Counter-narratives

There’s an interesting article by Paul Schrader on The Guardian this morning arguing that we all suffering from ‘narrative exhaustion’: ‘Today's viewers live in a biosphere of narrative. Twenty-four-seven, multimedia, all the time. When a storyteller competes for a viewer's attention, he not only competes with simultaneously occurring narratives, he competes with the variations of his own narrative. That's real competition. The bar of originality has been raised.’

Schrader thinks that because we’re already familiar with nearly all the plots (like serial killers, road movies, oddballs etc) we’re turning increasingly to counter-narrative, like 'reality' TV and video-gaming.

A while ago I watched this clip about new video game system that creates characters who really interact with the player:

Part of me is excited by the possibilities for participatory narrative in this, but really, it’s a pretty terrifying retreat from reality, and a bad time to be doing so.

Some more counter-narratives may be coming up in the next few days when I get back from various Respond activities in London.