Vids and the technical definition of narrative: addendum

[tishaturk]

In the comments to my previous post on narrative, cryptoxin raised some really thoughtful questions which prompted me to start clarifying my thinking on a couple of points. I'm reproducing the questions and (slightly edited and expanded versions of) my answers here for my own reference.

Are you saying here that all vids are narratives -- or at least can be read/viewed as narratives -- from a narrative theory perspective, including ones that wouldn't be classified as narrative vids under fannish vidding genre terms?

I think so, yeah--I mean, I think that's the implication of what I'm saying. Maybe one way to think about it is that when we use narrative in the vidding genre we're usually thinking about plot, whereas the narrative theory perspective lets us think about it in terms of narration--maybe this is why the idea that the camera and the music do so much of the narrating really struck me. Vids don't have to worry about story, because the story is already there in the source, to be borrowed or subverted or undone; vids are not meant to stand alone. I mean, obviously they do get encountered that way, in the same way that one can read Wide Sargasso Sea without having read Jane Eyre--and can even get something out of it!--but historically, vids are just not BUILT for that.

I think this raises the larger question, actually, of where or to what extent narrativity inheres in a text. How much pattern does the text have to provide in order for the audience to find a narrative in it?

If not all vids count or function as narratology-style narratives, what would constitute a non-narrative vid in narratological terms -- or does narrative theory have a limit point beyond which X is no longer a narrative? Or are vids necessarily entwined with narrative, even when they're not (in fannish vidding genre terms) narrative vids, because of their relation to the narratives of their sources?

Narrative theory does have a limit point beyond which X is no longer a narrative, because if there isn't a limit point then the term becomes useless--there's nothing from which to differentiate it. We just disagree about where that limit point is and what it's based on.

I think this is where Ryan's idea of a fuzzy-set or scalar definition gets really useful. There are plenty of non-narrative texts out there, but I'm not sure that there are non-narrative vids, in the narrative theory sense. Vids are so inextricably bound up with narrative source that from a theoretical perspective they can't entirely un-narrativize, to coin a really appalling neologism. Though I'm not entirely sure how much of that is in the vid itself and how much is in the vid's rhetorical situation: The audience knows the source, which has a narrative component; the audience watches the vid with that narrative component overlaid on the vid. And if I'm right in the original post, that's as it should be: "meanings emerge in the space...between the show's narrative and the vid's narrative."

Even if we don't know the source material, we know that there is source material; the transformation of that material is the whole point of vidding. We assume that that source material has a narrative, and we spend at least some of our energy trying to reconstruct that narrative based on the clues (we think) the vid is giving us. (As cryptoxin points out, this is what makes strangefandom so interesting.)

This is not to say that all vids work in exactly the same way, however. Some vids FEEL more like narratives than others, which is a really imprecise but not unimportant point. I mean, thinking about the genre sense of the word, we'd get broad "yes, that's a narrative" consensus about some vids and have disagreements about others--I've seen that before, where a vidder thinks of her vid as non-narrative but a viewer found a narrative in it. So it makes sense to me that in the narrative theory definition, too, we might have some vids that are intuitively or paradigmatically narrative and then we'd have some that are more marginal or further along the continuum.

And for that matter, would all of the songs that vidders use also be considered narratives, or only certain kinds of songs with lyrics that tell or imply a story?

My sense is that songs wouldn't all be considered narratives, no--they're part of the narration, part of the discourse; in the context of a vid, the song is just one piece of the larger narrative. But of course, as the question suggests, some songs are narratives, in the way that some (but not all) poems are narratives. I would hypothesize that the extent to which a song is a narrative by itself is one of the things that most strongly affects our perception of narrative as a vid genre: if the song tells a story, that helps us (forces us?) to interpret the images as a story.

Comments

[millylicious.livejournal.com]

[songs are] part of the narration, part of the discourse; in the context of a vid, the song is just one piece of the larger narrative

That's exactly my take on it. This is why, if you have to vidders using the same song to the same subject, you will not have the same vids - elements will be similar, yes, but the whole will be different. This is truly because the vidder interprets the song just as much as they do the video source. Not everyone will react to a storyline the same way, or read it the same way, and the same can be said for a song. Certain lyrics will resonate more, some will make connections that some other will not.

This especially becomes true when vidders stray away from the literal narrative of the song - then pieces of lyrics can be interpreted as metaphors and from there, the vidder's own personality, personal experience and personal take on things becomes a much bigger factor in the narrative than the song does.

I don't want to put words in other people's mouth, so I'll use one of my own vids as example. In my Claire (Heroes) vid, Displaced (http://millylicious.livejournal.com/266985.html), the intent from the start was to have a narrative that would compare Claire's experiences with her power to the idea of cutting in teenage girls. This was before I found the song and I had to find a song that would fit my narrative. Is the song more of a narrative than my own personal narrative then?

When you looks at the lyrics, the song isn't literally about cutting. I used the song as a metaphor for cutting, especially this piece of lyric:

And she's my friend of all friends
She is still here, when everyone's gone
She doesn't have to say a thing
We'll just keep laughing all night long
All night long


It's hard here to say that the song is the narrative, because while it is the vid's voice, the combinations of scenes and the editing there pushes the narrative onto the song. Had I used the same song in a different context, the narrative would be completely different.

To me, a song definitely is part of a wider and complex narrative; it is the vid's voice, but it only becomes so in the sense that the vidder allows it to become the voice. A vid that uses an instrumental with no lyrics can have a narrative, there the shifts in tone, speed and volume will be the voice of the vid, key elements of the narrative.

[tishaturk.livejournal.com]

I'm really interested in what you're saying about song choice here!

I had to find a song that would fit my narrative. Is the song more of a narrative than my own personal narrative then?

I'm always fascinated by vidders who find songs to fit ideas. There's always a back-and-forth between song and idea, I think. Most vidders I've seen write about the song choice process begin a vid because ideas are sparked by a particular song--but I would guess the song struck them because on some level they were already interested in vidding a particular show or character or theme. But I've certainly seen plenty of instances of vidders who wanted a particular thing and went looking for it, and in that case, it does seem that the vidder is conceptualizing the relationship between her own narration and the song's narration in a slightly different way, whether or not the audience ever knows about it.

A vid that uses an instrumental with no lyrics can have a narrative, there the shifts in tone, speed and volume will be the voice of the vid, key elements of the narrative.

Absolutely--and I think the same can even be said of instrumental sections within a song that has lyrics. But one thing that can be either freeing or terrifying about instrumentals is that the narrative is likely to be much less specific--more about emotion or mood--and thus the vidder has more flexibility in how or whether she maps the song to specific story elements of the show. Whereas vidders often choose non-instrumental songs because the lyrics can be connected--however metaphorically--to her interpretation of a storyline or character. The lyrics you quote from "Displaced" are a terrific example of this: the song's not about cutting, as you say, but the line that "she's still here when everyone's gone" can be turned into a metaphor. This is another way of thinking about why the song is not in a narrative on its own: the song adds meaning to the vid, but the meaning it adds is to some extent (though never entirely) under the vidder's control.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of fuzzy-set definition – isn’t there a linguistic theory that all natural definitions of words are like that? Something to do with the way that we learn definitions as children, which isn’t by reading them up in dictionaries but by hearing particular words associated with any number of similar but not identical things and drawing conclusions from that about their meaning/usage. Still it does feel as if one way to draw useful (but fuzzy) boundaries around a word like ‘narrative’ would be to look at what things on those boundaries might be of they aren’t narratives.

There are plenty of non-narrative texts out there, but I'm not sure that there are non-narrative vids, in the narrative theory sense. Vids are so inextricably bound up with narrative source that from a theoretical perspective they can't entirely un-narrativize, to coin a really appalling neologism.

Would non-narrative texts include critical analyses of narrative texts or would they be also narratives (being in the same way as vids inextricably bound up with a narrative source)? I’m thinking a little of the (possibly) opposing definition of vids as visual arguments. Can you narrate an argument? Or present one in narrative form? I’ve made vids that to my mind made arguments about their source but while creating that argument began by analyzing and breaking down (deconstructing?) the source, making the vid involved putting it all back together again. It feels as if calling a vid an argument might be a description of how it’s made while calling it a narrative is more of a description of what it is as a finished, complete (and open) whole. Does that make any sense?

[tishaturk.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the linguistic theory you mention, but that does make sense to me--words accumulate meaning and connotation through use. I know there are similar-sounding linguistic theories about the acquisition of grammatical structures.

Would non-narrative texts include critical analyses of narrative texts or would they be also narratives (being in the same way as vids inextricably bound up with a narrative source)?

In most cases (fuzzy set alert!) I think that written critical analyses of written narrative texts are not narratives. It's not that they can't be; it's just that usually they aren't. I can think of exceptions; Coetzee's Foe is, for my money, a brilliant instance of literary criticism in the form of a novel. But I do think that it's, well, exceptional.

Traditional literary criticism typically includes bits of the text under discussion; the author reproduces phrases or sentences or passages in order to read them closely. But a vid is actually built out of the original narrative, with a few other elements (like the song) layered into the mix. A critic articulates an interpretation for an audience; a vidder can't do that in quite the same way--she can only encourage the audience to co-construct interpretation with her. (This is where inexperienced viewers of vids start to have no idea what's going on, I think.) And this is part of why vids are tricky to talk about, because they routinely blur that line between narrative and analysis in a way that relatively few other texts do.

I’m thinking a little of the (possibly) opposing definition of vids as visual arguments. Can you narrate an argument? Or present one in narrative form?

It's absolutely possible to present arguments in narrative form, yes--and in fact this is relatively common in non-scholarly or everyday arguments, or even arguments by academics who are aiming at a popular audience. Trade nonfiction in the fields of politics and economics and history often make arguments largely in narrative form. But they are typically narratives about events rather than about other narratives, so you don't get quite the same hall-of-mirrors effect.

It feels as if calling a vid an argument might be a description of how it’s made while calling it a narrative is more of a description of what it is as a finished, complete (and open) whole. Does that make any sense?

It does make sense, though personally I think it could just as easily be the other way round. Certainly there are vids out there that are clearly and deliberately constructed as arguments; sisabet's and sockkpuppett's "Women's Work" comes to mind, as does lierdumoa's "How Much is That Geisha In the Window" and shati's "Secret Asian Man." But I think most vids function as arguments without necessarily having been intended that way; the narrative encodes an argument, encodes a host of assumptions about a show and a set of characters and their meanings and relationships and so on. The vid does interpretive work because that's what we do when we watch TV and movies--we interpret--and the vid is a particularly concrete manifestation of that interpretation. Which is not to say that a given vid is necessarily coherent; as anyone who has sat through an Intro to Literature class knows, the world is full of inarticulate interpretations. Heh.

[lian-li.livejournal.com]

! tl;dr follows!

oh, dear *throws up hands* this makes me want to go and look up linguistic theories on cohesion and coherence, since I think this plays into narrativity* as well (what makes a narrative coherent?

"How much pattern does the text have to provide in order for the audience to find a narrative in it?" How many patterns, on how many levels, does the viewer need to learn/realize/already bring to the table in order to still 'get' the vid? -- so coherence is the glue that combines these patterns, that each of us supplies in watching/listening? How does it work? ...Except you can't apply linguistics here at all! eh. *card house falls apart*)

...and combine them with cognitive film studies approaches /o\ and, uhm, music theory! And then suddenly I have to think of vids that use the song as counterpoint to the images.

Maybe I should go to bed ;3

(And no, this comment does not have a point, except that I felt compelled to point out that I approach the narrative conundrum from a linguistic and film theory (or rather, film sound theory) angle, which -- I'm surprised to find meshes rather well with the literary studies-based (? it is, isn't it?) narrative approach. Well, in my mind at least ;D Even if I am usually pretty skeptical about applying literary-based concepts to audiovisual (and even more, auditive) texts.

But you do it so well! I am very inordinately pleased and excited (you can probably tell.) Because seriously? People -- in academia -- who come from the literary angle to audiovisual texts often get it SO wrong... it's often quite painful to read >_> (like, basics: that sound works *quite* differently from text and visuals. And that the combination of v. and s. works quite differently again! Duh!)


A vid that uses an instrumental with no lyrics can have a narrative, there the shifts in tone, speed and volume will be the voice of the vid, key elements of the narrative.

Yes! Exactly.

*yeah, I know that's not a right word.

[tishaturk.livejournal.com]

this makes me want to go and look up linguistic theories on cohesion and coherence

Now I'm thinking about Stephen Witte and Lester Faigley...

(And narrativity is too a word! At least for narrative theorists...)

I felt compelled to point out that I approach the narrative conundrum from a linguistic and film theory (or rather, film sound theory) angle, which -- I'm surprised to find meshes rather well with the literary studies-based (? it is, isn't it?) narrative approach.

Narrative theory is indeed based in literary studies, but because many narrative theorists are interested in film narratives as well as written narratives there is some intersection with film theory and, I think, a general awareness of some of the distinctions as well as connections between film and written texts. But personally I am only just beginning to write about audiovisual narratives, so it's reassuring to hear that I'm doing all right so far! I have no background in film studies (beyond what I've picked up through feminist studies and by osmosis through vidders who do have film backgrounds), but I do have a fairly extensive background in music, so maybe that helps?

[lian-li.livejournal.com]

I think that definitely helps, just on this very basic awareness level -- 'oh, hey, audio! Let's not dismiss it/forget about it!' (I find that my total lack of music studies background is really detrimental in studying film sound!) Interestingly (well to me *g*), I am looking at narrativity from *yet* another angle, because I'm mainly interested in games -- video and computer RPGs, to be precise -- and the relation of narration vs. simulation (as the ludologists would say.) So I used your handy definitions and pointers to educate myself more about the narrative side (early, hard-core ludologists used to dismiss narrative as an important aspect of games completely [if mainly for the sake of argument], but this is absolutely not possible for RPGs!) -- so helpful :D!

[cryptoxin.livejournal.com]

Thanks again for taking the time for these thoughtful & insightful responses to my questions. I was able to read most of Marie-Laure Ryan's "Toward a Definition of Narrative" via the magic of Google Books, and that gave me an even better understanding of the value and the potential of the fuzzy-set/scalar definition of narrative and how that could apply to vids, so thanks also for the pointer!

[tishaturk.livejournal.com]

Oh, Googlebooks. I love living in the future. :)

And you're welcome! Thank YOU once again for the questions; they really did help me pin down some wandering thoughts, a process with which I am always grateful for help.