So for my critical discussion, I talked about genre. I wrestled with the same ideas that I feel Miller and Bahktin struggle with. I guess my question is, is genre liberating, confining, or is it both? As I read and reread Miller and Bahktin, a few things caught my attention.
First, I feel like Miller dislikes the limiting nature of the term genre. She commends two critics when she says, "They do not attempt to provide a framework that will predict or limit the genres that might be identified." (Miller 153) I feel like this is Miller's way of saying that to place a work of art under strict constraints prevents the work from reaching its potential. I really agree with this. I think that once something is labeled it is very hard and sometimes impossible to look beyond the terms of that label. In an attempt to categorize and organize things, I think we often sell things short. We don't allow things to have meaning on more than one level because it is too much to comprehend.
I think that Bahktin struggles with the way that genres are not absolute. He clearly feels that genre is not a definite concept, and in that he finds room for error. I would definitely agree here, and I think that Bahktin and Miller could both agree on the idea that genre cannot be absolute, but we try to make it that way. By this I mean to say that we try to set terms and standards for things in order to understand them, but I find that by doing that we may be diminishing a work's potential.
So I think my question is how can we understand things in terms of the genre they belong to if genre is not set in stone? Or is genre more like a guideline for beginning to understand?
2 comments:
While genre is not set in stone, I think that we can understand things in terms of genre because as a greater whole of society we have an idea of what each genre is. Two people can argue whether Whale Watchers counts as a horror film/TV show (for I am deathly terrified of whales and can not even watch the Finding Nemo scene featuring them), but I accept that it is probably more so a documentary and The Shinning would be a horror movie. Individual variants and definitions of what should be in each genre exist, yet overall it's public understanding of what is accepted in each genre, mostly due to previous conditions and examples. In this sense, individual guidelines do not take precedence over generally accepted guidelines; more concrete as well.
I think that our Culture is one of the biggest factors for creating genre. Miller tells us ‘situations are social constructs that are the result, not of “perception,” but of “definition.” Because human action is based on and guided by meaning, not by material causes, at the center of action is a process of interpretation. It is in this action that we can see how genre evolves. Before we can act, we must interpret the indeterminate material environment; we define, or “determine,” a situation’ (Miller 156). Miller is saying that instead of simply perceiving situations, we are constantly defining them. We are not born with an intrinsic understanding of situations; we must first experience them, define them, and store them in our memories. Our action is not determined by our perception of the objective arrangement of matter, but on how where we find meaning.This phenomenon can be seen in all aspects of life, from literary interpretation, to discourse at a public forum, to the manifestation of genre. The meanings that we interpret guide our actions, and when members of a similar cultural group interpret situations, the meaning they find will largely be similar. It makes sense then, that when cultural collectivities perceive art, genre will arise. The experiences of perceiving the form and determining an interpretation is what gives art its meaning, and when a collective interpretation of meaning arises, we call it genre.
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