Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Who can explain to me the meaning of "metatextual"?

Because I can never quite recall what it means exactly.

4 comments:

zuppe said...

somewhere here there is a "metrosexual" joke. but it's too early in the morning for me to work one out.

aging cowgirl said...

it's fuzzy to me as well but I think it refers to a text that comments on its own status as a text, perhaps as one among many interpretations. For example, there could be a metatextual moment in a Harry Potter book when the narrator says something that reveals his/her own biases or reveals that that the entire construct is a work of fiction and we are being manipulated, for example, to distrust Voldemort or see Hermione as the anti-hero. I think of the movie "Adaptation" as very metatextual because it is about a screenwriter who is writing a script about a screenwriter (Am I remembering this correctly? I am getting confused by all the orchids). In talking about the script in the movie, the Charlie Kaufman character is also talking about himself and the screenplay we are watching.

zuppe said...

"The OC" (by the way, finally Ryan broke up with Marissa...again) succumbs to metatextual references very often. Often it refers to Seth, but I wish they'd do it to Marissa so the writers would acknowledge what an utter waste of dialogue and screen time she is.

starbright oogi said...

i missed that episode! hmm i will have to watch the oc once again to catch metatext (is that a word?) in action. whose going to write the new generation's "key words" or "generation x"?