I didn't have enough money to "get" The Matrix.

Reading Henry Jenkins’ “Searching for the Origami Unicorn” reminded me how long it’s been since I watched the Matrix, and reminded me why I tried to avoid the sequels.  I understand that Jenkins is interested in looking at the transmedia franchise as a whole, composed of various incarnations in different media.  I thought Jenkins’ approach to The Matrix trilogy was an interesting take, but I had some problems with this method of resolving issues with complicated story telling.  Illustrating the approach made by the various collaborations involved in The Matrix, Jenkins notes that “the filmmakers plant clues that won’t make sense until we play the computer game.  They draw on the back story revealed through a series of animated shorts, which need to be downloaded off the web or watched off a separate DVD.  Fans raced, dazed and confused, from the theaters to plug into Internet discussion lists, where every detail would be dissected and every possible interpretation debated” (94).  I have no issue with a film franchise inspiring an active and engaging fan culture.  I think that opening those possibilities for audience participation are more or less a good thing. 

Jenkins addresses the bias of both critics and the audience towards traditional storytelling, noting that “stories are basic to all human cultures, the primary means by which we structure, share, and make sense of our common experiences …we are seeing the emergence of new story structures, which create complexity by expanding the range of narrative possibility rather than pursuing a single path with a beginning, middle, and end” (118-9).  I like the potential opening up of narrative possibility through a transmedia approach.  My problem is with the ultra-consumerist approach to delivering a story and handling this fundamental human desire to "get" what that story means.  Jenkins writes that “reading across the media sustains a depth of experience that motivates more consumption” (96) like it was a good thing.  The making of sequels is enough of a problematic attempt at cashing in on the success of a film/franchise (*cough* Star Wars prequels *cough*).  I think the opportunities for branching out into other media are interesting, but creating a series of products to capitalize on a devoted fan culture/niche market, or explain the off-beat/complicated/non-traditional film to the general public sounds exploitative.  In order to “get” a popular film like The Matrix, one would have to buy their movie tickets, the trilogy DVD’s, the animated shorts on DVD, the officially licensed comic books, the novelizations, the VHS Christmas Special, etc.  This goes beyond an expectation of a little extra work from the audience.  It takes a complicated narrative, and turns it into a a mere part of a narrative that's more traditional, and turns commerce into the solution of narrative complexity.   

“You didn’t get The Matrix?” this approach asks. 

It responds that “you’re just not spending enough money.”

...and I thought "complicated television" sounded like an oxymoron.

I think one of the best points Mittell makes in outlining the possibility/importance/work of narratively complex television is that it tends to be the exception and not the rule.  Mittell is wise to note that “complexity has not overtaken conventional forms within the majority of television programming today—there are still many more conventional sitcoms and dramas on-air than complex narratives” (29).  Nontraditional television programming exists, but there isn’t enough of a presence to say that it’s become the new dominant mode of television storytelling.  For Mittell, “even though this mode represents neither the majority of television nor its most popular programs …a sufficiently widespread number of programs work against conventional narrative practices using an innovated cluster of narrational techniques to justify such analysis” (29-30).  Although this type of programming has yet to replace the reality show or the formulaic sitcom narrative, there is enough of it out there to warrant further investigation.  Mittel also makes the important concession that “complexity and value are not mutually guaranteed” (30).  This means that an increased level of narrative complexity does not necessarily make a better television show.  Mittell avoids a simplistic praise of complex television, admitting that it takes more than a complicated mode of storytelling to make a ‘good’ TV show.

Mittell also makes it a point to explore the incentives discovered by networks to offer complex/nontraditional programming.  Although this kind of programming could potentially alienate some viewers and go against the imperative to aim for mass appeal, Mittell observes that “networks and channels have grown to recognize that that a consistent cult following of a small but dedicated audience can suffice to make a show economically viable” (31).  Freed from the demands to satisfy the majority of the general television audience and reach, capture, and maintain the largest possible audience, networks have an avenue/incentive to provide shows that break from the established norms of TV narrative.  The smaller audiences drawn in by complex programs can even be beneficial.  Mittel acknowledges that “many complex programs expressly appeal to a boutique audience of more upscale educated viewers who typically avoid television …needless to say, an audience comprised of viewers who watch little other television is particularly valued by advertisers” (31).  Although complex TV programming offers something more to a potentially more sophisticated viewer, the motivation is the same.  Smaller audiences are acceptable if they are composed of the kinds of viewers that advertisers aim to reach.

When Mittell cites Steven Johnson, I was reminded of Elsaesser’s take on complex film narratives.  Johnson “claims that this form of complexity offered viewers a ‘cognitive workout’ that increases problem-solving and observational skills—whether or not this argument can be empirically substantiated, there is no doubt that this brand of television storytelling encourages audiences to become more actively engaged and offers a broader range of rewards and pleasures than most conventional programming” (32).  This active engagement basically hopes to create and cater to slightly better/more adaptable/more sophisticated consumers and employees.  It doesn’t seem like complex TV ever really has much of an interest in challenging the TV medium beyond its embrace of traditional narrative techniques.  It appears to be a move to legitimize the medium.

It happens...

After watching Elephant, I thought about the multiple explanations of narrative as the human way of making sense of lived experience.  When Marie-Laure Ryan summarizes the various approaches to the phenomenon of narrative in the introduction to Narrative Across Media, she writes that “the existential type (represented by Paul Ricoeur and Peter Brooks) …tells us that the act of narrating enables humans to deal with time, destiny, and mortality; to create and project identities; and to situate ourselves as embodied individuals in a world populated by similarly embodied subjects.  It is in short a way, perhaps the only one, to give meaning to life” (2).  In “Narrative Mechanics”, Caroline Bassett also mentions Ricoeur.  Bassett writes that “reading narrative as a central act of configuration, the way in which human experience is made meaningful, Ricoeur connects narrative with the event and experience” (10). For both Ryan and Bassett, this view considers narrative as the fundamental device by which people can take the chaotic mess that makes up every day lived experience and (re)order it into a logical/understandable cause-and-effect sequence.  Traditional narrative may be the tool for organizing experience into something coherent, but presenting the events in Elephant in a traditional, logical way would undermine the senseless nature of the Columbine-esque tragedy.  Forcing a logical narrative out of these events would oversimplify and overdramatize the senseless nature of the school killing.

In ‘Just because’ stories: on Elephant”, Bassett explores the nontraditional approach used by the film to tell the story of the fictional school shooting.  After posing the many questions left unanswered by the Columbine shooting, as well as the fictional one in Elephant, Bassett explains that “while many possible motivations or triggers are presented in the film, none of them is presented as commensurate with the events they might have provoked, and none of them is presented as likely to be determining” (165).  In other words, the film offers some possible explanations, but does not attempt to provide a specific reason or set of reasons for the shooting.  Bassett continues, “rather, multiple motivations, reasons, and causal factors pile up as so much useless information, or as so much significant information—the point is that we don’t know and are given no clue.  The killings happen …apparently randomly or ‘just because” (165).  Although this may appear to be the lazy man’s way around living up to narrative expectations, this move in Elephant illuminates the inadequacy of the traditional narrative structure and its inability to make sense out of something terrible that “just happened”.  It draws attention to the fact that some times, if not most of the time, things just happen without what we would see as a logical cause.  If the film wanted to present logical motivations for revenge, we would have seen much more bullying of Alex and Eric, and the students/faculty who participated would have been deliberately targeted.  Instead, we see harmless—even sympathetic characters like Michelle and Elias included in the slaughter, simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  They die even though they’ve done nothing wrong to Alex or Eric, and in spite of appearing as relative outcasts themselves.