The document discusses different approaches to representing reality in media, including psychological realism, naturalism, and documentary conventions. Psychological realism aims to portray individual experiences as universal, but often reflects the views of privileged groups. Naturalism focuses on depicting typical social experiences rather than claiming psychological universality. Documentaries rely on images, testimony, and documentation to substantiate their representations of reality, but any curation of evidence inherently makes an argument. The lines between different genres are blurred, and all representations of reality carry ideological assumptions.

1. Marc Bousquet, October 15, 2015

2.  By what it’s not—ie, this is “not fiction,” because it represents existing or
historical persons, places and events.
 By the persuasiveness of its representation of the real—Characters are relatable,
places are recognizable, dialogue is believable, events seem likely. Underlying this
persuasiveness are codes and conventions, all of which are specific to particular
genres—and particular audiences. Even the most persuasive codes can be
transformed in reception by an active audience.
 As a site of struggle. Dissatisfaction with the codes and conventions of dominant
modes of realism can lead to new codes and competing representations. What
counts as realistic representation is always changing and always up for debate.

3.  Media can be studied empirically, eg by content analysis that observes and
measures particular elements.
 Empiricism can be a persuasive representational strategy, eg in naturalistic
representation a la Zola or The Wire
 But the dominant mode of realism is psychological realism, and
naturalistic/empiricist representation is commonly a reaction to the perceived
failings of psychological realism—for instance, claiming that psychological
“truths” are not universal and frequently inaccurate, because psychological
experience varies enormously by social group.

4. Sometimes called “bourgeois realism,” frequently associated with literary
expression, psychological realism as an intentional creative strategy traces back to
late 19th century stories and novels, eg. Bierce’s An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge,
in which all of the story takes place in the mind of a Confederate spy while he is
dropping from a gallows. The story crams hours of subjective experience into one
second of objective time.
Psychological realism is a dominant strategy in contemporary film and television,
evident in most genres, from comedy through horror and beyond. Artfully crafted
psychological appeals anchor the claim to realistic representation in journalism,
documentary, lifestyle programming and “reality tv.” Overtly fictional settings (eg
Game of Thrones, Hunger Games) may rely heavily on the codes and conventions of
psychological realism to maintain plausibility.

5. Psychological realism depends on a series of persuasive tactics involving race, class
and gender. It isn’t accidental that the central, experiential lens of this remake is
an older, white male (the “father”)—a very particular, privileged social position. But
the film nonetheless also wishes to represent that unique, privileged standpoint as
universal or nearly so, as ordinary and accessible. Martin aims to create an
Everyman point of view that, seemingly, pretty much anyone can identify with.
Roger Ebert praised the film for giving a very large audience “a good feeling all the
way through,” explaining that it portrayed “everyday life, warmly observed.”
 How do the script, direction and Martin’s performance/persona work to establish
him as a “regular guy” or an Everyman, just living an “everyday life”?

6. Despite the efforts to show the Banks family as ordinary, they aren’t really, are
they? Some questions:
 What’s the value of the Banks family home in San Marino, CA? (Look up a similar
home on Zillow.) What sort of cars do the Banks family drive? What’s George
Banks’ job? Can you research the likely earnings of someone in his position?
 How would you define an ordinary American’s income? What would an ordinary
American’s home look like? Find some evidence online to support your
characterization of “ordinary.”
 Given the codes and conventions of psychological realism in contemporary
American media, how would an actually ordinary American home register with
viewers?

7.  Follow the link below. How do Wong’s observations apply to “Father of the Bride” and
other films or television shows? http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-hollywood-
tricked-you-into-hating-poor-people/
 Are there films and television shows that, by contrast, try to break these assumptions?
 David Wong’s short article covers the class dimension of psychological realism,
illustrating how our media collectively fail to grasp the realities of “everyday life” for
ordinary people. Originally entitled “5 ways Hollywood tricked you into hating poor
people,” the article hints at one of the major questions we need to ask: Who’s the
audience for film?
 Who is the “we” of the audience? How do the assumptions of psychological realism
reflect that particular “we” and vary from others? What persons and experiences are
left behind? Can you find evidence for the social stratification of audiences?

8. As Bignell points out, the various codes and conventions of different claims to realistic
representation all bear ideological weight. If film is consumed by a disproportionately
wealthy, educated (and privileged) group, it isn’t surprising that the ideological weight
of the culture they consume reflects their understanding of the world and how it works.
 Ideology can work by excluding the experiences of subordinate groups, reinforcing the
views of dominant groups, and by interpellating members of subordinate groups into
dominant views (so that persons absorb beliefs or values against their own material
interests). There can be serious ideological content in the most unserious genres—
think of the sex-role messages embedded in music video. Psychological realism can be
understood as a form of psychological warfare!
 But there are positive implications as well. What if we looked at the codes and
conventions of psychological realism as collective fantasy? Perhaps American film
audiences collectively wish that everyone lived like Steve Martin’s character George
Banks.

9. What’s the one thing you know for sure about narrative value? The lead character
experiences a moral challenge and –if victorious– changes as a result. That’s true in
Father of the Bride; it’s true of most of the books and movies assigned to you until
you graduated high school. Most authorities agree on the usefulness of this litmus
test for distinguishing “good” books and films from merely entertaining books and
films.
 “Merely entertaining” stories commonly have a melodramatic structure. A morally
good character faces external challenges in the form of a morally bad character.
The plot is resolved when the bad character is defeated. The lead character does
not change.
 What if we look at the lead character’s moral challenge in realist stories as a form
of melodrama? The struggle between moral choices is simply driven inward.
 Melodrama was (and is) the leading alternative narrative mode when realism was
developed; realism’s rejection of melodrama incorporates some of what it rejected.

10. Artists who are frustrated with the dominance of psychological realism (and the
centrality of the wealthy, privileged, white or male subjectivity) sometimes turn to a
sociological realism, often called “naturalism.”
 Psychologial realism focusses on seemingly unique individual experience—but
then claims to find essentially universal psychological truths.
 By contrast, naturalistic media focus on experiences that they view as common or
typical, but not universal. They focus on the particularity of groups and on the
social logic (sociology) of groups’ relationships to each other—including prejudice,
struggle, exploitation, domination, indoctrination, etc.

11. Emile Zola “attempted to portray in a series of vividly-colored stereoscopic views the
whole complex life of modern society.” –Albert Shaw
 Naturalistic artists like Zola, Upton Sinclair (The Jungle, King Coal, Oil!) and David
Simon (The Wire, Treme) often aim for an art that does the work of social science. It
can be politically powerful. In exposing how society works, a moral imperative
emerges. Or not: How would you characterize the message and/or the appeal of Mike
Rowe’s “Dirty Jobs”?
 In naturalistic narrative, the moral problems are social and political, not issues of
individual ethics. The political issues are often left unresolved. Theorists like Bertolt
Brecht believed denying the audience catharsis of resolution would inspire them to
seek resolution in the world, ie, engage in social change.
 In seeking “stereoscopic” (remember the Viewmaster?) views of the “typical,”
naturalistic representation risks stereotyping—flattening and simplifying the
complexity and diversity of a social group’s experience, beliefs, culture and history. For
more see Dave Zirin on reconsidering The Wire after the recent Baltimore riots:
http://www.thenation.com/article/game-done-changed-reconsidering-wire-amidst-
baltimore-uprising/

12. One of the most powerful conventions used to give the impression of fairness,
balance—even objectivity—is the “he said, she said” trope that still dominates
nearly all issue journalism.
 But do all issues have two sides? Some issues have dozens of widely differing
stakeholder positions.
 What about being “fair to the truth”? Is allowing someone to lie really fair,
balanced or objective? Are there “two sides” to climate change knowledge?
 National Public Radio formally rejected “he said, she said,” in a 2012 revision to
its ethics handbook. See more:
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/npr_rethinks_its_reporting.php
 “He Said, She Said, and the Truth” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/public-
editor/16pubed.html?_r=0

13. Documentary media depend on a series of conventions to substantiate their
representations of the real, placing particularly high value on images of events,
eyewitness testimony, oral history, and other forms of documentation.
 Bignell emphasizes the centrality of metonymy in documentary, of a part standing in
for a whole. The claim “I was there” is powerful in this genre, yet a particular
standpoint can be of limited value in a complex historical event, or even a source of
error—research on memory and eyewitness testimony raises questions about
reliability. The persons and documents that survive an event will shape the knowledge
available.
 Assembling documents to shape a narrative—as in historiography or criminal
justice—is always making an argument, implicitly or explicitly.
 Melodramatic narrative (of innocent victims and evildoers) and naturalistic
representation of social logic) are common ways of using story to make documentary
intelligible, particularly to viewers who don’t share the experience represented. As a
result, documentaries can risk voyeurism, orientalism, and other forms of “othering”
its subjects. What differences and similarities do you see between Mike Rowe’s “Dirty
Jobs” and Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed”?

14.  In what sense are Bravo’s “Housewives” Real?
 Do you cook better after watching “Top Chef”?
 What’s the relationship between Donald Trump’s television show and his political
campaigns?
 What’s your own role in reality media—producing, consuming, distributing, and
valuing content on Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, Yikyak, etc? Are there codes and
conventions to this activity?

15. Contact:
Marc Bousquet, Department of Film and Media, Emory University
pmbousquet@gmail.com