Postmodernism in Bob's Burgers

For this week, I watched Postmodernism in The Office as well as Postmodernism to get a better understanding of the first video. The Office video explains all of the postmodern elements present in the show. It covers how the show is considered postmodern because of how unique it was at the time it was created, and how it falls into a genre that's quite new (mockumentary). It also goes over how the show is hyperaware of popular culture inside the show, and makes references to things like The Apprentice and Battlestar Galactica. The other video also explained how for postmodernists, there is no true right or wrong, and truth can be many different things.

Elements of postmodernism can also be found in the animated TV show Bob's Burgers. For those that don't know, Bob's Burgers is about the Belchers, a family that owns a burger restaurant (called Bob's Burgers, hence the name of the show) and lives in the apartment above the restaurant. The family consists of the father, Bob, the mother, Linda, two daughters, Tina and Louise, and a son, Gene.

Firstly, the shows youngest child, Louise, wears a pink rabbit ear hat at all times (the only exception being one episode, where she loses her ears and spends the episode finding them). She even attends school while wearing the ears, and is almost never asked to remove them, and nobody questions why she wears them. This is a great example of what the (non-Office) Postmodernism video mentioned about how truth can have many different meanings. Louise wears her ears because she feels it's normal and right, even though nobody else is wearing them in the show.

The show, like The Office, is also hyperaware of real-life popular culture, often constructing entire episodes that parody various shows, movies, and other aspects of popular culture. Some examples include Season 3 Ep. 6 "The Deepening" (a Jaws parody), Season 5 Ep, 7 "Tina Taylor Soldier Spy" (a reference to the book and film Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy), as well as Season 4 Ep. 17 "The Equestranauts" (a parody of the "Brony" fandom). Though this isn't the first show to reference and parody popular culture (South Park was famous for doing this long before Bob's Burgers), it is still a great example of a show with many postmodernist elements.