Appealing Narratives

An appealing narrative is both captivating and accessible to a global audience. As we discussed in Tuesday’s class, a narrative is widely circulated when it is comprehendible across diverse cultural contexts. Thus, narratives produced in hegemonic languages like English that present a “universal framework that everyone can fill with their own content” (Fischer), have mass appeal. A narrative is deemed ‘successful’ by its ‘recipients’ – people ultimately accept or reject a narrative based on its compliance with and proximity to their cultural beliefs and interests. In her discussion of the global appeal of the ‘sports narrative,’ Barbara J. Keys states, “…sport offered a universal platform for representation [to] provide opportunities for peoples in other parts of the world to claim international power and legitimacy” (186). Thus, the appeal of the sports narrative lies in its provision of a platform for every country, every culture to become a vital participant in the ‘global community’ and have their ‘fifteen minutes of authority’ in front of the global audience.

An ‘unappealing’ narrative counters these traits by lacking communicability across various cultures as well as not allowing ‘global participation’ in the narrative. While it occurred in a distinct region, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami is an ‘appealing, narratable’ narrative for both its ‘shock value’ and the vast impact it had on millions of people around the world. In contrast, an example of an ‘unappealing, non-narratable’ narrative might be a political election in Indonesia, which has little cultural relevance outside of the country/region. In contrast to an unprecedented natural disaster, a political election, unless controversial or groundbreaking (like the election of President Obama), is rather mundane to the global audience.

In her analysis of the feminicidios, Jessica Livingston explores the social and political impediments to the construction and distribution of the maquiladora narrative. If a mass murdering of female factory workers occurred in the United States it would be plastered on the front page of every newspaper for months. But Mexican authorities do not view these events as ‘narratable,’ newsworthy, or even criminal. The implicit Mexican cultural rejection of the feminicidios highlights an important attribute of the ‘narratability’ of an event – it needs to fit into the framework of the storyteller’s culture. Thus, despite its potential mass appeal, feminicidios is not ‘narratable’ because Mexican authorities do not recognize it as a legitimate narrative; their refusal to acknowledge the killings as a ‘problem’ is a quiet approval of the extermination of these ‘disposable’ women who threaten Mexican hegemonic gender roles and traitorously aid American corporate expansion.

Works Cited

Fischer, Annemarie. Class Discussion. 9 November 2010. “Global Media Narratives,” Binghamton University.

Keys, Barbara J. Globalizing Sport. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2006. Print.

Livingston, Jessica. “Murder in Juarez: Gender, Sexual Violence, and the Global Assembly Line.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies. Vol. 25, No. 1 (2004): pp. 59-76. Web.