Postmodernism Signs in TV Cartoons (A Semiotic Analysis of Four Foreign-made Cartoons)

Postmodernism is said to be a subjective and idealist thought emerging in the late 20th century in enlightened cycles. However, due to the idealism implied in it, this school of thought did not realize in social realities and, hence, started to fade. The present article uses a semiotic analysis of four TV cartoons belonging to two different era, i.e. 1970 and the following decades, to propose that the impact of postmodernism’s various dimensions on cultural products is much more than the perceived extent. The new cartoons, as a category of cultural products addressing children, are full of postmodernism implications including ultra-narrations, essence-rejecting, reality denial, representation denial, subjectivity denial and fragmentation of identity. The final result of the analysis indicates that child has been transformed from an educational object in modern discourse into an entertainment subject in postmodern discourse.