I know that most of the class is going to choose to write about Dollhouse in blogs this week, but I'm going to go in a bit of a different direction. I can't help it! Mittell's article "Narrative Complexity in Contemporary American Television" has me thinking about the world of TV theory that he proposes so much, and I want to put it into some more recent television settings for myself. Although Dollhouse has a number of elements of the narrative complexity that Mittell writes about, spending too long looking at just Dollhouse seems to limited a scope for me right now.
This feeling might be related to the fact that Mittell's theory is completely new to me, and when I say completely new, I mean that I have never considered my favorite shows like Buffy, Angel, Heroes, Firefly, Dollhouse, Criminal Minds, (this list can get long, but you get the idea) to have any real sort of value. In my mind, TV has always been a guilty pleasure, associated with the title "low culture," and therefor not something I should think of similar to the ways I would approach lit theory. Trying to limit my examinations to just one TV show seems equatable to having just learned what metaphor is and only looking at one of hundreds of books I've read to understand it.
One comfort I find in Mittell's piece is that he seems to really LOVE television. The benefit of this is that he is determined not to have an evaluative tone to his writing, but to be explorative of the medium's narrative techniques and styles. In this attempt he presents a way to examine television that is completely outside of the realm of "high culture" and "low culture" and all of the prejudice that goes along with those terms. Another common approach taken when examining television is to become concerned with the social commentary of the show, and while the social commentary is important, it's refreshing that Mittell wants to look at the structure of television narrative outside of that commentary as well. It's something completely new to me.
One of the features of complex narrative in television that Mittell focused on was the relationship between the episode and the serial arc storylines. It would seem that there are more and more television shows that adhere to the viewer demand for narrative that is both pleasing at the episode level as well as the serial level as well. Of course Buffy and Angel come to mind, but there’s also shows like Criminal Minds, where every week there’s a new serial killer to catch (episodic plot), but frequently there are main character based plot lines that run serially (Aaron Hotch’s relationship with his wife and son, as well as continued appearances of serial killers that threaten the team like George Foyet who kills Hotch’s wife).
I also found it interesting that Mittell discuss comedies and cartoon shows as belonging to the complex narrative category. Contrasting with dramas, in which it is desired for the episodic and serial plot to fit together, comedies frequently have episodic events that are completely dismissed by the next episode. Mittell points out that comedies will frequently point out and make fun of dramatic television’s drive “to return to equilibrium state”. I can’t help but think of Family Guy here, a show that prior to this I would have always tucked away into “low culture” and never discuss in an academic setting. However, Family Guy in many ways is manipulating standard narrative structures at all times. This manipulation is, as Mittell points out, what makes the show appealing for audiences, and fun.
Related to this genre are certain narrative elements that cause the viewer to become aware of the show at its narrative level. Mittell refers to these elements as narrative spectacle—the elements that (once the audience knows the rules of the show’s narrative structure) make the viewer question “how will they do this?” I thought of Heroes for this because the first season’s arc featured the prophesy of the exploding man, and the events of each episode were tied together around this event so that the audience was constantly wondering “how will we get there?” As well, the multiple characters’ plot lines of Heroes resulted in quite a narrative spectacle at the end of season one.
Overall, I think I’m just excited to explore more of my favorite TV shows for their narrative playings. Who would have ever thought that in one theoretical exercise I would ever put Criminal Minds, Family Guy, and Heroes together. Go figure.
I had a similar take on television as you did before reading the Mittell article (seeing it as low culture instead of high). After reading the article, I questioned why film is often privileged as "high culture" over television. Mittell even makes the point that when Whedon has to condense the rest of Firefly into a two hour movie, it loses something. I also liked Mittell's discussion of the need to balance episodic story telling within the arc of the larger story. This is an extremely hard thing to accomplish, and it's another testament to the undervalued complexities of television. As you mention, Mittell's love for television benefits his research. He reminds me of Henry Jenkins, who finds that fandom is extremely useful in building an engaging participatory culture. Like you said, social commentary and user interaction is only a part of analyzing television, but I think it's an important part. Television series requires dedicated viewing over a long period of time, and it builds your desire to think critically about the story and characters because of it.
ReplyDeleteI never thought much about "high" and "low" art of television, film, novel, and/or art. When people told me it was one or the other, I never questioned it because I thought it was their opinion and I had my own which is why I embraced most "high" and "low" culture. Like you, I found reading Mittell was refreshing because he reserved his judgement and just explored the subject of narrative complexity within television. Your blog post summed up most of my thoughts on the matter, except you wrote about "Criminal Minds" when I was thinking about "NCIS." There is still a lingering query that I have and maybe you have an opinion or might have caught something that I missed from reading Mittell: Do you think it's possible for reality shows to have narrative complexity? I was thinking of "America's Next Top Model." The narrative arc for the entire cycle is to find America's next top model, but each episode is still episodic because the judges have to eliminate a model. Not all reality shows fit this formula, like "Chopped" where four compete and three are eliminated and a winner is declared by the end of each episode.
ReplyDeleteI also thought Mittel's argument about how we view television as being more low brow as interesting, especially considered with how David Simon wants the view The Wire as more novelistic, because the novel is often considered more legitimate and high brow. This is particularly interesting because the novel wasn't always considered a high brow medium, so maybe our views of television will change/are changing as well.
ReplyDeleteWith episodic and serial narratives I also thought of the show Supernatural. I haven't watched it in a few seasons, but in the first two seasons many of the cases that the two main characters were solving are resolved in each episode. At the same time, there is the overarching story arc of finding the person/thing that killed the main character's mother, and their quest to get revenge. Often the clues in each individual case lead them further to finding revenge, making the show serial as well.
Culturally, it seems as though we've been trained to consider all television to be a guilty pleasure. It’s interesting that there was a time when most novels were thought of in the same way (not to say that there aren’t still guilty pleasure reads); now, however, with years of print-base literacy training the study of novels has been legitimatized. With classes like ENG 566 maybe we’ll live to see a day when digital literacy becomes a larger part of academia and narratively complex television becomes a key player within the humanities. Just nine weeks ago, I could never have imagined watching over 11 hours of television for a literature class and begin challenged by its complexity… Exciting times!
ReplyDeleteI definitely found the "high brow"/"low brow" topic elicited by Mittell to be an interesting perspective on viewing different television shows. While he argues Simon wants to label "The Wire" as a televised novel in order to elevate it above the lower brow programs, I wonder how categorizing high brown programs vs. low brow programs could work (aside from narrative complexity). While the novel was first viewed as a demeaning medium of telling a story to the masses, it has become the standard, accepted medium in which there is still argument over what constitutes the better texts from the lesser ones. If television emerges as an accepted form of storytelling (like the novel) then who will be in charge of labeling shows “classic” or “required” as we are systematically taught when it comes to literature?
ReplyDeleteI think games do this too-- to an extent-- that episodic/arc plotting. For instance, Final Fantasy VII-- it starts episodic. All you know is that you're a hired hand in a mission to blow up a Mako reactor with a terrorist/environmentalist group called AVALANCHE... and then the game slowly but surely reveals the true nature of the plot through other short-term goals/missions/episodes. And, over the course of the game, there are segments that reveal things about characters and their motivations/relationships, world history/background, how Shin-Ra plays its part in all of it, etc. There is that constant "How will they do this? How will they get there?" feeling from the player-- except the player is both audience and participant (without gameplay, the game doesn't progress... even though the overall story at the endgame is already pre-determined).
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