Pulp Philosophy: Create a Damn Good Onion!

Every night before bed, I watch around an hour of television and then settle in under the covers with a book or comic.  I find that in most instances I can feel the sleep overcome me in about 15 minutes and I pull off the spectacles, close the tome and turn out the lights.  This is the general routine that keeps me relatively sane and well-slept.

But there are those occasions where I've watched a show and/or read a book and I am instantly charged with enthusiasm to keep watching or reading until I'm finished. It's rare, but it does happen.  When it does I take note and file it away in the brain pan.  After all, as writers/ creators we are sponges whose mission is to take in and squeeze out a filtered version of what we've ingested.

In keeping track of these events, I've found that a definite pattern emerges - especially when it comes to modern genre fiction, that is built upon all that has come before.

The point is that I'm finding that the best fiction media - movies, TV, books, comics - is based on the structure of an onion.

(No, I have not been watching too many episodes of TOP CHEF or KITCHEN NIGHTMARES)

Let me explain:

We've reached a point in our culture where our genre media is fully cataloged and is accessible 24/7. I can find out any bit of trivia or access a work using a simple wifi connection.  As a result we have a generation or two with a large knowledge base when it comes to the variety of genre media.  We've all seen or know of just about every genre book, comic, game or tv show and movie.

We are really hard to surprise.

So what's come about is that creators are using that knowledge base against us and subverting...no, that's not right... redesigning our expectations to create multiple layers of meaning, depth and breadth to their works.

Now this isn't new, but it is being done in new ways and more frequently. Chaucer and Shakespeare used tropes that were available to them (example: the metaphorical rose motif to signify a woman's genitalia), but in this case creators are using other creators' works more and more to create a greater cultural context.

What's interesting to me is the pop culture metaphors being employed as a means to add meaning and engage the audience.  These pop culture land mines again add new layers of fun and taste... yes, just like a good onion.

Okay Bill - WTF are you talking about here? Give us some examples!

I was reading Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's genuinely excellent LXG: Century 1910 and kept finding new layers to the story thanks to the careful placement of bits of pop culture within the context of the story.  As I saw more elements to the story come into play working in characters like Carnacki and Raffles as well as dates, and the whole of the Three Penny Opera, I began to appreciate the depth of the story in new ways.

Page after page of new story elements came in to create one big blooming onion.

A recent episode of LEVERAGE directed by our pal, John Rogers and written by Geoffrey Thorne had another layer to it that made me laugh out loud. Specifically the computerized security system for the building Parker broke into was called a Steranko.

(Again, you didn't need to know that Steranko the comic artist was once an escape artist, but if you were in the know it added a whole new layer of meaning whenever they mentioned the term).

Now what's really good about both of these examples is the fact that in both cases the additional layers of meaning were left to the audience member to uncover.  They weren't called out to be this monstrous "look how clever we are" moment, but rather were the product of being good sponges. Taking in knowledge and filtering it properly.

(and there are more tidbits in both so I would suggest a rerun of Leverage and a reread of Century:1910)

And if you're in today's genre media game it makes sense to add new levels of meaning to your audience in order to engage them... to add the layers to the onion. It allows you to 'shorthand' and concentrate on plot knowing that certain character or tone elements are set in the audience's mind (if only on a subconscious level). It allows you engage your audience, and it allows you to mine the vast library of culture that's available at your fingertips stroking your keyboard.

Just be subtle about it.

High and Lowbrow: Co-Dependent

Been doing some research on the web, figuring out a bit of this and a bit of that. I sure am glad we have the internet and people are allowed to share their research and creativity and so forth. In years past it would have taken me weeks to accomplish what I've been able to assemble in mere hours.

Love that.

One of the recent finds is this, an article by Peter Swirski of the University of Alberta regarding Popular and High Brow Literature: A Comparative View. You can download a PDF of the article from the page. While the article compares and destroys the myths of the literary forms of "popular literature" (read: pulp) and more "pure art" projects, he notes many similarities and more importantly needs between the two. In other words, you can't have successful "high art" without a populist counterpart(ner).

Take a moment to read it and wherever it says "Book, novel or work" feel free to insert "Movie, comic, TV or web series" and you begin to see the broader implications of Swirski's analysis. An excerpt below:

The Pure Art myth wants us to believe that high art abides in the realm of creation untainted by the cupidity of its lower caste cousins. Like Disney's Seven Dwarves, who typically hang out in a troop, this myth does not dwell alone in the forest of literary and cultural misconceptions. On most days it can be seen having cocktails atop the Ivory Tower with a small but influential coterie: the myth that the Novel Is Dead, the myth that People Don't Read Books Anymore, the myth that the Paperback Is a New Kid on the Block, the myth thatReading Pulp Fiction Is Bad For You, and the grand myth that We Can Ignore Popular Literature.

In what follows I would like to take a closer look at some of the ways in which highbrow literature and popular fiction relate to each other. My aim is to take stock of select sociological data and aesthetic arguments that have accrued between the birth of popular literature -- the term I will use interchangeably with fiction -- in the eighteenth century and its drosophila-like explosion in the twentieth century. Its career may be all the more remarkable in that, for the most part, it has taken place without the sanction of the "eliterati" or literary scholarship in general.

Like a backyard fungus, mass fiction conquered the world without the benefit of a gardener's pruning knife (in the shape of systematic criticism) or clods of fertilizer (art grants, writer in residence funds, poet laureate stipends, government subsidies, etc.) which midwife the efforts of highbrow littérateurs. More than two hundred years of fruition in all corners of the world warrants the examination of popular literature as a literary phenomenon, rather than as a mere cultural nuisance.

Give it a read.