EDITOR'S NOTE

• Published in: Fourth genre 2018-04, Vol.20 (1), p.V
• Main Author: Julier, Laura
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Drama; Epic literature; Football; Genre; Judgment; Literary devices; Narrative techniques; Plot (Narrative); Television
• ISSN: 1522-3868; 1544-1733

A Big Ten football game is full of drama and spectacle, for certain. It plays well on television. When one is in the midst of it either in the stands or among the tailgaters it can lead some people to feel that they're part of something big and vitally important. Something so important, in fact, that it can warp judgment and priorities and normal habits of care, as we have been finding out. Admittedly, it can also make those of us who hunger for solitude, or are a bit apprehensive of the potential power of the crowd, feel it's the last place on earth we'd want to be. But there's no denying its scale, or that it veers towards a grand narrative and easily evokes the genre of epic, forced or not. Mostly the effort to invoke the epic is in fact forced, reduced to its simplest formula. The other night, while his parent was trying to update me on the last Star Wars movie before the new one appears in theaters, a 15-year-old friend of mine interrupted to explain why he was so disappointed in The Force Awakens. His voice got louder and more agitated as he described the inconsistent plot points, but then moved to his main argument: the filmmakers had caved to commercial greed, relying on a safe and proven formula: "Empire, bad; rebels, good. Those in power, always evil; small band of underdogs, always righteous and always win." He had wanted them to resist this formula, to explore the moral and interpersonal complexities of the rebels, to explore how new circumstances mi^ht reveal other aspects of these characters.