Wednesday, November 22, 2006
(4:47 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Founding the Genre
For whatever reason, I was just thinking about The Producers, specifically the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry David forgets the line that states the entire premise of the musical. In any case, in pondering the "musical about a musical," or (in the terminology of this blog) "meta-musical," I was wondering -- is it possible to found a new genre in meta-mode? Now that they're established, we can make a movie about making a movie, etc. -- but can we found a new genre by making an artistic product in that genre that's about making an artistic product in that genre? If it were possible, would that genre then be always and forever meta? (This of course assumes that we have genres that aren't meta.)And what about the possibility of founding a new genre indirectly? That is, if our new genre was called a blork, would it be possible to found the genre of blork by writing a novel about a blorkist? What if the novel included no blorks or excerpts of blorks?
