The Politics of Narrative, in
21st Century Film and TV School Book (tba 2015)
Abstract
This essay explores the relationship between story structure and systems of power. I will demonstrate that every story written so far serves to either defend or overthrow property relations and the discourse of family. In the course of the Neolithic revolution, the cultural process that developed in patriarchal society spawned narrative structures, most notably tragedy, to channel trauma caused by systemic aggression and subjection. Yet pre-patriarchal narratives, as found in cave paintings and in residues of contemporaneous myth, suggest a different form potential and attest to the existence of another power structure effecting both gender and property. After briefly addressing the history of narratives and analyzing current contradictions between social relations and formal problems in storytelling, I will argue that serial storytelling and games could merge to become a new form of audio-visual narrative by combining empathy-driven dramatic storytelling and interactivity.
My essay in full length: