Some would even say that we are in the Post-Post-Modernist phase, upon which and others history can cast humorous light. Around 1700, people began to question their traditions in the Enlightenment and instead believe Rationalism or Empiricism. Then they questioned the Enlightenment's focus on reason and evidence and therefore substituted emotion during the Romantic Era. Then Romanticism was questioned with Expressionism, which was questioned by Post-Expressionism, which was questioned with Modernism, which was questioned with Post-Modernism, which is questioned by Post-Post-Modernism! History seems to repeat itself.
Recently literature seems to have become a playground for people who would have become philosophers had their intuitions not hopelessly and hideously warped their minds. By circular reasoning, by tautology, by equivocation--by the might of gods!--they shoehorn texts into 'frameworks' or 'perspectives' to find 'deeper meaning'. Worse, however much frustration this movement causes me, these lunatics hunt two or three layers of abstraction down in texts proselytize or propagandize, e.g., Animal Farm and miss allegories that are as clear as caricature.
For an example of this hyper-analysis consider Born on the Fourth of July, wherein a boy learns religion and nationalism from his culture and mother, who sexually represses and hits him, and then fights in the Vietnam War, during which he loses his penis and control of his lower body. He returns with PTSD that his experiences had caused and self medicates with alcohol: after a night of drinking he returns, furious at his country and mother. He screams that he will never have sex or children or even masturbate, that his culture "made [him] go" to Vietnam, and that he no longer believes in a God. She weeps with humiliation, first hitting him over the head and later telling him that he can't say "penis" in their house. A critic asked why he was so angry.
Erm... he lost his penis, control of his lower body, faith in his God and country; regrets having gone to war, and must now live with and love a woman who is the sum of everything that he despises and greatly encouraged his going to war (wherein he accidentally killed innocent civilians and one of his comrades). I would guess that he can hardly handle the trauma, hatred, stress, and cognitive dissonance and therefore lashes out in anger. Allegorically, he could represent the naivete of the young, and she could represent the Old Regime and culture; thus interpreted, the movie is a leftist masterpiece.
Whereas she shoehorned our lesson on identity and gender onto (and thereby trivialized) the work by claiming that he no longer knows what is expected of him and cannot see whether he is an adult, child, male, or female due to the loss of his genitals. This claim lacks evidence: he never complains about expectations or even mentions his gender or age identity. She tried to integrate post-modernism by some bizarre sleight of hand regarding lighting, basic inferences about mirrors enabling someone to 'see themselves,' and derived categorical critical imperatives from a single example.
I can't go on. I hate post-modernism and its hideous children. Works of fiction are not essays: they are products of the imagination to be enjoyed and savored.
-Duxwing
