SIMULATED REALITIES AND DIGITAL IDENTITIES: A POSTMODERN ANALYSIS OF THE FILM LOGOUT (2025)

Abstract

This study examines the postmodern literary features of the Indian film Logout (2025) that were used with an emphasis on such major themes as hyperreality, pastiche, intertextuality, and fragmentation. The theoretical frameworks of Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson, Julia Kristeva, and Linda Hutcheon are employed to critique the portrayal of authenticity, digital identities, and commodification of cultural identity as the elements of influencer culture, online performances in this qualitative research. The paper presents a close reading of five textually thematically important scenes of the film, and it analyses its visual language, narrative and aesthetic choices, that disrupt the traditional style of telling stories on the screen and erase the border between the real and the fake. According to the results, Logout criticizes the internet culture by demonstrating the fragmentation and inauthenticity of personae presented online, where the ancient and traditional cultures are appropriated and commercialized in the digital world. The nonlinear story as presented in the film is an indication of the fragmented existence in modern digital life whereas intertextuality and ironic contrasts is an indication of postmodern fear of originality and meaning in the digital era. The study sheds light on the interrelation among technology, identity, and narrative in contemporary film and has a model to interdisciplinary studies in media, culture, and digital communications in terms of how truth and identity reflect dynamic modifications in digital media.