Derrida and The Future of Complex Narrative Television Public
Woolley, Callum (2017)
Abstract
The school of thought known as deconstruction is conspicuous by its absence in film and media theory. This thesis applies the work of its chief proponent, the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, to a uniquely modern type of text: complex narrative television. This paradigm brings to light, among other features, the structural apparatus working beneath a text - often bearing a technique known as the operational aesthetic. The operational aesthetic identifies textual structures; deconstruction uses textual structures to uncover meaning in a text. How can deconstructivist concepts be used to interpret complex narrative television, and what does an analysis reveal? This thesis employs the operational aesthetic in concert with Derrida's logocentrism - the notion that there exists a hierarchy in language between speech and writing. Using the Netflix series, House of Cards, as a base text, Chapter 1 addresses specific moments in the show in which the narrative of speech and writing "betray" or invert themselves. Chapter 2 examines the show's trademark 'direct address' technique used across episodes or seasons which I argue, like individual moments, exposes a chasm in the narrative between speech and writing. My conclusion draws briefly on further televisual complex narrative texts and situates the analysis in the previous sections within a pattern that I argue is occurring throughout much of modern complex television. Overall, I demonstrate that deconstruction as applied to an audiovisual text yields a greater understanding of the term 'narrative complexity' and the ways in which the paradigm is evolving.
Table of Contents
TABLE OF FIGURES - i
INTRODUCTION:
Toward a Deconstruction of Speech and Writing in Complex Narrative Television - 1
CHAPTER 1:
Micro: Logocentrism and the Letter - 21
CHAPTER 2:
Macro: Textuality and the Direct Address - 51
CONCLUSION:
Meta: Deconstruction and Complex Narrative Television - 75
BIBLIOGRAPHY - 96
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