once upon a time

When I was a kid in the early 1990s, there were these obnoxious Trix cereal commercials. You may remember the general theme: the white Trix Rabbit would plot yet another cockamamie scheme to get his hands on some cereal, only to be caught by a gaggle of cruel children and told “Silly rabbit! Trix are for kids!” Not only did I hate these commercials because I felt sorry for the poor, cereal-deprived rabbit, but I was also irked by the company’s penchant for serial advertisements in which two or three ads would be connected by the same narrative. (Trix cereal wasn’t the only product employing serial advertising; if I remember correctly, the Keebler Elves and others were also guilty-as-charged, but the Trix commercials really stuck with me). For example, in ad number 1, the Rabbit would devise a plan, often involving elaborate disguises; in ad number 2, he would execute his plan, his fingertips inches away from the bowl of Trix; in ad number 3, he would get caught and the kids would snatch the cereal away from him laughing while the Rabbit lamented his bad fortune. These serial cereal ads (pun intended) were such a nuisance to me because I never seemed to see more than two of them; even though I knew the Rabbit would never get his Trix, I held out hope time and again. Besides the fact that I think the Rabbit ad campaign was seriously flawed—catering only to mean, vindictive children who liked denying pleasure to cute, cartoon animals; I felt so bad for the Rabbit, I’m not sure I would have eaten Trix if someone had paid me—my childhood memory of these Trix commercials provides a useful springboard for a consideration of our (my?) desire for narrative closure in the televisual universe.

Think of the uproar inspired by the spectatio interruptus series finale of HBO’s The Sopranos (1999-2007). If television were real life, this is exactly how things would end, in mid-sentence, because real life doesn’t have a plot and, hence, can’t have any closure. Of course, television by necessity must offer us a narrative structure. Most, if not all, of the plot points in the majority of narrative television shows serve a purpose in the grand scheme of the episode or series. Very little is arbitrary on television; too many loose ends and viewers begin to complain.

Part of this is necessitated by the hour-long format: we’re only shown what we need to know. Can you imagine what CBS’s CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000-present) would be like if we watched every aspect of the investigation? Besides the fact that every episode would probably be about two weeks long (if not longer), we’d also find that ninety percent of the evidence collected is completely useless, all false leads and red herrings. And where’s the fun in that?

In the crime show especially, this question of fun—viewing pleasure—is also crucially linked to narrative. I would wager that the average person would not find watching someone being murdered—especially multiple times, as CSI’s flashbacks often facilitate—very entertaining or pleasurable. Granted, CSI and other shows of its ilk are fictional, which is significant, but these murder sequences are also narrativized (implicitly through context or sometimes through the investigator’s descriptive voiceover). They’re stylized for our comprehension and easy digestion. Without an overarching narrative structure, murder scenes in crime shows would be grotesque, pointless and visually inapprehensible to a viewing public. The contextual framing of violence and the promise of narrative closure (e.g. the impetus to catch the killer), allows violence to become part of the story—entertainment rather than trauma.

On a less gruesome note, the same narrative framing that structures the collection and presentation of only crucial evidence in crime shows also motivates the editing techniques used in most reality TV shows. Even reality television is predicated on a narrative framework—from competitions like Fox’s American Idol (2002-present) with elimination rounds leading up to a finale, to lifestyle shows like MTV’s Real World (1992-present) and The Hills (2006-present) which have tasks or career goals or relationship issues for the protagonists to deal with each week. Furthermore, it’s no secret that reality shows are often fictionalized through creative editing and rigged situations, not to mention the trope of the solitary interviews with contestants/participants that help frame the “action.” Okay, so why is any of this interesting? Because the popularity of reality shows (and not just those in the competition genre) may signal how compelling we find the idea of narrative in our real lives as well as in fiction. We don’t want to see every mundane detail of a reality-celebrity’s life, only the highlights. Who says you can’t experience just the good bits—the interesting bits—a desire which television, reality or otherwise, feeds.

In conclusion, the short-lived Fox show Andy Richter Controls the Universe (2002-2003) represents to me one of the ultimate narrative fantasies offered by television. Each episode, Andy, an aspiring novelist in a dead-end, boring job writing technical manuals, imagines creatively kooky versions of the most mundane aspects of his life: his friends ask him about his date Broadway musical-style, with choreography and in four-part harmony (versus their actual bored disinterest at the water cooler) or he suavely approaches the building receptionist with James Bond-esque flair (versus his actual inability to say more than a meek “hello”). These imagine scenarios, juxtaposed with what actually happens, seem to give Andy real pleasure even when reality turns out to be a monumental failure vis-à-vis his fantasies. Even though his real life is relatively dull and pointless, the imagined narrative of his life is fascinating and hilarious.

Television must by necessity boil down its narrative to only the essential plot points. What’s our excuse? Do we live week-to-week, setting goals, points of contextual interest, creating an imagined framework on which to rest the chaos of our lives? Is narrative—translated into the search for meaning or “purpose”—an ingrained human desire? Does television fuel that desire or sate it somewhat? If we compare ourselves to the characters in television shows, who comes up lacking: us or them?

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(NEXT WEEK: “Vast Wasteland, Part 1.” An introduction to an experiment in televisual seriality and visual/sensorial excess. Taking the narrative out of narrative television: a day in the life.)