Kat wrote:
"But on the whole, I'd rather be writing for the readers who
want more sophisticated, challenging material than is found
in the average TV sitcom."
Some, particularly Steve Johnson (in Everything Bad is Good
for You), argue that the average sitcom has become endangered
because of its simplicity, that more and more of today's
viewers, particularly in the younger demographics that
advertisers want, are seeking out denser narratives. They get
intratextual jokes like Art Vandalay on Seinfeld, follow all
of the threads in Sopranos, Lost or Wire, etc. Or try to
catch all of the "borrowings" in Tarantino films. Yes,
Johnson is sometimes guilty of comparing the current best to
the past worst, but that best is far more complicated
narratively and visually than ever before. Of course, whether
or not that also applies to readers of print is a whole other
question.
But I find it very hard to accept that the average reader,
even the average TV viewer is a passive consumer. For
instance, Virginia Radway's studies of readers of romance
novels proved they were very active in their reading, from
their choices of what to read to their discussions with other
fans, etc. And that was before the internet. Think of all of
the fan sites and fan forums for any kind of entertainment,
from sports to TV to comics to us here. Hardly seems passive
to me.
Mark
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 15 Nov 2007 EST