Saturday, February 5, 2011

Week 4: *Insert Generic Title Here*

This week our topic revolved tightly around genre; looking specifically at the film Dick Tracy and the article by Peter Coogan, “The Definition of Superhero,” our group experienced flurries of discussion greater than that of the snow out doors. Puns and quick dialogue, of course, are conventional to the superhero genre, although writers of the genre are much stronger in this area than I, so I’ll spare you from more of my own pathetic examples. Why don’t we just dive right in?

            Coogan, in his article, explains that a superhero is a champion of the oppressed; a superhero is one who generally follows the mission, powers, and identity formula. Through his many case studies, Cogan illustrates that the superhero does not necessarily need to be firmly planted in all three of these tropes. Superheroes may survive on merely two of these identifiers such as Batman. He has a strong mission to clean up the streets of Gotham and avenge his parent, he has a clear identity drawn from his origin which inspires his costume; however, he does not have any special powers. Of course, Coogan points out that his displays of strength and conflicts with eccentric villains more firmly establish him in the genre.
             
            Throughout his article, Coogan digresses into these case studies; however, he makes a few strong points throughout which greatly helped us to look critically at Dick Tracy as a superhero. Coogan sites McCloud’s argument for the importance of easily recognizable costumes. This is strongly illustrated in the film; Dick Tracy’s bright suit and the kid’s sharp red outfit are abundant signifiers throughout the film. Dick Tracy and the kid also have a clear mission, to clean the streets of the mob; clearly, they are champions of the oppressed. However, Dick Tracy does not go much further into the realm of the superhero genre as explained by Coogan. Tracy does not have any special powers beyond his heroic acts such as climbing and leaping off building and riding on the backs of cars, in this way, he is not greater than the average hero as Coogan would wish him to be. Moreover, he does not have a secret identity that arises from an origin story; he simply runs through the streets with everyone aware of who he is. Some might argue that the kid presents the characteristics of identity as he is illustrated to have an origin to his mission and does not have an identity until the end; however, as the title hero is Dick Tracy, this is easily overlooked. Thus, apart from clearly identifiable costumes, identity is not prevalent in the film. Thus, Dick Tracy only strongly follows one of the three formulaic qualities described by Coogan. Our group decided this prevalence of identifiable costumes, heroic, but not super-heroic feats, and a lack of secret identities arising from an origin story left Dick Tracy too far on the outskirts of the superhero genre to be truly applicable among a firm tier list of superhero films.

            After discovering Dick Tracy to be on the outskirts of the genre, we then took a look at Coogan’s solar system metaphor which explains the importance of producers and writers to decide what genre their film is going to belong to. Joe Lipsett noted the importance of this in advertising; after all, we don’t want our audience to feel cheated out of what they expected based on the iconography and conventions of our trailer. As producers we have to decide how firmly we wish to establish ourselves in the genre in order to attract not only the appropriate audience, but also a wide audience. Of course, Prof. Lipsett also explained the empiricist dilemma, or, in other words, the chicken and egg dilemma which is presented by defining genre convention. This got us thinking of the constant evolution of genre which we are inevitably a part of whether as producer or as audience member. So, how much do we want to stray from convention? At what point will we offend genre seekers at our film? Do we want to evolve the genre or remain true to what’s already established? As our graphic novel, Powers, merely fringes upon many of the conventions of the superhero genre, we have plenty of room to tinker with, but we don’t want to give too much away, at least, not yet.

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