They got into a fight the other day Aruseros in a passionate debate about hermeneutics, narrative theory and reception aesthetics. Which proves that you can no longer trust even morning TV: if you ignore it, you learn something, even though the programming of that time slot is designed against any attempt at thought. Be careful with this: it starts like this, and if Arús is careless, the set has been filled with professors with dandruff who quote Baudrillard.
The debate in question was about diegetic resources and narrative structures in contemporary television fiction. Specifically, they analyzed the use of cliffhanger, that is, the art of interrupting the narrative before the resolution of the plot, frustrating the viewer, who is left without knowing what will happen until the next episode. They criticized the systematic abuse of this resource, which already appeared in mythological texts and was brought to its cynical peak by Julián Lago in The truth machine: “Don’t answer yet, do it after the advertisement.”
From there they went on to criticize the approaches of current series, masters in the art of creating expectations. Radical, Arús said that, if nothing happened in a chapter, bye. Then, as they warmed up, everyone agreed that ten minutes was enough, no more. Neither cliffhangers no shit – there the debate became truly hermeneutical -: we are not here to waste time, with all the series there are.
Aruseros supports Tinder’s ways and the elevator sales technique: if you don’t convince me how long a trip from one floor to another takes, I’m not interested. There were no dissenting opinions: everyone was in a hurry and there were no ambiguities. It is curious that, among all the narrative experts, no one emphasized that the objective of a narrative is usually the narrative itself, not its resolution.
There was not a single reader of Byung-Chul Han or González Sainz, who is from Soria and is closer to hand (and much cooler than the Korean philosopher). Nobody in favor of a slow life and plots that unravel little by little. Nobody in favor of “friends and whatever comes up.” As I guess Aruseros is more like Spain than González Sainz’s books, I was saddened by that inability to waste time: as if life offered something better than the very consciousness of being alive.
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