Jacques T Peer Review
-
Upload
jacquelineaiosa -
Category
Documents
-
view
9 -
download
0
description
Transcript of Jacques T Peer Review
Jacques Turner ENC3315 Prof. Marinara 30 November 2014
Suspension of Disbelief
Most works of art, whether fictional or nonfictional, printed or visual, serious or
comedic, most works of art rely upon suspension of disbelief. It is defined as “a
willingness to suspend one's critical faculties and believe the unbelievable” or as
“sacrifice of realism and logic for the sake of enjoyment.” These two definitions conflict
on whose burden is it to suspend the disbelief of the audience: is it up to the author to
generate an internally consistent work in which the audience can become immersed, or is
it up to the audience to overlook minor flaws of the work in order to engage more fully
into the work. I am of the opinion that if a work is internally consistent, the audience will
generally and willingly suspend their own disbelief, and therefore it is up to the writer to
make their work believable; in effect, they must persuade the audience to believe in the
world they are trying to create.
Historically, the term was coined in 1817 by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
who observed that if a writer could “infuse a human element and a semblance of truth”
into an otherwise fantastical tale, the reader would reasonably “suspend judgment
concerning the implausibility of the narrative.” At the time, the use of more supernatural
elements in literary works had gone out of style, and Coleridge was asked to explain his
usage of spirits in “The Rape of Lock.” He argued that
”... It was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human
Jacqueline Aiosa� 11/2/14 4:28 PMComment [1]: Good definition and I like the contrast of roles between the audience and author
interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. Mr. Wordsworth on the other hand was to propose to himself as his object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us ...”
Coleridge was trying to say that supernatural elements can be quite entertaining,
so long as the audience is open to such developments. He argued that so long as the
audience is able to both identify and engage with these otherwise unbelievable elements,
overall a much more enjoyable story can be told, one that breaks the monotony of
completely believable chains of events. I would argue that this is indeed the case, as
people can reliably enjoy a wide range of events if they were made to suspend their
disbelief in the process.
Many works of art, both fiction and nonfiction, require a suspension of disbelief.
In some cases, an audience may not believe events that are actually based on reality,
which may detract from the work. An example of this is the Artemis character in the
fictional show “Young Justice.” Creator Greg Weisman was asked to explain why
Artemis had blonde hair and blue eyes if she was to be believably half-Vietnamese and
half-Caucasian. Greg responded that Artemis was based on the actual daughter of another
creator involved in the show, Victor Cook, and so to say such a depiction is unrealistic is
to literally say reality is unrealistic. In this scenario, there was nothing the authors could
have done in the work to make their show more congruent with reality, and the audience
still did not suspend their disbelief. It can thus be inferred that the audience was not
properly persuaded of the believability of the show.
Ultimately, suspension of disbelief does rely upon the audience. It is quite
subjective, and there is no one universally believable method of writing. At the end of the
Jacqueline Aiosa� 11/2/14 4:00 PMComment [2]: Using “so long as” twice close by makes the sentences feel repetitive.
day, despite what we know or what we think we know, people may have alternative
methods of thinking and thus disagree. In the above example, the audience member
argued that
It would seem that if Artemis were to be Eurasian, her Asian traits would be more accented given the fact that generally Asians have darker hair and eye color, thus becoming more dominant than her European traits. Artemis having blonde hair and blue eyes would be implausible unless she was three-‐fourths Caucasian and one-‐fourth Vietnamese.
This belief seemed reasonable within their understanding of the way the “real world”
worked. Implied within this statement is a belief in true, distinguishable race-based
features as well as the dominance of certain phenotypes that directly corresponded to
these race-based features. In other words, their premise was that race had genetic
significance and a believable show acknowledges that. The audience member simply
could not believe that a “half-Asian” could be blonde if being blonde is a recessive
Caucasian trait. This in turn impacted their enjoyment of the show, as they couldn't help
but notice it, and so they wanted in-universe clarification to better engage within the
work.
Internal consistency is one of the main ways to reliably get an audience to
suspend their disbelief. Internal consistency is the idea that “any rules, events, settings, or
characters that have been established within the fictional work continue to exist and
function as they did previously, unless otherwise indicated. ” Put simply, so long as a
work listens to the rules and events it itself creates, the audience is willing to suspend the
disbelief in the implausibility. An example of this can be found within the Pokemon
Universe. Pokemon are fantastical creatures that are capable of supernatural feats of
strength and endurance. The Pokemon Universe establishes these creatures as being in a
Jacqueline Aiosa� 11/2/14 4:03 PMComment [3]: Good example and the way you explained and elaborated on the idea made your argument very clear
Jacqueline Aiosa� 11/2/14 4:05 PMComment [4]: ;
fundamentally mutualistic symbiotic relationship: they work together and live together in
harmony. This rule drives every plot point within the series and explains otherwise
extreme patterns of behavior. When Team Rocket abuses and misuses Pokemon, this is
seen as negative because it goes against the fundamental laws of the series. When the
hero, a young child (in some instances 10 years old) is asked to combat such abuses, this
is internally consistent with the supernatural aspects of the companions the hero is with:
the creatures will protect the hero because of the mutualistic symbiotic relationship. The
audience thus is allowed to enjoy the work, because things “make sense,” even when the
things that “make sense” are completely counter to what makes sense in the real world. In
the real world, we don't send a single child with a few animals against a terrorist
organization; we send the military. The audience however forgoes demanding such
realistic approaches and instead becomes engaged with the choices that the universe
made, due to proper willingness to suspend disbelief.
Genre consistency is another crucial way to maintain the audience's willingness to
suspend their disbelief. Genre consistency is the idea that “The fictional universe should
behave like other works in its genre, unless specifically noted otherwise. Any fictional
concepts, characters, or settings borrowed from other works should behave as they do in
those works.” An author is allowed to explain themselves when they wish to take artistic
liberties, even if the concept itself is fictional. For example, the concept of the vampire
spans centuries of literature and media representation. Various traits, strengths, and
weaknesses vary from work to work, but the fundamental idea is an undead person feeds
upon the blood and life force of the living, sustaining themselves eternally and converting
their prey into a vampire. Vampires are weakened and killed when exposed to sunlight
Jacqueline Aiosa� 11/2/14 4:09 PMComment [5]: Authors are allowed to explain themselves
Jacqueline Aiosa� 11/2/14 4:20 PMComment [6]: Undead people feed upon
and fall into a coma upon sunrise; thus, they are relegated to function primarily at night.
The show “Shiki” deviates slightly from this formula: vampires are indeed born when fed
upon by a vampire, but only when their victim is killed directly from blood loss.
Furthermore, only certain individuals can be reborn as vampires, as the ability to return is
linked to genetic factors. The series goes on to explain that certain genetic factors allow
the resurrection of a vampire not bound by normal weaknesses, known as “Jinrou.”
Audiences recognize that everything to do with vampires is basically fictional, and thus
suspend their disbelief. Furthermore, because the author explains their deviations from
standard lore, the audience further engages with the work as a believable continuation of
the genre.
Nowadays, a lot of works rely solely on the second definition of willingness of
suspension of disbelief in that they want the audience to just go with it. I am of the
opinion that this hurts the work. When it is simply left up to the audience to believe in a
work, the audience may buckle when their willingness to suspend their disbelief is
pushed too far. This allows plot holes that would have otherwise gone unnoticed to
become serious detractions from the work. As all suspense of disbelief is subjective, the
only proper argument of this effect would involve my own subjective experience; in this
case with the recent “Godzilla” movie. The entire movie was essentially a series of easily
avoidable mistakes, lapses in judgment, and useless action, all within the context of a
serious crisis. One such lapse in judgment was the main plan to destroy the MUTO's,
“Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms”, with a large nuclear device. Never mind
that they eat radiation. Never mind that halfway through the plan to lure them into a city,
they eat one of the crucial nuclear missiles. The plan is to blow them up and they were
Jacqueline Aiosa� 11/2/14 4:27 PMComment [7]: I enjoy that when you state you opinion you also follow it up with well thought out explanations
intent on sticking to it, right up until they realized it was indeed a bad plan and now they
should not have brought a bomb into the city. But not to worry: Godzilla has spent the
entire movie selflessly tracking down the MUTO's in order to fight them. This is
explained by him being the alpha predator, so of course he needs to surface after fifty
years of just swimming about and presumably hunting fish to stop radioactive insects
from mating and destroying humanity. And of course, once he defeats them, instead of
actually eating his prey (as alpha predators tend to do when they catch their prey, because
that's what those words mean), he just leaves. A victory roar for the camera, some
confetti, and back to the lonely depths with you, Godzilla. It may be that audiences
suspended their disbelief the entire time of the movie; I was not impressed.
At the end of the day, the audience is persuaded to believe in the work. To
suspend their own reasoning and knowledge of how things “should be” is an exchange
done in the hopes of enjoying the work an artist produces. Consequently, it is up to the
artist to provide a proper framework in which this process is as seamless as possible.
There is no objective and proven method in which someone can be convinced of the logic
of a completely different universe; however, it is done time and time again because it is
crucial to the enjoyment of literature, as well as film and other artistic medium. In a way,
the author is attempting to convince the reader to see the world the way they see it, and to
feel the emotions that they feel when thinking about the nature of their work. In doing so,
we all come a little bit closer to understanding each other as people.
Jacqueline Aiosa� 11/2/14 4:28 PMComment [8]: mediums Jacqueline Aiosa� 11/2/14 4:32 PMComment [9]: Overall your paper was very well written, there were just a few grammatical errors and sentence rephrasing. Personally I would have enjoyed an example from literature or a piece of artwork, however your video game, TV show and movie were well written. Jacqueline Aiosa� 11/2/14 4:30 PMComment [10]: I liked your conclusion except for the last sentence. I understand accepting the authors reality and feeling their emotions through their work but the last sentence just felt like it was thrown in there and didn’t hold any explanations or supported your earlier conclusions.
Works Cited
Coleridge, S. T. (2009). Biographia literaria. Auckland, N.Z.: Floating Press.
Parents' Guide | Pokemon.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.pokemon.com/us/parents-guide/ Search Ask Greg : Gargoyles : Station Eight. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.s8.org/gargoyles/askgreg/search.php?qid=13138 TvTropes. (n.d.). Main/Consistency - Television Tropes & Idioms. Retrieved October 30, 2014, from
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Consistency?from=Main.InternalConsistency