14 January 2009

Adam’s post at An und für sich is exactly right in arguing that the point of analyzing movies or TV shows is just enjoyment. The idea that analyzing a piece of entertainment can somehow “ruin it” isn’t wrong, since it is possible for analysis to look past the quality of a movie as a movie, or as a story—it’s possible to do away with surfaces and skip straight to the “hidden depths.” But analysis certainly doesn’t always do that, and when it does it ruins the entertainment only at the same time that it ruins itself as real analysis. Real analysis really does make TV-watching more fun (which is a good enough reason to do it, even if it can also be helpful in thinking through problems). It’s a deeper way of getting involved in the storyline, a way that opens up the possibility of that story’s affecting the way we think about the world.

The post on Zizek and House Adam refers to as an illustration is a perfect example of all this. His analysis there is exactly what made House so much fun for me over the last couple months, as I started watching House at the same time as I was reading Badiou’s Ethics. Though I confess it makes me bitter to find that he noticed the resemblance first, and wrote about it first.

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Tags: TV and Film