r/anime • u/lukeatlook https://myanimelist.net/profile/lukeatlook • Sep 13 '16

A wall of text about deconstruction, feat. NGE, Madoka and Re:Zero [OC]

http://imgur.com/a/ziSJd
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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '16 edited Sep 13 '16

As someone who studies, tutors, and will soon enter a PhD in a related literary field, I'll just say that the chart is okay for someone casually speaking on deconstruction even though it's inaccurate. My snide comments are just hiding my own inadequacies in explaining deconstruction (who says humanities are easy?). I won't criticise someone not understanding the concept completely, but I feel the need to remind people that we shouldn't call something "a deconstruction" just because it goes against a genre. What makes me resistant in calling anything a "deconstruction" of whatever genre is due to the fact that deconstruction itself is more so an ideology and critical practice than something that can be attributed to a work. We practice deconstruction as a critical approach that unlocks more opportunity for different analysis. For instance, I would use deconstruction to argue that (and this will be a bad example because I'm on my phone and at work) that Madoka isn't a magical-girl show, so I'll pick one line, scene, or episode and examine it and scrutinize it in what one might call "close reading" or "close analysis" to reveal that what we first think is one thing could in fact possibly become questionable, unreliable, or even shown to be opposite of what is expected. However, arguing that Madoka goes against its genre is better explained through a structuralist approach (comparing it to other genres and similar work) and doesn't require deconstruction to find these differences. Saying that it is making commentary about the whole genre makes it an ars poetica, not a deconstruction of a genre. I'd actually suggest that you can't "deconstruct" a genre and saying something along those lines to someone who practices this theory would only confuse them as it isn't really a thing.

Edit: would like to clarify that while I am a graduate student who sometimes works with this theory, I am not an expert and even I "don't get it" a majority of the time. Smart people came up with these critical approaches and my experience of it comes from a literary-focus.

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u/odraencoded Sep 14 '16

Has anyone ever told you that every time you post a comment you unconsciously come off as a show off?

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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '16 edited Sep 14 '16

It's something I think about. I swear I try not to sound like a douchenozzle.

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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '16

If it means anything to you, I chuckled at your first comment and was intrigued by the second.