Theorizing Stupid Media

De-Naturalizing Story Structures in the Cinematic, Televisual, and Videogames
1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-3-030-28178-6
Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 227 Seiten, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm, Gewicht: 316 g

This book explores the stupid as it manifests in media—the cinema, television and streamed content, and videogames. The stupid is theorized not as a pejorative term but to address media that “fails” to conform to established narrative conventions, often surfacing at evolutionary moments. The Transformers franchise is often dismissed as being stupid because its stylistic vernacular privileges kinetic qualities over conventional narration. Similarly, the stupid is often present in genre fails like mother!, or in instances of narrative dissonance—joyously in Adventure Time; more controversially in Gone Home— where a story “feels off” It also manifests in “ludonarrative dissonance” when gameplay and narrative seemingly run counter to one another in videogames like Undertale and Bioshock. This book is addressed to those interested in media that is quirky, spectacle-driven, or generally hard to place—stupid!

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hoxter, Julian

Kerner, Aaron

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmtheorie, Filmanalyse
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Populärkultur
• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Medienwissenschaften Medientheorie, Medienanalyse

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1.The Stupider the Better.- 2.The Stupid in the Contemporary Hollywood Vernacular: Spectacularly Stupid Transformers.- 3.The Stupid in Genre Fails.- 4.The Stupid as Narrative Dissonance.- 5.The Stupid as Ludonarrative Dissonance.- 6.Conclusion: Well That Was Stupid.

Über Autor(innen)

Aaron Michael Kerner is a Professor in the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University, USA. His previous publications include: Extreme Cinema (2016), Torture Porn in the Wake of 9/11 (2015), and Film and the Holocaust (2011).

Julian Hoxter is an Associate Professor in the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University, USA. His previous publications include: Off the Page: Screenwriting in the Era of Media Convergence (2017), Screenwriting (Behind the Silver Screen Series Book 8) (2014). He has published two screenwriting textbooks.