Overview
Creates a critical space where media objects that might be assessed, without relying on a narrative-based critical paradigm
Covers material that is effectively “persona non grata” in the field of media studies, notably the Transformers franchise
Moves freely move across a range of media, and media convergences (e.g., cinema, television and streaming, as well as videogames) putting for instance the animated series Adventure Time in conversation with the videogame Gone Home
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
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!
Authors and Affiliations
About the authors
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.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Theorizing Stupid Media
Book Subtitle: De-Naturalizing Story Structures in the Cinematic, Televisual, and Videogames
Authors: Aaron Kerner, Julian Hoxter
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28176-2
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-28175-5Published: 14 November 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-28178-6Published: 14 November 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-28176-2Published: 05 November 2019
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 227
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations, 9 illustrations in colour
Topics: Genre, Popular Culture