Twin Peaks and the television gothic
1993; Salisbury University; Volume: 21; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0090-4260
Autores Tópico(s)Crime and Detective Fiction Studies
Resumoam inhabited by a cry. Nightly it flaps out Looking, with its hooks, for something to love. Sylvia Plath, Elm The twentieth century has proven congenial to the literature and film attest to the continuing vitality of the genre. Examples of today's popular include such works as Stephen King's The Shining with its Gothicizcd haunted hotel, modern romances and Harlequin clones whose covers feature persecuted maidens in the shadow of gloomy mansions, and horror Films as diverse as Psycho, Night of the Living Dead, and the perennial remake of Dracula. However, while many scholars and critics have addressed the use of elements in literature and Film, the Held of the has yet to be explored in any detail. ' This is despite the fact television would seem an ideal medium for inquiry. It is, after all, a mysterious box simultaneously inhabited by spirit images of ourselves and inhabiting our living rooms. In fact, television has aired its fair share of programs with elements. (Aired itself is a good concept- ghostly messages traveling through the air.) Thriller, The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone. Night Gallery, The Night Stalker. Friday the 13th: The Series, the original Dark Shadows and its stupendously dull 1991 remake (a sort of Dynasty with fangs) are but a few examples of scries utilized devices. However, David Lynch's Twin Peaks is the First series to tap the full potential of the 'Television Gothic. This new utilizes familiar themes and devices such as incest, the grotesque, repetition, interpolated narration, haunted settings, mirrors, doubles, and supernatural occurrences. But these elements undergo a sea change once they are immersed in the currents of television. What could have been a soothing repetition of formula instead becomes a disturbing process of transgression and uncertainty. Twin Peaks as a is a distinctly post-modern form, as process rather than product. The basic methodolouv of this process involves the combination and exploitation of two highly domestic forms-television and the novel. The result of this process is a series in which the domestic is the and television becomes the ghost in the home. In exploring this new it is useful to: (I) start with a working definition of Gothic, then (2) present an overview of typical devices operating in Twin Peaks, and finally, (3) analyze two fundamental elements are transmuted through the medium of television-incest and the family romance, and the fragmented and multi-formed narrative. Definitions I perceive, said Emily, smiling, that all old houses are haunted. . Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolfo (1794) Definitions, like old mansions, are inclined to be haunted-haunted by past definitions. Television Gothic is a haunted phrase, testifying to the intrusion of the past into the present. In order to appreciate the nature of this haunting, we must begin with a definition of the and with an acknowledgment of the limits of such a definition. Any definition of a genre is at best incomplete. There will always be exceptions, overlaps, and grey areas. Further, such definitions all too often reduce and trivialize a complex subject. Those of us interested in genre criticism console ourselves by the hope well thought out models will be recognized as just that-models. As such, they should serve as aids to understanding, not as prescriptive chains on thinking. Even among other genres, the seems particularly difficult to define. Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that, rather than speaking of one monolithic category of Gothic, it is more appropriate to recognize there are many Gothics.2 But a larger part of this difficulty lies in the fact the itself is an unstable genre, one is characterized more by its process than by its individual products. …
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