The way is the message
German
21 March 2008
Is enough of Espoilers!
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5 Comments Basta de Espoilers! 1,060 views 5 CommentsSince perspective one can study a series of television? When we read the places webs dedicated to the series, we realize that these (in his majority) devote themselves to do to themselves summaries of the chapters that have happened, spoilers of the chapters to come, theories dreamy or hit on the future development of the plot, news on the private or artistic life of the actors, the directors and producers, color notes on the fanaticism that wakes up the television or simply a heap of subjective appreciations that the only thing that they think about how to say, to shout him to the world, is the great thing that we like (or not) to sit down to see a certain history.
But what raisin with an objective, academic, scientific analysis on the series? It costs me encontar this type of studies in the web. Generally the study of the content is privileged for on that of the form, that of the structure. It is described instead of analyzing, is thought instead of studying. Generalmente se privilegia el estudio del contenido por sobre el de la forma, el de la estructura. Se describe en vez de analizar, se opina en vez de estudiar.
Marshall McLuhan, somewhere near the ends of ‘60, it supported the already famous phrase “Psychic is message”, the way is the message, to refer to a certain approach at the time of thinking the influence of the television and of the new mass media. According to this Canadian thinker the transmission channel (in this case the TV) affects the society much more than the content can do it. In this sense the real value of the message is extracted from the combination between message (content) and mass communication media (form). To explain it with a current example: what we say in a conversation for msn is influenced by the characteristics of this way of transmission. The way (msn) affects our communication; we are not going to say the same if we do it in a room of chat, in a window of msn, in a telephone conversation or in a sms. The way "helps" in the construction of the message. En ese sentido el verdadero valor del mensaje se extrae de la combinación entre mensaje (contenido) y medio de comunicación (forma). Para explicarlo con un ejemplo actual: lo que decimos en una conversación por msn está influenciado por las características de ese medio de transmisión. El medio (msn) afecta nuestra comunicación; no vamos a decir lo mismo si lo hacemos en una sala de chat, en una ventana de msn, en una conversación telefónica o en un sms. El medio “ayuda” en la construcción del mensaje.
The Mcluhan theory had his followers and his detractors but with them we will deal in another moment. We want to emphasize here the importance of the way, of the form, of the structure when we speak about the series. It is not enough (for our intention) in spite of saying (a) the great thing that we surprised (or not) the end of the episode 7 of Lost. It is not enough to discover either that (b) Sawyer was reading a book of Bioy Casares. It does not serve to try to discover (c) what the authors mean to us not (d) what means a polar bear (I know already, there are all extracted examples of Lost, but because there is in this moment one of the most popular series of the market). On the other hand we are going to prefer the following thing: No basta (para nuestro propósito) con decir (a) lo mucho que nos sorprendió (o no) el final del episodio 7 de Lost. No basta tampoco con descubrir que (b) Sawyer estaba leyendo un libro de Bioy Casares. No sirve intentar descubrir (c) lo que los autores nos quieren decir ni (d) lo que significa un oso polar (ya sé, son todos ejemplos sacados de Lost, pero porque es en este momento una de las series más populares del mercado). En cambio vamos a preferir lo siguiente:
a) to see how is life construído the chapter 7, to analyze his functioning;
b) comprehension as the appointment of “The invention of Morel” coincides with the horizon of expectations of the public;
c) to forget of what and to study how;
d) to understand that the existence of only one significance is impossible;
These are only some examples at random that point at the structural analysis of the television series. To carry out it we are going to take given to the literary theory some concepts and notions that will help us to develop our task. We are going to see (I wait for that) like some esthetic ideas caused in the field of the literature and of the art in general they can be applied to the television ambience. Small to little, perhaps (if some illustrious readership and annotators of this web want and time) we will be able to begin creating quite a proper conceptual network which mission will be to penetrate into the functioning of our favorite series. Vamos a ver (eso espero) como algunas ideas estéticas originadas en el área de la literatura y del arte en general pueden ser aplicadas al ámbito televisivo. Poquito a poco, quizá (si algunos ilustres lectores y comentadores de esta web tienen ganas y tiempo) podremos empezar a crear toda un red conceptual propia cuya misión será adentrarse en el funcionamiento de nuestras series preferidas.
This article serves this way as introduction and as preamble for the next notes that will appear in this section that we baptize Basting of descriptions and Basting of Espoilers!
(Not Ratings Yet)
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Dexter, social made body
When a series of television proposes different and contradictory interpretations, it opens polemics and unties passions it is because he is saying something to us on the social world in which we are immersed. He says something to us on our current societies and says something to who we are not another thing than the constituent knots of this social world. In Dexter the speech is done images that make us see, listen, think, in the reverse of the plot of what we call a social reality, putting to the overdraft the intricate simulacra that support the appearances on which the routine character is constructed. Dexter was not born like it is, it is neither a "genetic" error nor an abnormality relegated to the classifications of substantially differently. Dexter is not another thing than a product of the forms in which the subjects are fragmented, like the bodies, by a modernity questioned in his pretensions of universality. In my interpretation, Dexter constitutes a radical critical approach put in images, of the contemporary philosophical criticism about what it is a subject. And the perspective of this criticism focuses in the exclusive protagonist of the series that is the body. What is a body? What is what a body can? Who is this dark passenger that we all go inside? How does the social thing do body to itself? The reality is there, to the nude, but we cannot see her overwhelmed by the subjections that impose the acquired mental structures on us and across which we become "normal". Mental structures that are not another thing than built-in social structures. Dexter proposes a trip to us towards the dark areas of the modernity, and his principal merit is to show us that this darkness us is not foreign and that, in a lot of forms, this dark passenger who lives in Dexter is not what makes it different to any of us. We live in an aberrant society who simulates that the aberrations are out and Dexter, thinking and acting from that one out, it does not do another thing to show us that the trasgresión is not further away but any more here of the limit between the social reality and the Real thing. En Dexter el discurso está hecho imágenes que nos hacen ver, escuchar, pensar, en el revés de la trama de lo que llamamos realidad social, poniendo al descubierto los intrincados simulacros que sostienen las apariencias sobre las que está construida la cotidianeidad. Dexter no nació tal como es, no es un error “genético” ni una anormalidad relegada a las clasificaciones de lo sustancialmente diferente. Dexter no es otra cosa que un producto de las formas en que los sujetos son fragmentados, como los cuerpos, por una modernidad cuestionada en sus pretensiones de universalidad. En mi interpretación, Dexter constituye una radical aproximación crítica, puesta en imágenes, de la crítica filosófica contemporánea acerca de lo que es un sujeto. Y la perspectiva de esa crítica se enfoca en el protagonista excluyente de la serie que es el cuerpo. ¿Qué es un cuerpo? ¿Qué es lo que puede un cuerpo? ¿Quién es ese oscuro pasajero que todos llevamos dentro? ¿Cómo lo social se hace cuerpo? La realidad está allí, al desnudo, pero no podemos verla agobiados por las sujeciones que nos imponen las estructuras mentales adquiridas y a través de las cuales nos hacemos “normales”. Estructuras mentales que no son otra cosa que estructuras sociales in-corporadas. Dexter nos propone un viaje hacia las zonas oscuras de la modernidad, y su principal mérito es mostrarnos que esa oscuridad no nos es ajena y que, en muchas formas, ese oscuro pasajero que habita en Dexter no es lo que lo hace diferente a cualquiera de nosotros. Vivimos en una sociedad aberrante que simula que las aberraciones están afuera y Dexter, pensando y actuando desde ese afuera, no hace otra cosa que mostrarnos que la trasgresión no está más allá sino más acá del límite entre la realidad social y lo Real.
Luis Fanlo
Doctor of Social sciences and Sociologist (UBA)
26 March 2008 at 4:11 pm