Review — Done The Impossible

Posted on by
Reply

Once upon a time, there was a show called Firefly.  It had fan-favorite Joss Whedon at the helm and a distinct view of the future, a western-flavored future that wasn’t about the people in the shiny organized space ships.  Instead, it focused on the people on the edge, misfits and outcasts.

It was plagued from nearly the beginning by interference from executives, and was canceled in less than a season.

But the fans were not done with the world of Firefly, nor were those involved in its creation.

Done the Impossible is a documentary that tells the story of the Firefly/Serenity-verse, through the lens of fans of the ‘verse.  The documentary is not for the unitiated, instead, it is itself a work of fandom, a gift from a team of Firefly fans (Browncoats) to the community.  With narrations from fans, cast & crew, Done the Impossible talks about the show, the time between Firefly and Serenity, and then the arrival of the film.

In years past, I’d thought that a combined ethnographic/cultural studies analysis of Browncoats would make a good book-lenth project.  I still do, as Done the Impossible has not already done that work.  I’m not very involved with Firefly fandom myself — I watched the series the first time around and told my friends, then sent my DVD set to make its way throughout my friends groups.  But I did not partake in much if any of the intense and highly active grassroots campaigning and guerilla marketing that is discussed in the film.  In this case, I would have the positionality of being one of ‘the Browncoats’ without being as much of an insider as with other groups.

Firefly fandom is intriguing in that we can look at it and confidently say that it was the fans’ efforts which led to the creation of Serenity.  Creator Joss Whedon repeated a line from the series at the first of the Serenity early screenings:

“We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty.”

The line is the source of the documentary’s title, and has become a rallying cry for Browncoats, a reminder of the power of guerilla marketing and grassroots fan activity.

There have been ‘Save my favorite show’ campaigns before, but while the Browncoats’ efforts didn’t bring back the show on TV, since its cancellation, Firefly has had two comic series, a tabletop role-playing game line, a major motion picture, and continues to have a strong and active fan-base.  Browncoats continue to host ‘shindigs’ and other events, sharing their passion of a show that like its namesake, shone brightly, went dim, and then shone again just as briefly.

Don’t look to Done the Impossible for an introduction to Firefly, or even as an ethnographic work explicating fandom in general.  It is a specialized work done from within a fan community for that fan community.  If you’re already one of the flock, then pull out your Browncoat, pour some Mudder’s Milk, and join in the geek-fest.

Another, post-review note, about positionality:   There are many ways to be a fan within a community, different degrees of engagement.  To use Firefly as an example — there are people who watched Firefly and liked it.  There are people who consider themselves fans, but don’t necessarily identify with the Browncoat movement.  Then there are any number of different levels and types of involvement within the Browncoats, from fan-fiction to convention organizing to costuming to fan art to role-playing games to podcasting to guerilla marketing and more.  These people are all members of the fan community to different degrees.  There are a lot of ways to be a fan, within one fandom and across many fandoms.  This becomes readily evident at any general convention, where fans move between groups to share their passion for shows, games, films, comics, and more.

For a fan-scholar, you’re never going to be as into everything as the people you interview/work with.  I may be able to speak most of the dialects of geek (video gamer, comics geek, anime otaku, role-player), but in any given situation, I can’t assume I know more about a fandom than anyone I’m talking to.  They get to exercise mastery of knowledge as a result of their involvement, and in turn, I exercise my status as a scholar and serve to represent fans to members of another community, that of the scholars (who may or may not be fans).  Scholarship in fan studies has always been in an interesting state, given that there are well-established and vibrant fan scholars who may not have the same academic credentials but do similar work.

Questions of power, authority, agency and positionality are never far from any ethnographic study, even moreso in fan studies and media studies.  Scholars are accountable to the public and should always be aware of their cultural power — even though we are a part of the panopticon like everyone else.

Dollhouse “Target” — This is more like it.

Posted on by
1

Dollhouse’s second episode (third if you count the ill-fated pilot, which since I haven’t seen it, I’m not) “Target” guest-stars “The Middleman” Matt Kesslar as a hardcore outdoorsmen/hunter who engages Echo to be his Perfect Outdorswoman Girlfriend who he rafts with, climbs with, teaches to shoot, sleeps with, then chases across the wilderness trying to kill her.

“Target” was a great improvement over “Ghost” for me, and while it was just as packed as the pilot, it flowed better, was less over-burdened by exposition, despite the fact that it featured Boyd (Echo’s handler)’s introduction to the Dollhouse and explained what happened to Alpha, presumably the first of the Actives in the Dollhouse (given that the Dolls named sofar follow the NATO phonetic alphabet — Alpha, Echo, Sierra).

There’s some creepy-touching bonding between Echo and Boyd, as well as quickly moving towards the ‘Echo’s multiple lives smashing together’ point, which for Alpha was called a ‘Composite Event’ also known as Very Bad.

The episode had more Whedon-esque dialogue, like Topher’s quip to Langdon — Anything for you. Because I love you. Deep, deep man love.”

Or Not-Middleman’s “Is this the best date ever, or what?”

“Target” also features a welcome move with Agent Ballard investigating the events of “Ghost” — if Echo’s assignments become Ballard’s bread-crumb trail, the events of previous episodes stay relevant rather than being one-off engagements that are forgotten once Echo’s memories are wiped.  By having both Ballard and Langdon as POV characters on the series while Echo lacks subjectivity/self-awareness, we get a variety of views on the Dollhouse and the lives of Actives — Boyd’s already forged a personal connection with Echo (which I’d argue goes beyond the individual person she became for the episode, as she’s already compositing and going beyond the personality matrix she’s been programmed with).

The recurring theme of Echo’s adventures on assigment involve overcoming victimization and finding inner strength, which I imagine will be shown as a resurgence of Caroline’s personality or the center for Echo’s emergent individuation.

“Target” gives me more hope for Dollhouse from a critical standpoint, though the premise is still very tricky and much of Whedon’s trademark patter and cleverness is subdued moreso than in Firefly or others.  And even if it does manage to deliver more consistently, I’m not sure it’ll last past the initial order ratings-wise.

We shall see.

TED talk “Siftables”

Posted on by
Reply

A colleague of mine liked me to a TED presentation by David Merrill of the MIT Media lab. He shows and examines a digital media interface technology called “Siftables”

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/457

This is going to be huge for tactile learners. Merrill refers to children with building blocks, and the metaphor is great for capturing the possibilities. Instead of sliding scales or clicking toggles, changing settings becomes a question of rotation, tilt, and relational positioning. Replacing the point-and-click cursor with a multiple, spatially manipulate-able interface of the Siftables will not only be amazing for tactile learners, but continues the trend of bringing the digitial world and the embodied world together into one.

From the instant tactile calculators to the word games for in-classroom use or a game to be enjoyed at home, to the Siftable-to-screen interactions with the open-ended storytelling possibilities (imagine using these Siftables for Role-Playing Games, with each character as a group of Siftables, items and spells and modifiers, relating to one another in space to map tactical movement and more), this technology pushes human-computer interface along a similar line to the iPhone or the Nintendo Wii — remember what each of those has done for their field, and then we have a good idea of the ways that Siftables can develop the nature of our interactions with the computers that surround us.

I look forward to seeing more from this design concept, and hope that they make their way into the education world to offer a wider variety of learning tools.

Escape From City-17 Part One

Posted on by
Reply

The Purchase Brothers have released the first episode of a Half-Life 2 fan video Escape From City-17.

Episode 1:

Now that you’ve watched it — here’s the really impressive part — the first two episodes were made on $500. It’s a marvel how far you can get when people work for the love.

The video liberally uses effects and designs from the video game to great effect (which also serves to make the production cheaper) — the flatline sounds for the Combine Police, the gun FX, and re-works the computer effects of the tripods and Combine ships.

We’ve seen only a bit of characterization so far, but the premise provides more than enough narrative momentum for now.

Escape From City-17 is one of a growing number of professional-level fan videos which, through new media outlets such as YouTube, serve as a training and proving ground for up-and-coming directors/animators/actors. It’s a formula already proven by Felicia Day’s The Guild, LonelyGirl15, etc. Escape From City-17 is additionally impressive due to the effects involved. Rather than having to move to LA (or an equivalent film center–I’m going to speak from a USA perspective) and spend years trying to break in, creators can make their own works, distribute and advertise via YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, etc., and some of them break through. The chance of success may not be any better than breaking in by going to LA, but the opportunity cost is much less, as it doesn’t force creators to up-root and move across the country/world.

This is only the first episode, so we have more coming. The Purchase Brothers have already been in contact with Valve, so I imagine we will see much more from this team.

Review — Coraline (film)

Posted on by
Reply

Coraline is adapted from the Hugo-winning Neil Gaiman novella (illustrated by Dave McKean) and directed by Henry Selick, who directed The Nightmare Before Christmas. It is advertised as the first stop-motion film created for 3-D.

The voice acting is strong, meshing well with the character modeling chosen for the film version.  The film makes a few changes from the novella, most notably in adding a companion character for Coraline, Wybie Lovat.  Wybie provides some exposition that contextualizes the events at the house, and is part of the film adaptation’s efforts to flesh out the story into a shapen and scope that fits the medium and the time (111 minutes).

If you don’t know the novella, here’s a short synopsis:

Coraline Jones is an inquisitive, curious explorer of a nine year old girl.  She and her family have moved into an apartment in an old house in the country, but is ignored by her parents, who are both writers.  In the film, her parents are up against a deadline, which accounts for their distaction.

After exploring the house and the environs, she finds, inside the house, a door to nowhere.  The door leads to a mirror of her apartment, but with her ‘Other Mother,’ who looks the same except for black buttons as her eyes.  As Coraline’s visits to the world of the Other Mother continue, the wonderous turns to the delightfully creepy, as Selick and his team build on Gaiman’s surrealist vision to deliver a story that is tight, symbolicaly rich but never confusing.

To speak more about the voice talent — Dakota Fanning gives the right balance of youth, curiosity and spunk for Coraline, Teri Hatcher plays from distracted to warm to terrifying as the Mother/Other Mother, and John Hodgeman puts in a great supporting performance as the Father/Other Father.

Coraline is one of a sadly few film adaptations of novels/textual works where the adaptation both adds to the original work while doing justice to its source material.  Selick’s film Coraline gives a visual/auditory experience which enriches the textual experience of Gaiman (and McKean, if you have the illustrations)’s novella.  A viewer can easily appreciate the film version without having read the book, as did my sister.

The film is currently playing in 3-D for a limited time, and I highly recommend that everyone take the chance to see it in 3-D.  Unlike “Chuck vs. The Third Dimension,” Coraline makes striking use of the 3-D technology, enhancing critical emotional moments and providing texture for the film.  The 3-D provides a depth of field, makes the high-emotion moments ‘pop,’ and creates an overall more visceral experience.

Dollhouse — “Ghost”

Posted on by
1

“Ghost” was not the original pilot for Dollhouse, Joss Whedon’s new show on FOX.  Like Firefly before it, Fox asked Whedon and Mutant Enemy to produce a new, more accessible pilot than the first one delivered.

Dollhouse is centered on a business known to urban legend as the Dollhouse, a business that can offer clients an Active, a companion/servant/lover/etc. with any skills, any personality, any memories needed for the situation.  In “Ghost,” the Active called Echo (Eliza Dushku) is at first a 21st-century Cinderella, the perfect woman for a weekend-long, no-strings love affair for one client, and then becomes a by-the-book hostage negotiator for another client.  Between her ‘engagements,’ Echo lives in the Dollhouse as a childlike tabula rasa, unaware of what happens when she ‘goes to sleep.’

Olivia Williams plays Adelle DeWitt, the owner/operator of the Dollhouse business.  She speaks of the organization as being one that helps people, but tries to keep the business side above all else.  Her tools of control over the Actives include Topher Brink (Fran Kranz), who programs the Actives, and Dr. Claire Saunders, the staff Doctor for the Actives.  Echo’s handler in the field, there to take her to her assignments, protect her there, and bring her back is former policeman Boyd Langdon (Harry Lennix).

One of the questions I’d had leading up to the premiere was if and to what degree the show would address the lives of the “actives” before they signed on with the Dollhouse.  “Ghost” does just that, opening with Echo (before she becomes Echo) in conversation with DeWitt.  DeWitt is offering Not-Yet-Echo a five-year contract as an Active, and promises that when the term is over, the organization will help clear up the Vague But Important trouble that Not-Yet-Echo has gotten herself into.

Providing a counter-point narrative is Agent Paul Ballard (Battlestar Galactica’s Tamoh “Helo” Penikett), who has been assigned to the Dollhouse case for the last 14 months.  Ballard has bent and broken the rules chasing the Dollhouse, which has drawn the ire of his immediate superiors — however, it’s made clear that someone high up in the organization believes in the Dollhouse, since Ballard is kept on the case.  Ballard tracks and confronts Victor, one of the other actives (played by Enver Gjokaj).  The Actives know nothing of their special nature or the Dollhouse while they are being ‘engaged,’ which stymies Ballard’s efforts.

The premise makes for a show that pushes the normal boundaries of the episodic drama.  Not only will there be a new problem and new guest-stars every week, Echo will be a different character each episode, spending most of her time not as Echo, but as the person her client needs her to be.

The show’s momentum is built off of the fact that Echo begins to remember flashes from between engagements and from her time in the Dollhouse.   The first of these memories is seeing a new Active called Sierra (Dichen Lachman) in intense pain as her original memories are being wiped. Echo’s growing self-awareness and memory will allow the engagements to retain ongoing meaning, but the show faces the problem that in any given episode, a classic “What happened last episode stays in last episode” effect will occur, one that tends to bespeak lazy writing.  This problem cannot have eluded Whedon and the creative team for the show, but it remains to be seen if audiences will respond positively to this unusual format.

Fortunately, there is more than enough eye candy to go around, for everyone.  Between Dushku, Penikett, Lachman, Gjokaj, Williams, et al, the pretty doesn’t stop.

The thematic center of the show is well-established by Not-Yet-Echo’s comments to a video yearbook being played in front of a mysterious character in “Ghost”‘s tag — Not-Yet-Echo is a recent graduate with her whole life in front of her.  She wants to be every person, travel to every place, have every experience.  We’re asked to think that while no ‘normal’ person can actually have every experience or be all of the people they want to be, as Echo she can.  The irony there is that in order to become every person, have every experience, she has to give up her own identity, her sense of self.  Whedon has explicitly said that the show also focuses on objectification, the way that we make other people into who we need them to be rather than who they are.  The Dolls are ‘perfect’ objects in that way, until of course the perfection breaks down and the object achieves/reclaims subjectivity outside of their ‘engagements’

At that time, the memories building up and Echo may either remember who she was before or build a new sense of self.  Will she spark the same reactions in Victor and Sierra?  How will her chemistry with Ballard feed into this growth, where Echo is a different person every time she and Ballard meet?  What did Not-Yet-Echo do to get in so much trouble?  What happened to the people surrounding the mystery man watching Not-Yet-Echo’s video?  There are a lot of dramatic questions established right away, which should give viewers more reasons to keep watching week to week, as answers get doled out in a manner probably reminiscent of LOST, Battlestar Galactica and the other top contemporary dramas.

The show’s initial order was nine episodes, two of which seem to be taken up by the shelved pilot.  Whedon has had bad luck with FOX, a network notorious for cancelling beloved shows.  It remains to be seen if Dollhouse will survive long enough for its answers to unfold.  Tune in to find out.

Powers Coming to FX

Posted on by
Reply

Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming’s graphic novel series Powers will be coming to FX, as announced at NYC Comic Con.

Being on cable will allow a bit more of the gritty noir-ish-ness that is part-and-parcel with the series.  I hope this makes it to the screen in a form that does justice to the original series.  The series is a fine choice for a TV adaptation, given that it comes from a genre mash that bridges media. (Supers are to Comics as Crime Procedurals are to TV)

Movie Mini-Reviews

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been both ill and snowed-in this week.  Therefore, I’ve seen a few movies of late.  Here are some short thoughts.

Blue State ( 2007 ) Breckin Meyer is Bleeding Heart Liberal John, who promises on TV that he’ll move to Canada if Kerry loses the 2004 election.  He is joined by Anna Paquin as the cute but guarded Chloe.  John is more than a bit preachy, but luckily Meyer carries it off well — he’s annoying about his views, but in the disbelieving desperate way, that gets explained well throughout the film, and it captures the disbelief and despair of the time.  Anna Paquin plays cute but world-weary rather than falling into a Garden State-esque Manic Pixie Dream Girl role which is so common for romantic comedies.

100 Girls ( 2000 ) — Tries to examine the conflicting cultural factors surrounding gender in a feminist age, dating, and love.  College freshman Matthew (Jonathan Tucker) is trapped in a dark elevator of a girl’s dormitory and meets/sleeps with the ‘love of his life.’  In the morning, he is left with only a piece of her underwear.  Matthew spends the year trying to re-connect with the girl, learning and discussing with the camera topics like feminism, masculinity, gender, dating and love.   The discussions of gender and love make this more of a meta-romantic comedy, examining the process and the biases as the story plays out.  The end product is laudable for its effort if not the execution.

Kung Fu Panda ( 2008 ) Jack Black is the voice of Po, a panda who has grown up on legends of kung fu, but is stuck working at the family soup restaurant.  Meanwhile, Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) eagerly awaits the appointing of the Dragon Warrior, a prophesied hero who will be entrusted with the ultimate kung fu secret.  His students, the Furious Five (Tigress, Monkey, Viper, Mantis, Crane–the five animals of five animal kung-fu) vie for the honor and the burden of the role.  When Po is revealed as the Dragon Warrior, Po learns the difficult truth of Kung Fu and the other martial artists re-think their preconceptions as Tai Lung (former disciple of Shifu) escapes his prison and returns for vengence and the Dragon Scroll.  Kung Fu Panda is a rare film that succeeds as both an Anthropomorphic Animal Comedy and a Kung Fu Movie.  Black is more lovable than annoying, and the moral lessons throughout are clear but not annoying.  An unexpected gem of a film.

The Dark Knight ( 2008 ) Christopher Nolan’s vision of Batman returns as Batman (Christopher Bale) is trapped in an escalating conflict between the Joker (Heath Ledger) and White Knight District Attourney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckart)–who is dating Bruce’s former beau Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal).  Dark and tense, emotional and psychological, Ledger and Nolan give us one of the all-time most compelling versions of The Joker.  The Joker, Dent, and Batman pull and push one another, vying for the fate and soul of Gotham.  One of the best films of the year, and one of the best if not the best superhero film of the decade.

Smart People ( 2008 ) Dennis Quaid is Professor Lawrence Wetherhold, curmudgeonly widower English professor at CMU.  Ellen Page (of Juno fame) is his too-perfect teenage daughter Vanessa.  Balancing out these two is Thomas Haden Church as Lawrence’s adopted brother Chuck.  Chuck tries to lighten his family up, while Dr. Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker), a former student of Wetherhold’s, tentatively makes advances.  Lawrence and Janet stumble through the early stages of romance while Chuck’s efforts to get Vanessa to loosen up escalate beyond his intent.  A contemplative study of people smart enough to be idiotic around other people and the more ‘normal’ people who love them.

Wristcutters: A Love Story ( 2006 ) Surprisingly uplifting for a story about the limbo-world where suicides go to live out some kind of purgatorial life.  Patrick Fugit is Zia, who kills himself after being dumped by his beloved Desiree (Leslie Bibb).  Zia is joined by his fellow suicide Eugene on a cross-country quest for Desiree, who Zia learns has ‘offed’ as well.  They are joined by Mikal (Shannyn Sossamon), who would be a Manic Pixie Dream Girl if the suicide-world weren’t one completely bereft of smiles.  A stealth/slipstream speculative fiction story about depression, suicide, and finding hope in the depth of darkness.

Gray Matters ( 2006 ) A Coming-Out story wrapped in a Romantic Comedy.  Sam and Gray Baldwin (Tom Cavanagh and Heather Graham) are a joined-at the hip duo, actually brother and sister.  When they make efforts to find love and distinct lives, Sam meets Charlie and the two have a whirlwind romance that goes from meeting to betrothal in one date.  Gray and Charlie get on swimmingly as well–too well in fact, as Gray realizes she’s fallen in love with Charlie as well.  The Romantic Comedy between Sam and Charlie is really just the inciting incident for Gray’s own story of self-discovery, as she comes out to herself and then her family, learning to find the balance between maintaining her close relationship with her brother but also searching for love on her own.   More than a little cheesy, and mostly un-nuanced in its depiction of lesbianism, but it is one of many small steps towards normalizing GLBTQ culture in the US — Gray’s homosexuality is never condemned, but accepted by her family, work, and therapist — the conflict for Gray is with her own doubt, and in the confusion and hurt feeling between her and her brother.

In the hopefully-not-too-distant future, I want to do a Ethnographic/Cultural Studies project on romantic comedies and how members of Gen X/Gen Y use/are effected by Romantic Comedies in how they approach/consider love, gender, and romance.  This intention makes watching only-passable romantic comedies much easier/justifyable.

MFA Poet turned SF writer’s ‘Apology’ for going genre.

Posted on by
Reply

i09 linked to an essay by Science Fiction writer Alan DeNiro (who has an MFA in poetry), titled “Why I Write Science Fiction: An Apology.”

The essay itself is hosted at Bookspot Central.

Read both of those? Great. Here’s some analysis of the essay and the i09 commentary.

DeNiro’s MFA means that he has a serving of alphabet soup that serves as cultural capital in the ‘literary’ fiction world. But he’s also a graduate of the Clarion Writers Workshop (sister-workshop to the Clarion West Writers Workshop, of which I am a graduate), which grants him cultural capital in the speculative fiction world. DeNiro is a crossover writer, and by his own admission, writes in a mode that might be more accurately described as slipstream or interstitial. But he’s identifying as a science fiction writer, which means he’s on my radar.

Landscape as character — DeNiro talks about how in sf, landscape acts as a character unto itself. It does, sometimes literally as he says, but also figuratively. But setting/landscape is a character in any kind of fiction. Setting is, however, one of the major tools for commentary/speculation in fiction, often and sometimes expertly-used in science fiction/fantasy/horror/speculative fiction. The setting of Battlestar Galactica is clearly speculative, and much of the story’s drama comes out of the cultural, historical, and technological differences between that setting and our own world. But in another way, the stories of Battlestar are very familiar.

Literalization of the metaphor — The i09 article gives credit to DeNiro as follows:

[DeNiro] sets out a few building blocks of a new theory of appreciating science fiction. For example, he talks about the way in which science fiction turns the metaphorical into the real, and allows the author’s observations to become more vivid or heightened

The idea of SF as a literalization of the metaphor is not new to DeNiro.  Samuel R. Delaney established years ago that SF allows for the literalization of the metaphorical, and thus, that critical tool is already established in the SF scholarship community.  It is a valuable one, but not one new to DeNiro, though Delaney is already a member of the SF community embraced by the Academy.

DeNiro references Ursula LeGuin (another Literarily-accepted SF writer), who in an introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness said “I am not predicting, or prescribing. I am describing.” — SF does not need to predict the future when it can comment on the present.  Not all SF is written to that intent, but the conventions and possibilities of the genre allow for writers to bring in any number of strange elements to contextualize a story, create a setting, and create a narrative environment that allows for a persuasive and entertaining commentary on the world we live in.


Suvin and Cognitive Estrangement

SF critic Darko Suvin spoke of science fiction as a genre of cognitive estrangement. The difference between our world and the world(s) of Battlestar would be part of the estrangement, but it is matched, tempered by the commonalities, identifiable by cognition.

This interplay between cognition and estrangement can be seen as a continuum, with Cognition/Similarity on one end and Estrangement/Difference on the other. A story could be plotted on this continuum, identifying the balance between elements/aspects of the setting/story that are similar to our own experience and those which produce estrangement as we reach across a cognitive gap to understand those differences.

Some SF shows are more familiar/close to our own setting, things like the comic DMZ, Y: The Last Man, or PD James’ Children of Men.  Those kind of narratives make one extrapolation from our world and then examines the social/political/etc. results of a world with that change.  The audience is only asked to swallow one new thing (or Novum), be it a new American civil war, the end of human fertility, or a virus that kills male mammals.  The degree of estrangement is low, and readers can easily identify with the world (Much more Cognition than Estrangement)

On the other end are narratives where a great number of things are different, and readers cling to the elements that are the same as a way to understand that world.  This would cover New Weird stories like China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station, Jeff VenderMeer’s The City of Saints and Madmen, Post-Modern genre re-combinations like Astro City,  etc. In these worlds, the reader is asked to believe a great many things to immerse themselves in the story, like a world with a handful of unknown non-human species, magical-technological transmogrification as a tool of punishment, dream-eating monsters, etc. (Much more Estrangement than Cognition)  With High-Estrangement stories, the New Things (Nova) in the world create a mood and establish thematics, enter into a dialogue with established genre tropes, and more.  High-Estrangement stories can provide a high barrier to entry for readers, often requiring a wide knowledge of genre tropes to fully understand what is going on in a story.

The genre label of science fiction or speculative fiction applies to stories from throughout this continuum.  Stories with less Estrangement and more Cognition tend to be those more recognized by the Literary Establishment as Real Literature (Cormac MacCarthy’s The Road, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union).  This seems to be the kind of SF that DeNiro himself writes.  DeNiro also acknowledges the fact that valorizing one sub-section of fiction over others is foolish, but for all that DeNiro admits having ‘gone genre’, he seems to be more in the slipstream/magic realism area.

More important to me is the fact that the title of the essay is still ‘An Apology,’ assuming that one must apologize for writing speculative fiction if one is to maintain Literary Cred.  For all that SF has gained in recognition from the Academy, the acceptance seems to thus far extend mostly to the ‘more realistic’ High-Cognition, Low-Estrangement parts of SF.

I’m glad that writers are identifying the literary and ideological possibilities of SF, and pointing out that ‘realistic fiction’ is a oxymoron.  Each genre of fiction has its own qualities, possibilities and limitations, just as do genres of music, graphic art, dance, and more.  It is again telling though, that in this case DeNiro feels he must ‘apologise’ for it, though I agree with him in hoping that in a few decades or less, no one will have to apologise for choosing to write within any genre.

We Live in a Procedural World

Posted on by
2

Procedural dramas are hot in TV, and have been for quite a while. They deliver on a number of levels which make them attractive to viewers and to networks.

They tend to be deeply episodic, making drop-in viewing much easier for a casual or sporadic viewer. This increases their appeal to networks, as it increases the saleability of a show in terms of syndication and makes it less likely that a shows’ ratings will continually decay as viewers who miss an episode or two give up due to falling behind on the story (as is prone to happen on deeply serial, high-mythology shows like LOST, Battlestar Galactica, etc.

Procedurals also allow for characters to display a high level of mastery, such as Dr. House’s Holmes-like diagnostic prowess, or Monk’s OCD-derived attention to detail. There’s a satisfaction in narratives where a mystery (especially a violent or threatening one) is solved. It’s a reassurance that the people in these jobs, (doctors, lawyers, detectives, police, etc.) are competent in their jobs and that we can continue to trust them to protect and serve us.

Since the procedural is a popular and successful mode for television (as well as film and fiction), the ever-increasing number of procedurals produces a problem:

There’s only so many ways to investigate a crime within the normal bounds of the law in the USA. The CSI-style formula has propagated, and in recent years, we’ve seen a proliferation of Specilist procedurals.

Procedurals built around Specialists allow their shows to take a different approach to the procedural formula. House achieved this by being a medical procedural drama, where the criminals/culprits are diseases/injuries, and thus, the detectives are diagnosticians. Shows like The Mentalist, Fringe, Life, Lie to Me, Bones, Castle, and more each take a slightly different angle on criminal investigation, positioning one or more characters with specialist knowledge or methodology to keep the procedural formula fresh.

The Mentalist and Psych take a dramatic and comedic (respectively) approach by re-positioning a psychic as the specialist, relying on their advanced ability to read people and make intuitive leaps based on their training as ‘psychics’ (as neither characters are portrayed as possessing ‘real’ psychic powers). In Fringe, Walter Bishop’s Fringe science credentials allow him to solve mysterious deaths and circumstances propagated by ‘The Pattern’, a worldwide group of Fringe (aka Mad) Scientists. Bones features a forensic anthropologist who consults with federal agencies. Life‘s Charlie Crews is a police detective, but his stumbling efforts towards Zen Buddhism set him apart from a ‘standard’ TV detective. Lie to Me‘s specialist is an expert in the science/sociology/psychology of lying, allowing him to glean more information from suspects/informants than a standard detective. The upcoming show Castle features a mystery writer consulting and then accompanying a detective, using his experience writing mysteries to help solve them.

Of the recent specialist procedurals, a great many of them feature a male specialist and a female handler (Castle, Lie to Me, Life, Fringe, The Mentalist, etc.) This allows the shows to dodge the traditionally-expected arrangement of positioning a strong male character to ‘protect’ a female specialist (though shows like Bones keep to this model). Fringe‘s Olivia Dunham, Life‘s Dani Reese, The Mentalist‘s Teresa Lisbon, Castle‘s Stana Katic all serve one or both of two functions:

1) Protect the specialist (who is not necessarily trained to handle himself in-field). Some specialists are also-field trained, but even they require additional protection as a result of the times when their ‘weird-ness’ gets them into more trouble.
2) Provide a grounding/contextualizing force to the ‘weird’ specialist. The specialist-characters in these procedurals are often portrayed as being un-grounded or disassociated from the normal social world as a result of their special perspective on the world. Each show goes about this in a different way, and it’s not a universal. I’m merely drawing attention to a trend which has been identified in contemporary shows.

This Specialist–Handler arrangement provides a solid dramatic base for the shows, going back to shows like the X-Files (Mulder and Scully were both specialists in different areas, but Scully tended to play the ‘handler’ role more when Mulder went off on his conspiracy-chasing) and beyond.  The Handler character acts as a straight-man (or straight-woman in many cases) to the Specialist’s antics, acting as the audience’s stand-in, requiring an explanation or interpretation of the specialist’s arcane knowledge.  Dr. Cuddy is Dr. House’s handler, but so are the other fellows on his team.

Production companies will continue to use the specialist model to attempt to find space for their shows in an already-crowded procedural market.  Television viewers have seen decades worth of standard police procedurals, and this escalation into increasingly oddball specialists is an attempt to keep the lucrative procedural sub-genre fresh for viewers.  In the meantime, we as viewers have a wide variety of flavors of procedural to choose from to get our satisfaction in knowing that at the end of the hour, the criminal will be known even if they aren’t caught, and moreso than justice, mastery of knowledge will be achieved, allowing the specialist to sleep content in their ability and for us to retain our confidence in those specialists and the System which protects us.

At least, that seems to be the idea.