1. Who has the authority to determine when a piece is "too melodramatic"?
2. If melodrama is the excess of sentiment and sensation, can anything be too melodramatic?
3. What effect does the use of black face in Mickey's Mellerdrammer have on contemporary audiences as opposed to on the audiences of its time?
1. Who has the authority to determine when a piece is "too melodramatic"?
ReplyDelete2. If melodrama is the excess of sentiment and sensation, can anything be too melodramatic?
3. What effect does the use of black face in Mickey's Mellerdrammer have on contemporary audiences as opposed to on the audiences of its time?
1. The audience has the authority to determine if a piece is too melodramatic. However, they’re determination is merely a personal view and it’s ‘authority’ does not extend to a universal, encompassing, and objective truth. A work can perhaps be too melodramatic in regards to a particular, stated goal. For example, if an author is trying to write a purely ‘realist’ piece, they may have elements that are too melodramatic to fit into the genre that they intended to hit.
If a work does not have such a goal though, and aims to use the ‘excesses’ of melodrama for the benefit of the piece, then no one person can declare that it is ‘too melodramatic’, for, though it may seem so to them, it may create great emotion for other audiences. Such was the case when Harriet Beecher Stowe was moved to tears at the sight of a sculpture that an artist describes as a “shocking thing” and in “miserable taste.(10)” The example shows the subjectivity of such a ruling.
2. The answer to the question of “If melodrama is the excess of sentiment and sensation, can anything be too melodramatic?” harkens back to my response to the first question: it can be, subjectively, for individual audience members, or, for a goal of a work. Even if a work aims to be a melodramatic piece, it may indulge too much in the excesses of sentiment and sensation, then it may go so far as to become ‘too much’, even for proponents of melodrama. The key is for the possibly ‘unrealistic’ excesses to be small enough as to still elicit realistic emotions from the audience. An excess of sentiment and sensation may cause the audience to lose touch with the work. Though there may be exaggerations of emotions and circumstances, melodrama’s worth comes in its accessibility, the ability to connect audiences with characters that are in relatable struggles and dealing with the ‘traumatic effects of modernity’ (21). If the excesses go to far, they may alienate their audience by destroying the possibility of attachment.
If one’s idea of truly ‘too much’ means that there is no possible audience who would enjoy the piece, one would have to find that all members of all audiences would feel unattached due to the excesses. However, one’s idea of ‘too much’ might mean that more than half view it as such, or a certain demographic, etc. Thus the answer to “is it too much?’ becomes an extremely subjective one on many different levels.
3. The effect of the use of black face on an audience in 1933 would be minimal. It was merely a necessity to them portraying the characters. The only way in which it would have been noteworthy to much of the audience, was in that it was applied in a comical way. The application of the blackface in ‘silly’ and ‘comical’ ways would have induced big laughs, and little else.
Now, however, such use of black face is seen as wildly politically incorrect, and for good reason. Such a scene would never be included, and if it were, it would be almost universally decried for its insensitivity and inappropriateness, especially considering the audience of the cartoon.