Re-Narrate
16 January 2004
A loosely structured talk about more or less random
encounters with the idea of narrative
by Kirsten Strom
I. Porn: Linda Williams in her book Hard Core points out that
early porn or “stag” films consisted entirely of
“meat” and “money” shots with no apparent
aspirations toward narrative. This is true of the early “cinema
of attractions” in general, but it seems especially interesting
to note that even porn films eventually seem to mandate some form of
storytelling. The reason why it is particularly intriguing is the very
fact that these films generally handle narrative so poorly, so
unconvincingly, and yet it is still basically taken for granted that
some form of plot stringing together the sex numbers is a requisite
component. This leads some to speculate that narrative is itself
inherently pleasurable, and that humans have an innate desire for it.
II. Mythologies: While it is rather un-post-modern
to argue that anything is essential or inherent to human
“nature,” it does seem to be basically true that more or
less every culture has constructed some sort of mythology for itself,
and usually these mythologies assume a narrative form. The purpose of
these storytelling myths is generally to explain or make sense of those
things in the world that are deemed otherwise inexplicable. The
structure of a narrative, then, which typically culminates in some sort
of conclusion, offers a sense of closure that affirms our desire to
believe we live in a world in that makes sense, and that indeed we can
master the world by making sense of it.
III. Star Wars: What interests me about the new
Star Wars films (apart from how terrible they are) is that we all know
the outcome at the start: everybody knows that what’s-his-name is
going to become Darth Vader, that he will father Luke Skywalker, etc.
So why does anyone see these films? This phenomenon suggests that we
have a desire for suspense, that does not necessarily need to be
expressed in the form of the ultimate outcome. It can also be
expressed in terms of discovering not what happens, but how it happens.
Either way, the effect is the same: we seek some form of closure; we
want answers to our questions.
IV. Freud: But Freud and his various followers
might argue that we need and crave the questions as much as the
answers, that suspense allows us a safe haven in which to rehearse our
anxieties in a context which poses no real threat to us. This again
affords us an opportunity to attain an ego-affirming illusion of
mastery, in that we have emotionally worked through the drama and
conflict of the story, and that upon its satisfactory conclusion, we
can feel affirmed in our will to believe that all is right with the
world.
V. Metahistory: Hayden White argues in his book Metahistory that the
expectations of narrative inform—if not distort—the way we
write histories, that our desire for elements such as
“conflict,” good guys and bad guys, morals, and
conclusions, all of which we basically expect from a good narrative,
causes us to manipulate history in order to make it fulfill these
expectations. This is a call to look critically at the idea of
narrative.
VI. Postmodernism and the critique of master
narratives: This call for criticality is developed further by
postmodern critics of the so-called Master Narrative, or
meta-narrative. This critique maintains that narratives have been used
not only to explain the world, but to justify iniquitous distributions
of power. François Lyotard, in particular, developed the idea
of the Master Narrative to describe self-serving cultural mythologies
that assert the righteousness of the highly subjective point of view of
those in power. A classic example of such a Master Narrative is the
idea of Manifest Destiny, developed in this country in the 19th century
to justify westward expansion through the perpetuation of the myth that
it was not only the right but the duty of the “white man”
to “settle” this continent from the Atlantic to the
Pacific. This myth obviously serves the interests of the European
settlers, and it is clearly no coincidence that it was constructed by
them in order to validate their interests. Manifest Destiny is not
merely a concept, but also a narrative in the sense that it implies
movement or duration in time; it’s “the story of how the
west was won.” Lyotard believes that post-modernism is
characterized by an increased ability to see through these Master
Narratives and to be more sensitive to the dangers of narrativizing the
world.
VII. This show: So ultimately, what I see in this
show is an articulation of a post-modern re-evaluation of the idea of
narrative. I see this being characterized by two major tendencies:
the first is the open-endedness of the narratives implied in these
images. They suggest storytelling possibilities without forcing a tidy
sense of closure, such as that characterizing most historical
narratives in Hayden White’s observation. Contrarily, these
images invite the viewer to be more active in experiencing narrative
and to embrace the possibility that not all ends will be neatly tied
up. A second trend that seems evident is a desire in the images to
reveal their own process, to show that they are made up of disparate
and even seemingly contradictory elements that might be coming from
journalism, comic books, high art reproductions, etc. In this sense
they are not aspiring to the status of a seamless mythic Master
Narrative, but instead they aspire only to be what might be termed
micronarratives, telling of one person’s more or less random
encounters with the world, without trying to assert the authority or
righteousness of their story over anyone else’s.
