This is a post in appreciation of Mittell. His re-designation
of genre as a discursive formation rather than an internal property of texts provides
an elegant way out of the conundrums that have traditionally beset genre
studies. Since so much of genre theory has been formed within film studies and
then simply ported onto TV, I’ll take an example from the former that illustrates
the kinds of pitfalls that Mittell’s model can help us sidestep: Bordwell et al’s
notorious bumbling around the idea of film noir in The Classical Hollywood
Cinema (1985) where Bordwell infamously states: “What is film noir? Not a
genre” (77). Why does Bordwell say this? Because the characteristics of film
noir do not fit his model of classical Hollywood film genres. In fact, in a sentence
that reads as an affirmation of Mittell, Bordwell suggests that one reason noir
doesn’t ‘count’ as a genre is that “The term accretes meaning, or rather
meanings, only from the history of criticism,” (78). I offer this as an
instance of the kinds of arbitrary boundaries and bickering about definitions
that genre theory has traditionally stumbled over – and in the context of which
Mittel’s take comes as a breath of fresh air.
There is one more reason why I admire this essay, and that
has to do with the way in which Mittell deploys theory. His is an approach that
makes clear that the ‘point’ of theory is not to arrive at definitive answers, but
to make possible the asking of specific kinds of questions. So, his discursive
approach to genre allows us to ask questions centered around multiple cultural
sites and textual sources and to undertake studies that privilege breadth rather
than depth. Other kinds of questions are best asked within the framework of
other theories, via different methodologies. Mittell’s approach does not negate
competing views; it merely – and importantly – emphasizes the nature of theory
as a tool, a mode of questioning, that exists simultaneously alongside other
tools.
Tania, I similarly feel that Mittell's approach to genre is a breath of fresh air, especially in an age where any mainstream filmmaker's appeal to a genre's influence will send Film Twitter Boyz into a spiraling tizzy. At the same time, though, I remain sympathetic to systematic approaches to the uncovering, replicating, and/or revising of genre logics as productive of texts themselves. And, taking after Mittell's own pragmatic approach to theory, I would thus shift the point of departure from Foucault over to Deleuze. Both theorists were thoroughly indebted to Nietzsche's genealogical method, but whereas Foucault has often been criticized (at times, rightfully so) for failing to present any model for productive movement within (and beyond) prevailing discourses, Deleuze's entire project could be summarized as: the development of Nietzsche's critical project into a positive and speculative metaphysics. A proper Deleuzian continuation of Mittell's discursive approach to genre history would foreground a new question: when do genre discourses and genre texts shift beyond all recognition, into a space that is unrecognizable as exemplary of prevailing articulations but that nevertheless seems to generate new conceptions of genre as either an analytic or a particularity?
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