At 02:34 PM 05/07/2004 -0700, you wrote:
>The assumptions behind your question "has the
genre
>lost its edge" are fascinating. To begin with,
does
>the genre need an "edge" to be successful?
I'd say yes. An edge assumes the genre is evolving, the
creative juices still flowing in response to the ideas,
issues, themes implicit to the form. This would be to stay
relevant with the times, though change can also lead to
irrelevancy too, of course. Not to say that we can't enjoy
some entertaining nostalgia, but if that is all that's on
offer then I'd suggest the lack of an edge indicates a genre
is, in fact, in decline.
Let's take the boys' discontent with Leonard for example, and
Pagan Babies? They weren't explicit, but what did Leonard
have to say about Rwandan genocide except that it was, you
know, bad? Any real comparison/contrast of the tribalism of
Detroit criminal gangs to that of the Tutsis and Hutus of
central Africa, or the clans of the former Yugoslavia? Anyone
else, in this genre, writing about this stuff?
>I'm not sure what you're criticizing about
the
>discussions here: I've been on this list since
the
>late nineties and the quality of the discussions
have
>remained consistently high. Elucidate?
I think so too, and maybe I'm being a bit oversensitive, but
I'm wondering if the genre, and some of our discussions,
haven't taken on a tone of moral certitude of late.
>I read the interview and thought it was pretty
dumb,
>but not something to get worked up over.
The criticisms were fairly broad, but I thought they had some
relevance. A number of Rara-Avians made what appeared to me
to be defensive responses, to the format of the interview, to
the fact that the interview participants weren't as widely
read as one might hope, to the very idea that the current
genre gods might be hollow, even to the notion that an "edge"
might be of value (except Mark Sullivan.)
But, broad as they were, hardly anyone responded directly to
the criticisms: specifically that the genre is not advancing
its creative language (as it did at first, with the hardboil
vernacular) except Ellroy who may or may not be a singular,
spent force, or that the genre is not contributing much to
current public debate.
For instance (to the latter point) is there any publication
in the genre that brings anything new to the issue of child
sexual molestation? I think Kevin Smith raised a similar
point a few weeks back, but no one responded. Yet I'm certain
there's a lot more to this than that this is the ultimate
evil (why do we rate our crimes on a score-card?) and the
perps are monsters (yet in western society we exploit our
children dozens of different ways, including for indirect
sexual gratification) to be exterminated (often just for
thinking about the acts, not necessarily for performing
them.)
Similarly the current paranoia over terrorism. Anything other
than
"terrorist bad, me good, or worse- innocent?" I haven't seen
much recently about this subject at all in our genre, but
maybe I'm missing something. So I'm asking. Too dangerous
politically to garner a mass audience, do you think?
Best Kerry
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