernism's dominance over Marxism is American Graffiti. The film is an example of postmodern pastiche, offering the audience a nostalgic film, while reinventing views of the past (Storey, 186). According to Jameson the nostalgic film is a desire for the "lost object of desire" that is America in the 1950s. American Graffiti is also a prime example of the emergence of the culture industry, as most of the characters are commodity or possession oriented (cars, women/men) and concerned with the American ideal of being the best. This of course represents Adorno's argument of the culture industry (commidification of culture). The postmodernism of the film however seems to over power these faint traces of the Frankfurt school. First of all, the film celebrates the rebel spirit of the American Youth; attributed to postmodernism. This was a shared spirit during the early seventies when the film was released,(Coppola, 1973) and can be attributed to postmodernism. We can be assured of this by the occurrences of demonstrations and riots that occurred in 1973, the last year of the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. Second, is the same protagonist's concern with his social image. While driving around in his hot rod with the young girl, the protagonist also starts to become nervous that someone might see him and tease him later on. The protagonist cares, not only about his own perception of self, but society's perception of him as well. This correlates to postmo...
