While reading Mittell’s articles I couldn’t help but try to apply Homicide to his ideas of TV series structure. Particularly I was thinking about his first article’s idea of Characters and Events being the driving factors on a show. Mittell discusses the importance of the protagonist and antagonist, which he argues exist in every show as a sort of binary opposite. In Homicide however, the two seem almost interchangeable. It would be near impossible to peg one character as the protagonist and one as the antagonist as they all seem to show moments of both. For example, a character such as Munch may be more antagonistic, but then there are scenes where he is also portrayed as an emotional man, dedicated to his work. It is in this way that Homicide is interesting within the realm of television as it twists many of the standard stylistic elements. I also think that this example of the diversity and complexity that can occur in television shows is supportive to Mittell’s second article’s argument that television is a complex discourse and should be taken more seriously in its study. Homicide is a complex show with many aspects present for deconstruction and study and is an excellent example of things that we can learn from studying the discourse of television.
The Importance of the Discourse of Television
29 September 2009 · 3.09 pm · by ac07kn
Categories: reading responses
1 response so far ↓
ms152er // 30 September 2009 at 4.31 pm
I agree that “Homicide” seems to abstain from either presenting clear-cut preferable or antagonistic characters, or spotlighting specific characters. First, the TV series is an ensemble piece, and so its focus does not lie on any character in particular. Furthermore, while we are often prone to sympathize with the characters, we never feel pressured, or obligated, to do so. “Homicide” does not subscribe to melodrama–if anything, dialogue, acting, and other aspects of presentation downplay characters’ struggles and emotions. We witness characters’ subtly portrayed vulnerability in brief moments. The narrative’s tangential structure enables a forward, if swerving momentum, preventing us from dwelling on the sometimes interconnected and sometimes disjointed conflicts that plague the characters. To continue exploring the notion of the complexity of the character representation in “Homicide,” it is worth noting that the criminals and witnesses who crop up in each episode, like the detectives, are presented evenhandedly, or without any flagrant bias. For example, we are unequipped to determine the culpability of the arabber Risley Tucker, a suspect in the murder of Adena Watson whom Bayliss and Pembleton interrogate in the season final of the first season (“Three Men and Adena”). We are left in the dark, without sufficient evidence to either convict him or declare him innocent, primarily due to the careful grey shading of his character, which defies one-dimensionalism. His disclosure of his sour life circumstances jarringly moves us to feel empathy—at least a shred—for a man who might have murdered a reportedly sweet, beloved eleven-year-old girl. Similarly, the detectives, who shape the heart of the show and might through another mode of presentation drool in anticipation of our affection, display endearing idiosyncrasies as well as off-putting behaviors. We may have individual proclivities for favoring one character over others–perhaps the rookie Bayliss or perhaps Kay, the lioness in the male-dominated den–but the forces behind the series clearly strive to allow our likings and distastes to evolve organically.