The Trickster in Serialized Television: An Anti-hero of Postmodern Mythologies

Fuad Halwani

doi:10.37390/avancacinema.2020.a182

Abstract

Anti-heroes have become prevalent on the television home screen since the advent of cable in the late 90s. But the shift to Quality TV made the anti-hero even more dominant in its complex narratives. In order to understand why, I had to identify what an anti-hero really is. Carl Gustav Jung’s theory of the archetypes is one of the most comprehensive and referenced theories when it comes to character development and screenwriting, but the more complex contemporary narratives are becoming, the more the theory is proving to be outdated. However, a particularly perplexing Jungian archetype stands out: the trickster-figure. The investigation into the definition of the trickster yielded different attributes that render it a highly postmodern concept. This dissertation aims at identifying the contemporary TV anti-hero as the mythical player of tricks. Through a survey of 21st century semiotics, structural and poststructural theories, as well as contemporary theories on character and engagement in Serial TV consumption and “binge” culture, this dissertation aims to show how the trickster-figure is as relevant today as it was in ancient times.

Highlights

Mythology in the ancient and the postmodernI did not know how to become anything: neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero, nor an insect. -- Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1864
The central aim is to understand what makes the anti-hero as trickster so dominant as an emerging trend in a hyper-industrial market that is contemporary Quality TV
In her essay on the TV anti-hero, Chloe Liddy-Judge affirms that he ‘good guy’ as hero gets its roots from Plato’s Republic where he attributed to the hero of dramatic works the highest morals in order to preserve the moral structure of society (Liddy-Judge 2013, 1-2)

Summary

Introduction

I did not know how to become anything: neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero, nor an insect. -- Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1864. The objective of this dissertation is to understand the concept of the anti-hero in contemporary serial television through the lense of the mythological trickster-figure. It is my central claim that mythological symbolism still operates unconsciously in the way we understand narrative, and these symbols operate (sometimes inversely) in the cultural texts that have become so dominant in postmodernity; i.e. Serial TV By these symbols I mean basic archetypes of story and Capítulo III – Cinema – Comunicação character that have much to do with the theories laid out by Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung. The mythologies we have told and heard over time have been bottled and stacked in the collective unconscious and appear in a symbolic nature in our conscious life as well as in dreams Archetypes exist within this realm and they are ideal absolute forms of character types with similarities with the Platonic theory of forms (Campbell 2002, 3-5). A conclusion aims at underlining the relevance and appeal of trickers in the hyper-industrial market of quality TV as well as the indeterminate postmodern reality of the present age

II: The Flexibility of Structure

III: On Character and the Human Condition

Conclusion