Number Crunching the Oscars

There are many things a person can do in anticipation of the annual Academy Awards telecast. Plenty of people make plans to hold or attend an event filled with fellow cinephiles and much merriment. Some will immerse themselves into the prediction game, reading magazines and blogs about all the behind the scenes politicking and buzz mongering. Hopefully, quite a few people will use the attention the Oscars shine on the nominees as an inspiration to take in some of the talked-about films. Then there is that tiny and bizarre minority -no, minority is too generous, splinter faction is probably more accurate- that decides the best way to celebrate the year in movies is to do a bunch of math.

In my defense, I blame the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for my recent rush of calculations. They recently adopted a few changes in the Best Picture category that have greatly complicated matters. First they decided to double the number of movies nominated for the top prize from five to ten. Okay easy enough, just print bigger ballots. Then they noticed that a movie could garner as little as 10.01% of the vote and win the most coveted award in Hollywood. Put it in other words, given the Academy has about 6,000 members, 5,400 of them could hate one of the ten nominated movies, but if 601 people vote for it it would be recorded as the best film of the year.

Rather than allow a highly fractured vote lead to an embarrassing result, someone proposed a new kind of ballot called "preferential voting" or "instant runoff". This basically means the Academy members rank the ten nominated film from their number one choice down. (On a personal note, I recently participated in an instant runoff election, and I can say from experience it was fun, easy and seemed like it could work in more elections.) Once the ballots are collected, the fine folks at PriceWaterhouse Coopers -a barrel making firm if I understand the definition of cooper correctly- then check to see if any film got a majority of the first place votes. Unless a film is an instant winner (unlikely to happen unless one film has an overwhelming level of support), the tabulators start weeding out the nominees that received few first place votes and redistributing their votes among the remaining films.

Since this is all a little confusing, I think it might be best to walk through a simulation of how the vote might break down among this year's Best Picture nominees. The inimitable Nate Silver -the only other person on Internet I could find nerdy enough to mix math with the Oscars- performed a similar exercise already. However he crunched his numbers before the nominees were announced, though he did accurately predicted nine of the ten. Also he used critics rankings, because he could find reliable data for them, instead of attempting to gauge the opinion of the AMPAS voters, a much trickier proposition. Fortunately for you, I don't have Silver's commitment to accuracy to worry about or his stellar reputation for predictions to preserve, so I can make a foolhardy attempt to predict how members of the Academy might rank the films. I will combine my knowledge of past Oscar races, my understanding of the AMPAS membership, and a watchful eye to the current dynamics of the awards season to estimate the level of support each nominee can expect.

We can begin breaking down the vote distribution by breaking down the membership of the Academy. Between the 6,000 AMPAS members and the 15 branches within the Academy, I can identify 4 major voting blocs, each based on different definitions you can use to determine the Best Picture of the year.

First you have those voters who believe that the Best Picture award should go the grandest film of the year. They like seeing movies you could describe as "epic" winning the top prize, films like Gladiator and The Lord of the Rings. This group probably contains mostly producers and directors, with some cinematographers, writers and a few actors mixed in. I estimate these voters account for about 35% of the total number of Best Picture votes.

Balancing out the first group you have those who believe that "best picture" means "most moving". They want to reward the movies that have the strongest emotional impact. Recently these voters likely supported Best Picture winners like Million Dollar Baby and Slumdog Millionaire. I would say a lot of the actors in the Academy vote with this block along with some of the writers and directors, probably a fair number of the artistic members who do art direction, makeup, and costuming too. These voters seem to represent around 35% of the vote as well.

The third major group comes from the less famous branches of AMPAS, the ones who are nominated in the so called "artistic and technical categories". Since every member can vote in the Best Picture category this undervalued lot can have a powerful impact on the race. They tend to hold that the Oscar brand should fall to those films they deem the most well made or best crafted. The last two Best Pictures, The Hurt Locker and No Country For Old Men, seem to have had strong support from this bloc. All told they likely comprise 25% or so of the Academy.

Finally, you have a small group that can play a big role if there is ever a close race. These are producers, publicists, and studio executives who simply -some might say cynically- contend that the "best" movies are the one's that make the most money. So their rankings of the years films pretty much mirror the final box office earnings. Their support helped put Titanic over the top to earn a record number of Oscars. Last year they probably supported Avatar, but the other factions trumped them. They probably add up to no more than 5% of the votes available for Best Picture.

So if you divide the Academy into these four groups, you likely can guess which groups would vote for which nominees, and therefore how much support each nominee has. It is important to remember that each group will likely vote for more than one film, and many nominees will receive votes from more than one group. Also, I will assume that each group has a selection of movies that they all rank above the others. So you when a movie that had a share of the "most touching" vote is eliminated it's votes will probably go the other emotionally powerful movies before they go anywhere else. With all of that explained, I think we can begin breaking down the actual votes.

Grandest Picture Bloc- 35% of the total 1st place votes
- The King's Speech: 35% of the bloc vote = 12.25% of the total vote
- The Social Network: 30% bloc = 10.5% total
- Inception: 20% bloc = 7% total
- True Grit: 10% bloc = 3.5% total
- Winter's Bone: 5% bloc = 1.75% total
These are all the options from among the nominees which seem to portray a grand vision, or tell an ambitious story. In some cases this is because of the amount of work involved (for period pieces like True Grit or The King's Speech). Sometimes it its because of the level of technical sophistication that the filmmakers employed (such as in manking The Social Network or Inception). Also a film could just have overachieved and accomplished a lot with relatively meager means (as I believe some will argue Winter's Bone managed to do).


Most Powerful Movie Bloc- 35% of the total 1st place votes
- The King's Speech: 40% of the bloc vote = 14% of the total vote
- The Fighter: 20% bloc = 7% total
- Black Swan: 15% bloc = 5.25% total
- The Kids Are All Right: 10% bloc = 3.5% total
- Winter's Bone: 5% bloc = 1.75% total
- Toy Story 3: 5% bloc = 1.75% total
- 127 Hours: 5% bloc = 1.75% total
Among this group you can find the nominees that have been most praised for the emotional power the convey. Here you will notice some overlap with the first group, most notably The King's Speech. While other films from the first group have been left out. I am yet to hear anyone call either Inception or The Social Network "the most touching movie of the year".

Best Made Film Bloc- 25% of the total 1st place votes
- The Social Network: 30% of the bloc vote = 7.5% of the total vote
- The King's Speech: 20% bloc = 5% total
- The Fighter: 15% bloc = 3.75% total
- True Grit: 15% bloc = 3.75% total
- Inception: 10% bloc = 2.5% total
- Winter's Bone: 5% bloc = 1.25% total
- 127 Hours: 5% bloc = 1.25% total
Now all of the nominees have to have been well crafter movies to even be considered for an Oscar. However, I believe this list contains those pictures who derive the biggest chunk of their merit from their technical values. Each of these nominees has impressive filmmaking elements that made it stand out from the other movies released in 2010.

Biggest Hit Bloc- 5% of the total 1st place votes
- Inception: 60% of the bloc vote = 3% of the total vote
- Toy Story 3: 40% bloc = 2% total
Finally this group has only two movies with big box office earnings to vote for. In most years I would imagine the vote might be pretty monolithic -whichever nominee earned the most gets the most votes. However this year I think the voters will split between the highest grossing movie of the year, Toy Story 3, and the biggest money-maker among the live action films. I say this because some members of the Academy still believe that animated films should not be compared to live action films. They involve different kinds of filmmaking and they generally aim to accomplish different goals. Therefore any method of comparison, even total grosses, can't be easily evaluated between animated and live action films. Do you reward Toy Story 3 for selling so many tickets, especially when you earn less off a children's ticket? Do you support Inception for bringing droves of adults to the cinema, something Hollywood has struggled to do for years? There's no easy answer, so I predict a split vote here.

Let's put all that information into one chart, so you can see how much of the vote each nominee received.

Total Vote- Round 1
- The King's Speech: 31.25%
- The Social Network: 18%
- Inception: 12.5%
- The Fighter: 10.75%
- True Grit: 7.25%
- Black Swan: 5.25%
- Winter's Bone: 4.75%
- Toy Story 3: 3.75%
- The Kids Are All Right: 3.5%
- 127 Hours: 3%

None of the nominees have a majority, though The King's Speech has a huge lead over all the others. That means there is no instant winner and the voting no goes to multiple rounds. In each round the film with the lowest share of the 1st place vote is eliminated it's votes are then redistributed to those nominess that remain. The votes are spread out by going down the ballot to the highest ranked film still in contention and giving that film an additional 1st place vote.

The first film to go is 127 Hours. I know it feels like losing an arm to lose one of these nominees (rimshot!), but that is how the process works. We start by identifying where the votes for 127 Hours came from then determine which of the survivors profit from the departure of this film.

Some of the Most Powerful Movie vote, 5%, went to 127 Hours, so we can split that among some of the other touching films in contention. This is how I expect those votes to break down:

1st Place- 127 Hours
- Black Swan: 30%
- The Fighter: 30%
- The King's Speech: 20%
- Winter's Bone: 20%

To clarify what these numbers represent, I am dividing up just 1.75% of the total 1st place votes. When I say The King's Speech gets 20% of the votes from people who judged 127 Hours to be the emotionally touching movie of the year, I am say one-fifth of 1.75% of the Academy's 6,000 members, or about 21 people, would now have their 1st place vote go to The King's Speech instead of their original pick.

Of cour 127 Hours got some votes for being the best made film of the year as well. Here I have a different pool of films among which to divide the 1st place votes. I would predict the votes would spread out like:

1st Place- 127 Hours
- The Social Network: 30%
- The Fighter: 30%
- Winter's Bone: 20%
- The King's Speech: 10%
- Inception: 10%

After I calculate the effect these changes have on the total 1st place vote distribution, I can make an updated chart of the standings.

Total Vote- Round 2
- The King's Speech: 31.725%
- The Social Network: 18.375%
- Inception: 12.625%
- The Fighter: 11.65%
- True Grit: 7.25%
- Black Swan: 5.775%
- Winter's Bone: 5.35%
- Toy Story 3: 3.75%
- The Kids Are All Right: 3.5%
- 127 Hours

Since we still lack any nominee with over 50% of the total vote the process continues. Next on the chopping block we have the critically acclaimed dramedy, The Kids Are All Right. Since this fillm got all of it's support from one bloc of voters, the Most Powerful Movie crowd, it is pretty easy to divvy up the votes appropriately. I imagine that the supports of The Kids Are All Right, a largely comedic film with an indy vibe, will have ranked other films that are humorous or independent highly. Thus:

1st Place- The Kids Are All Right
- The King's Speech: 50%
- Toy Story 3: 30%
- Winter's Bone: 20%

That brings our updated standings to:

Total Vote- Round 3
- The King's Speech: 33.475%
- The Social Network: 18.375%
- Inception: 12.625%
- The Fighter: 11.65%
- True Grit: 7.25%
- Black Swan: 5.775%
- Winter's Bone: 6.05%
- Toy Story 3: 4.8%
- The Kids Are All Right
- 127 Hours

Now we move on to Toy Story 3 and it's supporters. The folks who voted for it because it was the highest earning movie of the year are easy to account for. All of their 1st place votes would just go to the next big money maker, Inception. The people who held it as the most touching of the nominees will require a more involved breakdown. This block no longer represents just the 1.75% of the Academy that gave it a 1st place vote originally. Now we also have to spread out the votes it received as a result of other films getting dropped. That means we now have 2.8% of the vote to work with. (I know that's a staggering amount of change to deal with. You might want to take a second and catch your breath before you move on.) Here is how I would imagine the votes are divided among this group:

1st Place- Toy Story 3
- The King's Speech: 70%
- The Fighter: 10%
- Black Swab: 10%
- Winter's Bone: 10%

Factoring in those adjustments, and the earlier bump to Inception's standings, we have these updated standings:

Total Vote- Round 4
- The King's Speech: 35.435%
- The Social Network: 18.375%
- Inception: 14.625%
- The Fighter: 11.93%
- True Grit: 7.25%
- Black Swan: 6.055%
- Winter's Bone: 6.33%
- Toy Story 3
- The Kids Are All Right
- 127 Hours

In an interesting twist, Black Swan, which started with more of the 1st place vote share than Winter's Bone, is actually the next movie eliminated. Please note that all of this has been my speculation. I cannot actually know if more members of the Academy ranked Winter's Bone high on their ballot than did for Black Swan. I do however believe that this sort of change in the standings is possible, and even likely, once you start eliminating nominees and redistributing the vote. Having said that and remembering that only films still active can receive new 1st place votes, this is how I break down the vote:

1st Place- Black Swan
- The King's Speech: 60%
- The Fighter: 20%
- Winter's Bone: 20%

Those adjustments mean these are the new standings:

Total Vote- Round 5
- The King's Speech: 39.068%
- The Social Network: 18.375%
- Inception: 14.625%
- The Fighter: 13.141%
- True Grit: 7.25%
- Black Swan
- Winter's Bone: 7.541%
- Toy Story 3
- The Kids Are All Right
- 127 Hours

The changing share of the votes bring another intriguing change. Winter's Bone has now lept True Grit as well. This is mostly because True Grit has not gained any new votes from the eliminated movies. Part of this is because a lot of the movies we've dumped drew their support from different sources than True Grit. Another factor is that some films may be widely liked, but not widely loved. This year True Grit seems to be a good example of that. Without many people outside of it's ardent supporters ranking it highly on their ballot, it doesn't stand much of a chance of winning Best Picture.

The voters who considered True Grit the biggest and most ambitious movie of the year probably split their other top votes like this:

1st Place- True Grit
- The King's Speech: 40%
- Inception: 30%
- The Social Network: 20%
- Winter's Bone: 10%

While those who rated True Grit as the best crafted film likely have their support spread like this:

1st Place- True Grit
- The King's Speech: 30%
- Inception: 30%
- The Social Network: 20%
- The Fighter: 10%
- Winter's Bone: 10%

I would like to note that in this round I assumed Inception would benefit strongly from the elimination of the only other film with strong action/adventure content. That means the new standings look like this:

Total Vote- Round 6
- The King's Speech: 41.593%
- The Social Network: 19.825%
- Inception: 16.8%
- The Fighter: 13.516%
- True Grit
- Black Swan
- Winter's Bone: 8.266%
- Toy Story 3
- The Kids Are All Right
- 127 Hours

Now we have to finally cast aside Winter's Bone. Since it is being removed that means we have a few points to consider when spreading out the ballots it had gained. First we can see that the Grandest Picture bloc has begun to shift. Because the people who rated Winter's Bone high likely are comfortable voting with a smaller skill picture that has a big vision, I predict The King's Speech will benefit more than Inception or The Social Network. Also I expect that the voters in the other corner will favor The King's Speech over The Fighter. I say this because I can look to the trends in the earlier vote distributions. Anytime group of voters that gave a boost to Winter's Bone tended to favor The King's Speech pretty strongly. That translates to a big boost The King's Speech compared to modest gains for the others.

The Grandest Picture vote would divide like this:
1st Place- Winter's Bone
- The King's Speech: 60%
- The Social Network: 30%
- Inception: 10%

The Most Powerful Movie vote would divide thusly:

1st Place- Winter's Bone
- The King's Speech: 70%
- The Fighter: 30%

This is what would happen with the Best Made Film vote:

1st Place- Winter's Bone
- The King's Speech: 40%
- The Social Network: 20%
- The Fighter: 20%
- Inception: 20%

Which means our updated standings would now be this:

Total Vote- Round 7
- The King's Speech: 46.6067%
- The Social Network: 20.83%
- Inception: 17.385%
- The Fighter: 15.1783%
- True Grit
- Black Swan
- Winter's Bone
- Toy Story 3
- The Kids Are All Right
- 127 Hours

Finally we have reached a point where a movie is within easy striking distance of the 50% mark. That means this next round should be enough to give The King's Speech the golden man-shaped trophy. This is especially true when you acknowledge that The King's Speech is the only film left that had the support of the Most Powerful Movie Bloc, so it now has 35% of the 1st place votes all to itself.

Breaking down the votes from the people who named The Fighter the best crafter movie of the year, I estimate this is how things would stand:

1st Place- The Fighter
- The King's Speech: 40%
- The Social Network: 40%
- Inception: 20%

Add it all up and you finally have a clear winner.

Total Vote- Round 8
- The King's Speech: 58.86%
- The Social Network: 27.78%
- Inception: 18.36%
- The Fighter
- True Grit
- Black Swan
- Winter's Bone
- Toy Story 3
- The Kids Are All Right
- 127 Hours

What can we learn from any of this? (Other that I am a very odd duck to devote so much arithmetic to such a trivial matter) The first thing that strikes me is that asking one of ten nominees to get a majority of the vote means it is unlikely any movie will ear the Oscar after only a few rounds of voting. Further I find it interesting that the three films left standing, The King's Speech, The Social Network, and Inception, can each point to an area where they had a strong body of support, the Most Powerful vote, the Best Made vote and the Biggest Hit vote respectively. It would seem those campaigning for any of the nominees would be well served by targeting a demographic that can give you a solid block of votes, then hoping that as films get eliminated you will rise up. Also, I like the fact that in this exercise we saw how Winter's Bone was able to climb the standings by being broadly supported if not having the level of high profile support the others did. This suggest to me that any high quality film could wind up winning Best Picture even if it doesn't have the box office numbers or publicity of other movies.

So does any of this mean anything? Not really, it was mostly an exercise I came up with to amuse myself and hopefully my audience. The only way to know if I am correct in my estimations, and that The King's Speech will walk away as the big winner is to tun in and watch the Oscars on February 27th. I know I'll be watching, and I hope you do to.

Analyzing the Detective Genre: Part 5

Defining the Detective-

Above: A stock photo of a stereotypical detective.

With the history of detective fiction sketched out, I would like to draw a few conclusions about the archetype of the detective character. I feel the identification of these tropes will become useful when I propose some new takes on the detective genre. Only through specific identification and analysis of any literary genre, can we best know how to utilize or undermine certain elements for our own purposes.

The most obvious feature of every detective throughout the history of the genre is their intelligence. They may not always be geniuses, but they do always display at least a relative intellectual advantage compared to the criminals they pursue. In the case of Joe Friday this meant he was often seen chasing an especially incompetent class of crooks, demonstrating that no sound thinking person would every take up a life of crime. Even the lowliest member of a C.S.I. squad knows an obscure fact or has access to an exotic device that allows them to collect evidence the perpetrator never knew they left behind. It makes sense for gifts of observation and mental acuity to define a genre based on the logical process of deductive reasoning. Yet in order to justify the story's focus on the protagonist, the detective character always holds some significant intellectual advantage which makes them a necessary part of the story's resolution.

Next, I notice that apparently every noteworthy fictional detective is, in one way or another, an outsider. This facet of the character can be expressed in any number of ways. Going back to the early days of the genre you had figures like Miss Marple and Father Brown who came from outside the traditional law enforcement fraternity. Holmes was an outsider because his mind worked on a level far beyond his contemporaries. Poirot was an outsider because of his nationality. Nero Wolfe was fat. Kojak was Greek. Alex Cross is black. Kinsey Millhone is a woman. On and on it goes. For every significant detective, you can find some reason why she is not a part of the standard justice system. In part, this recurring character trait gives the characters easy mystique, audiences love individuals who stand out. It also helps provide the sleuths a special perspective on the cases that can explain how they can find evidence and make connections when others could not. To a larger degree though, I feel it serves to demonstrate one of the fundamental assumptions of the detective genre as a whole: sometimes the legal systems that we know fail to produce the results we desire. We see this everyday in our real lives, so it would probably strike audiences as strangely false to see general issue police officers put away criminals using routine methods. The public wants to see a radical alternative to the status quo in fiction, because they are dissatisfied with it in reality.

Lastly (at least for now), I have found that detectives generally have a larger interest in solving crimes than the altruistic pursuit of justice. Often stories feature some personal stakes for the crime fighter -it reminds them of a case from their past, their partner dies working the case, they want revenge on the prime suspect. Even when the protagonist doesn't have skin in the game, she seems to derive something personal from seeing any crime solved. Holmes derived a peculiar intellectual pleasure from finding explanations. Many characters have a haunted past that compels them to find justice for others. At the very least, in examples like Law & Order or Dragnet, the cops take a personal pride in maintaining an orderly society and punishing wrongdoers. The audience needs to know their is something to gain from the story's resolution or else it rings hollow and they won't come back for more. The simplest way to achieve this is to give our hero a cause with which we can sympathize.

Now that we have identified the key components of a classic detective -namely, intelligence, outsider status, and a personal motive- I can start coming up with some new detective stories that play off the norms of the genre.

To be continued . . .

Analyzing the Detective Genre: Part 4

The History of Detectives in Fiction-

Above: The cover to a collection of illustrations from the history of mystery and detective stories, found on Flickr.

All the discussion of variant detectives made me ponder what elements are essential to the archetype of the character and what traits have waxed and waned with the transitory phases of culture over. With the recent addition of a digital tuner to my television set, and Netflix vast "Instant Watch" library, I now have access to a large amount of old detective TV shows and movies. As I study sleuths, both modern and classic, I begin to gain a sense of the course the detective genre has taken over the years. In a way these decades-old characters can serve as data points which combine to chart a sort of evolutionary path for the modern American detective character. If examined in the proper manner the progress of fictional sleuths can provide some fascinating insights into both the essential elements of the detective archetype and our cultural development over the past-century or so. Consider the following:

Above: The cover of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, supplied through Flickr.

1800's-1920's- Since the earliest detective fiction stories by Edgar Allen Poe, through Arthur Conan Doyle, and on to the early works of Agatha Christie, the detective was essentially a puzzle maven. While the protagonist always displayed brilliant intellectual acumen, either as a natural talent in the case of Holmes and C. Auguste Dupin, or as acquired knowledge as with Miss Marple or Father Brown- the cases usually didn't require a genius to solve them. Often all of the evidence was presented to both the detective and the reader, and the challenge lay only in interpreting the information. In most stories the hero steps in after traditional crime fighters have failed and manages to solve the case simply by noticing a crucial misinterpretation, or making a keen-eyed observation, or providing some obscure or arcane factoid, or by simply rearranging the information into a decipherable pattern. None of this seems fitting of a genius. However when the starring sleuth appears to pull answers from thin air, and the story disguises the facts to confound the reader, and stresses how terribly impressive the hero's deductions (if you can even call them that) are, the reader winds up getting a thrill out of the story's climactic revelation just the same. While the creators of these stories may not have been capable of crafting problems worthy of their detective creations, they did establish the central mythological elements and tropes that would define the detective genre through the present day.

Above: A cover to a typically racy pulp magazine featuring crime and detective stories, found on Flickr.

1930-40's- The next generation of crime fiction took a dramatic leap, branching it out to several different directions. Commonly referred to for the stylized mystery movies of the period both print and film detectives have been labeled as film noir in retrospect. The noir period was heavily influenced by the racy pulp magazines of the day and the underground, culturally subversive films that spawned a new sub-genre. As detective stories transitioned to new media, and the culture of the world seemed to spin out of control, the creators added new elements and explored new concepts. Now in the hands of pulp writers the stories took on a darker tone, the cases involved a seedier variety of crime, and the plots drifted away from straight-forward problems with simple solutions. Meanwhile filmmakers switched the focus onto action sequences instead of extensive sections of expository dialogue, and -to make sure the actors earned their paychecks- the characters became more fleshed out than the ciphers that preceded them. The changing tone of the art and the foreboding nature of contemporary events produced some significant changes in theme. Now the cases transcended from puzzles -that required collecting or organizing information- to true mysteries- that require investigating areas that resist comprehension, like human psychology, and require gathering new evidence or making deductive or intuitive leaps. Even more significantly the detectives themselves took on some new characteristics. No longer do their intellectual gifts separate them out as a special asset to the local authorities. In fact, the protagonists increasingly came from outside the traditional authority structure, most often as private investigators. In this era, their morality, their dogged pursuit of "justice" no mater what cost, often puts them in conflict with traditional authority figures. I would imagine the creators of these stories saw a world that seemed to be falling apart, where the authorities no longer could be trusted, and no simple solutions seemed possible, and they crafted heroes who fit that environment and had the skill to overcome it. Once this new generation of detectives rose to prominence, the detective genre would largely be defined by a dialectic between the original Holmes detectives and the new prototype of the noir-style.

Above: A photograph of Jack Webb the actor who portrayed Sgt. Joe Friday on Dragnet.

1950-60's- Detectives of this era were first and foremost social servants, almost always employees of a benevolent social institution, such as the local police force or the FBI. Now that the world was at peace these detectives represented an America returning to work. During this time frame, television became a popular source of crime stories. As TV filled a niche in the daily lives of the audience, the stories told came to reflect how the audience thought about their own private lives. So the detective stories of the days were filled with friendly functionaries, either blue-collar beat cops in TV shows like Adam-12 or white-collar detectives from Dragnet. These characters approached crime fighting with a workmanlike attitude, going about their jobs with gray flannel suits and stoic expressions. Once again they usually did not display special intellectual powers. In fact rarely did these characters encounter any cases that were difficult to solve. Usually the perpetrators were apprehended simply through persistent pursuit, and the cases were open and shut with all the evidence plain for all to see. (All cases were open and shut, because all situations involving crime were open and shut.) If anything made the detectives of this era distinct from other characters, it was their loyalty to their values and the system they served. Their strong morality made them servants to authority rather than rebels to it. If ever the detective stories represented the hopes and dreams of an era it was during this period. The crime fighter was just an average person with a good heart who brought order to the streets. In the same manner, Americans hoped that staying true to their values and doing their jobs in good faith would bring order to their lives and the world as a whole. Several popular TV series on the air today, such as the Law & Order franchise or the CSI family of shows, still bear many of the hallmarks of this period's detective stories.

Above: An artistic portrayal of the television detective Kojak, created by Lisa Brawn.

1970's- Here we come to an interesting little span, where I feel the detective genre reached a bit of a nadir. The focus almost entirely shifted away from the crimes and their solutions, and instead focused on the heroes and their personalities. If the stories had been about the deductive gifts or investigative prowess of the protagonists, we might still have had something to add to the genre. Instead we got a collection of TV shows like Kojak and The Rockford Files, which were more interested in creating lovable TV stars than exploring stories of crime. While the milieu of detective work still provides ample fodder for conflict and action sequences, the emphasis was definitely more on the leading roles eccentric character traits or individual charms. In a way I feel this was a reflection of the changing American middle class. No longer did people find comfort playing a role in building the great society, now they wanted to feel they were the star of their own story, no matter how mundane. The job you did became less important as people began to put more emphasis on how you did your job. I feel the legal and medical dramas of the time displayed similar sensibilities and represent part of a larger cultural shift that also involved crime shows. The content of the detective series did change in one interesting way. The problems confronting the sleuths became more like the seemingly insolvable mysteries of the noir period, with an increased focus on a criminal's motives or a lack of clear evidence. However since the detectives rarely had to think up a solution or explanation of a crime -usually a climactic gun fight would take care of that problem- this did not actually add new thematic depths to the genre. I think the mysteries were just easier to write than puzzles when all the writer's attention was going to character details. In some ways the star vehicles of today, like Monk and House, are the descendants of these shows.

Above: A painting illustrating the characters and scenery of the TV show Miami Vice, painted by Pepe Cardosa.

1980-90's- I would describe the detective fiction of this era as the progeny of two earlier strands of the genre. We have the obvious continuation of the 1970's, where the focus of the narratives had less to do with the unraveling of mysteries and more to do with character examinations of the featured detectives. In some cases (e.g. Miami Vice, Wiseguy, Homicide: Life on the Street), the purpose of the show was mostly about exploring the personal lives of the crime fighters and dissecting the ways in which their personal neuroses where caused by, or contributed to, their detective work. I feel this trend reached its apex with the first season of NYPD Blue where the show's creators successfully used soap-opera plot lines to overshadow the police procedural elements of the series. Accordingly the distinguishing characteristics of this new batch of gumshoes came from their ability to manage or endure personal crisis rather than overcome the challenges of crime fighting. Beneath this continuing trend, we find the dark undercurrent of a return to noir sensibilities. As the storylines reflected the hardships of our heroes, the subtext spoke to a world soaked in violence and amorality. American culture seemed to struggle with themes of societal collapse and moral decay. Perhaps not coincidentally these were also major themes of the Reagan revolution and rise of the religious right occurring contemporaneously. As with the 1930's and 40's the American public felt the world had spun out of control, and even traditional authority figures struggled against problems like gang-violence, drug abuse, and corruption. In an interesting evolution from the noir period, the morality of the characters no longer spurred the on to eventual victory, rather it provided a bulwark to help them stand against the ceaseless tide of chaos and injustice. Though any given story may show the hero surviving a particular crisis, the suggestion that eventually the dark nature of the world would erode away all the good in the character seemed to be applied universally. Concurrently in the world of detective literature, novels focused increasingly on characters from outside the traditional authority structure. Books found niche markets by featuring protagonists from minority perspectives who took an unconventional perspective on the institutions of law enforcement. Most notably female detectives rose to a new level of prominence and brought a new morality as well. Rather than reinforcing the 1950's imagery of white men imposing their version of order on society, these investigative women seemed more sympathetic to the victim. This theme resonated with the resurrected noir sentiment, here casting the victim as a casualty of the world's cruelty and the detective as the sole means for justice.

Above: A photograph of David Caruso as Horatio Caine from CSI: Miami, found on Flickr.

2000's- As the private-eyes of the 1940's gave way to the beat cops of the 1950's so to did a generational shift occur with the new millennium. The detectives at the end of the 20th century were grunts in the nationwide war on crime. In some cases they were stoic, in other cases neurotic, and in still others they were pathetic (in the Aristotelian sense). Generally though, their personalities and personal drama distinguished them from the standard crime fighter. The latest generation of detectives embodies a strong return to their Holmes-ian roots. Now the detectives are once again servants of traditional authorities. They prove their value through displays of intellectual sharpness rather than moral fortitude. Examine TV mystery series like House M.D., The Mentalist, and Bones, and you will find many echoes of Holmes. Like Holmes, the stars of these series frequently display demonstrably superior skills of observation and mental agility. Like Holmes, they find their intellect hinders their ability to interact with others. Also like Holmes, they are mostly domesticated creatures, whose occasional misbehavior masks that they perpetually preserve the status quo. Unlike Holmes, they are typically specialists with intensive knowledge of one area and occasional blind spots for other topics. They are the hedgehogs to Holmes' fox. I have come to think of this era as recasting the detective as a technocrat. Here I find this era is best typified by the C.S.I. franchise. Each show under the C.S.I. label presents a group of moderately attractive functionaries with hollow personalities. They sport a wide array of crime solving gizmos and casually toss scientific terminology (which may not always be realistic, but is always dumbed down to the audience's level). Once again the story element of true mystery -where complicated and ineffable variables are involved- has been superseded by the use puzzle plots- where all you need is the dedication to identify and arrange all the evidence.

Now, I will readily admit that this is in no way a complete history of detective fiction. I simply tried to assemble the most comprehensive analysis I could using my own relatively limited familiarity with the genre. Anyone who knows more about detectives in literature, especially more recent works, or has a better memory for classic TV shows, should please share any insights or wisdom you have in the comment section. For my part, I think I have gathered enough information here to draw some conclusions about the detective archetype in my next entry.

To be continued . . .

Analyzing the Detective Genre: Part 3

Above: A stylized painting of The Joker and Batman created by Harold Smith, found on deviantART

The Natural Conflict Between Batman and The Joker-

As I continue my deconstruction of the detective story, I plan to go through a detailed and thorough study of the history of the genre. (Trust me it's going to be long and probably laborious to read. I'll try to spruce it up with some pictures just to give your eyes a rest.) Before I get to that, I would like to take a tangent into the underlying iconography of Batman. I feel this material is appropriate to raise here as Batman is almost certainly the most widely known detective character created in the 20th century, and this piece of symbolism directly pertains to his status as a detective. Further, my thoughts on this topic led me to some noteworthy conclusions that greatly influenced my perspective on the larger genre.

Since Bob Kane and Bill Finger created the character, Batman has evolved significantly. Starting out as a rogue vigilante of the pulp tradition, he eventually matured into a more conventional authority figure with a gift for deduction. Batman uses his limitless talents and resources to impose a structure and order onto Gotham. Though his goal may not always be to uphold something as politically variable as "the law", he does protect the basic tenets of the social contract that enjoy almost universal support. At the same time as creators toned down his agenda his methods also shifted. Instead of using firearms and violence to solve problems, the stories increasing featured Batman using his intellectual skills. Thus the "World's Greatest Detective" moniker became a vital component of his character. In fact even casual fans are aware of Batman's supposed strength as a detective, even though he hardly demonstrates it in most stories.

I submit that these two aspects of the Batman mythos, detective and authoritarian, are deeply linked and inseparable. In essence, deduction is the process of bringing order to knowledge. Through his sleuthing and analysis Batman solves crime by sorting through the facts, finding how the relate to each other, establishing the proper truth values for them, and determining where they belong in the larger structure of knowledge. As if in an unspoken allegory, whenever Batman is shown undertaking these microscopic acts of deduction he does so to serve the macroscopic purpose of bringing order to society. Thus his role as a superhero in which he maintains and improves the social structure is simply an extension of his identity as a detective. What he does defines who he is and vice versa.

From this conclusion we can also investigate a question about the Batman mythology that has defied explanation for generations: why is the Joker the archenemy of Batman? As Bruce Timm -who co-created and produced the iconic Batman: The Animated Series- noted, the Batman-Joker feud is a little confusing, because it's not as though you think of clowns and bats being natural adversaries.

Usually when we study comic book nemeses they display one of two obvious dichotomies. Either they are representatives of opposing ideologies/worldviews (Captain America vs. Red Skull, Superman vs. Lex Luthor), or they are characters with a common past drawn in separate directions by fate (Spider-Man vs. Green Goblin, Reed Richards vs. Victor Von Doom). On a surface level the Joker and Batman share neither of these relationships. Moreover the rouges gallery in the Batcave contains an obvious candidate for each type of archvillain.

The Riddler seems like a natural antithesis to the Dark Detective, with his penchant for presenting information in misleading or confusing manners. However, his essential function -posing questions- is really very complimentary to Bats' fundamental nature- finding answers. I can see Batman actually preferring the Big Question Mark to his other foes, because he always makes the job of stopping his crimes so straightforward. The Riddler, with his habitual clue dropping, is a puzzle -an incomplete or disorganized set of information that begs for the application of order. The Joker, with his impenetrable insanity, is a mystery -a set of information that contradicts or confuses your prior knowledge and defies efforts to organize it.

In the other category, you have Two-Face. Since Harvey Dent has history as an ally of Batman, his later battles with the Dark Knight have added dramatic poignancy. Even better you could argue that Two-Face represents a strong philosophical opposition to Batman. Because Two-Face has an obsession with chance, he confronts Bats attempts to create an orderly city with evidence that the universe is arbitrary and chaotic. Sadly this aspect of the character doesn't come up very often, and when it does, it is downplayed as part of his gimmick.

I read a comics blog that noted that there are only two (ha!) Two-Face stories worth telling: his origin; and any variation on him being healed, but ultimately returning to his duality inspired madness. I feel the power and repeated revisitations to these stories actually weaken the character's symbolic heft, because the change the underlying narrative of who Two-Face is. Instead of making him a good man pushed to madness by the injustice of random fate (as symbolized by him flipping a coin to make decisions), it turns him into a intrinsically flawed man who inevitably breaks down (as symbolized by his scars). The message that some people are naturally inclined to evil fits right in with the binary and objectivist view Batman often espouses.

Which brings us to the Joker. So much of what makes the Joker an effective villain is what we don't know about him. Who did he used to be? What motivates his crimes? What defines his madness? What goes on in his head? He is a mystery, and if there's anything Batman can't stand it's a mystery.

Also, while clowns may not be natural enemies of bats, they are the constant opponent of logicians. As Jimmy Carr and Lucy Greeves argued in the book The Naked Jape, all jokes are the same. By this I mean, they all seem predicated upon establishing a given story, or order, to the world of the joke. Then with the punchline they undermine the order, betraying the rules the joke created and leaving us drifting in a world of nonsense. For a detective like Batman, everything must fit into a structure of reliable empirical truth, organized by certain absolute rules. For a clown like the Joker, no truth is reliable, no structure is sacrosanct, and no rules can be enforced.

I believe the Joker could be said to be the most powerful character in comicbooks, because no one can ever force their will on him. To Batman, who tries to control all of Gotham City, this is not just anathema but intolerable to the very essence of his crusade. Just as an irresistible force could never meet an immovable object -for the existence of one logically negates the possibility of the other- Batman can never succeed in his mission if the Joker is what he appears to be, a person beyond control. Conversely the Joker's fundamental philosophy -that nothing makes sense, and therefore nothing means anything- would be refuted if Batman is what he appears to be, a person in total control of himself. Both of these characters represent something that cuts to the core of the other. This is why they both detest each other so deeply and yet neither can ever bring themselves to end the other. It is not sufficient that the threat posed by the other is removed, they each have a vested need to see the other one cast aside his very nature.

I can think of few conflicts in modern fiction that have been as prolific and as evocative as what I just described. Which is why generations of fans and writers have kept coming back to the undeniable truth, that as long as Batman is a detective he and the Joker must be archenemies.

To be continued . . .

Analyzing the Detective Genre: Part 2

Above: The cover to the 1987 edition of Douglas Adams' novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

What's the Opposite of Sherlock Holmes?-

Before moving on to other topics, I wanted to make one last note on variations of the Holmes character. In my brother's e-mail, he suggested an über-Holmes. That led me to wonder what an anti-Holmes might look like. My brother offered a character who has Holmes' level of skill, but an opposite moral inclination (or at the very least a disinterest in solutions except for self-serving purposes). What I wanted was an investigator who took an approach to investigation that was diametrically opposed to Holmes' deductive methods. I wanted a detective who didn't use deductive reasoning, scientific methods of inquiry, or anything close to meticulous attention to detail.

After a few moments thought, it dawned on me that the best example of this I could think of was created by Douglas Adams. (No one who knows me well is surprised that I would turn to this example as I enjoy Adams so much I own many heavily worn copies of his novels.) For his science-fiction/mystery novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Adams created a private eye named Dirk Gently who offered a rather particular kind of investigation service. Dirk's method, such as it was, assumed everything was connected and considered everything he encountered as possible evidence. This meant rather than narrowing his focus to only the most pertinent information and proceeding in a logical and scientific order, he would often proceed at random and get caught up in bizarre tangents. The BBC recently made a television adaptation of the character, and the trailer nicely demonstrates the sort of chaos this normally involved. While any reasonable person would expect Dirk to fail -in truth his approach was probably just an invention to cover for his laziness and shortcomings as a detective- he often succeed because within the finite fictional universe he inhabited everything was connected.

Adams even makes the clash between Dirk and Holmes explicit in his second Dirk Gently novel The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul. Gently scoffs at Holmes axioms of deduction, after hearing of a young woman who recites changes in stock prices exactly 24 hours after they occur. His critique of Doyle's sleuth is laid out in the following interlude:

"What was the Sherlock Holmes principle? 'Once you have discounted the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'"

"I reject that entirely," said Dirk sharply. "The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks. How often have you been presented with an apparently rational explanation of something that works in all respects other than one, which is just that it is hopelessly improbable? Your instinct is to say, 'Yes, but he or she simply wouldn't do that.'"

"Well, it happened to me today, in fact," replied Kate.

"Ah, yes," said Dirk, slapping the table and making the glasses jump. "Your girl in the wheelchair -- a perfect example. The idea that she is somehow receiving yesterday's stock market prices apparently out of thin air is merely impossible, and therefore must be the case, because the idea that she is maintaining an immensely complex and laborious hoax of no benefit to herself is hopelessly improbable. The first idea merely supposes that there is something we don't know about, and God knows there are enough of those. The second, however, runs contrary to something fundamental and human which we do know about. We should therefore be very suspicious of it and all its specious rationality."

I don't know if any of that comparison interests anyone, but at least it demonstrates how heavily the works of Douglas Adams influence my thinking on almost any subject. Perhaps someday I'll explain why his line, "the wrong lizard might get in", summarizes all of my complaints about modern politics.

To be continued . . .

Analyzing the Detective Genre: Part 1

For about 22 months, I have been working on a side-project outside this blog. Inspired by an e-mail from one of my brothers, I undertook a lengthy review and analysis of the detective genre. (It should be noted that it took me so long to complete this work mostly due to inefficiency and sloth on my part, and not because I observed any scholarly practices of in-depth research.) Having at long last completed my work, I figure I should maximize the utility I get out of it, by sharing it through this blog. As with anything I write, or say, or even sometimes when I pantomime, I got pretty verbose with this. To protect your eyes from too much staring at a screen, I have broken up this piece into multiple sections over multiple post. So keep watching this space as I add on more entries to my highly involved ramblings (or, as I imagine they will say at my inevitable mental competency hearings, building up evidence of my derangement).

Introductory Material-

To give you the best understanding of what inspired my thoughts on detectives and how my thinking evolved, I will share with you the actual e-mail my brother sent me about two years ago. My brother wrote it as a fairly casual epistle, meant to spur a little dialogue, so please remember that you should hold him blameless for the madness that ensued.

He wrote:
Today [my] mind passed briefly onto the Promethean Sherlock Holmes, whose ability to examine only the necessary evidence gave him god-like powers of deduction. Of course, this is very infuriating to everyone who has a more difficult time choosing which details are important.

I was thinking of a less complex alternative to Sherlock: one who has perfect knowledge of a crime because one committed it. In the fictional sense, this is what is true for Arthur Conan Doyle. But this theme--criminal cum detective--has been tried out in the crime drama since then.

What I think is an interesting third alternative to both the supremely powerful Sherlock and the supremely evil Doyle would be a detective--given many of the flaws like pride, ambition, and greed that typify the pop culture detective criminals--who takes on seemingly uncrackable cases, then corrupts the evidence in order to land an easy-to-prosecute suspect with a Law & Order-type turn of events. I imagine that in some episodes this detective would be more motivated by ambition to peg a cold case, but in others s/he'd use it as an evidence dump for committing some personally motivated crimes. The thing writes itself! Lemme' know what you think of this character.

From that seed of inspiration, I begin to think long and hard about a variety of topics connected to the detective genre. Though honestly, I should say that my thoughts weren't so much long as intermittent, and the thinking probably wouldn't have been so hard if I hadn't been drinking so much. The first topic I wanted to address was the variations on the detective archetype he raised in his e-mail. From there I could springboard into a wide range of ideas and make my brother regret that he ever brought up the subject.

Variations on the Detective Character-

To begin the discussion with my brother's ideas, I enjoyed the concept of a Holmes-like detective whose powers of observation border on the supernatural or even divine. There is an undeniable attraction in watching anyone breeze through a seemingly impenetrable case with impossible ease. Audiences get a kick out of that thing, but they can also tire of it quickly. We desire conflict in our drama, something in short supply when no puzzle would truly challenge the hero. As you suggest the obvious solution is to generate conflict between the hero and the other characters as a result of her deductive prowess. This practice certainly can work well and several current crime series use it (e.g. Psych, Monk, and new for people who prefer handsome blond protagonists The Mentalist). I think you could draw more drama from going in a different direction, by pitting the Promethean Sherlock Holmes in conflict with her own powers.

In this scenario, I envision the detective character having some kind of supernatural power, wherein, she can ONLY see the evidence relevant to the mystery and is blind to everything else. Naturally this allows her to solve cases quite easily as she only considers the truly vital information. You could visualize this as the evidence standing out from everything else in its own super-reality, or by having every other detail of the world fade away and become insubstantial. The downside of the detective's powers is, of course, that they severely limit and, to a degree, control the sleuth in question. The supporting characters would be fascinated and awed by her abilities against which she constantly struggles. She might wish to avoid cases, or at least not be overwhelmed by her abilities when she becomes involved in them. This intrigues me as it takes the gift-and-a-curse trope to a new level and it could have some rather odd implications. What happens when the sleuth can't see a piece of evidence that everyone believes is crucial? What if she can see something that has no reasonable connection to the case at hand? What if she has a case with very little physical evidence, is she effectively blind? What if she starts investigating a wide reaching conspiracy and becomes overwhelmed with all of the items of evidence she starts seeing? I see this as a continuing story with more potential and a new way to play the super-detective as a wounded character.

My brother also proposes a character who can solve crimes through some kind of perfect knowledge of the crime, which certainly has potential. It seemed to me that he didn't have many ideas for the character, so with I decided to build off of that with some of my own ideas. I will expand on a possible version of this character later on.

Now this idea about a corrupt Holmes is definitely the best of the ideas my brother put forward. As soon as I read hid description, details began to take shape in my mind. I imagine not a police officer or P.I. but a rising young prosecutor in a very rough city. She has high political aims and step one is cleaning up a major metropolis. Of course, it turns out that the broken system is not ready to lay down and serve as her stepping stone. She doesn't have the resources she thinks she needs to solve her cases. She gets almost no institutional support from her fellow prosecutors and the local police department. When she tries to muscle her way into the circles of power, she gets pushed back and put down. Deciding that she doesn't want to wait for reform to save the city and her career, she sets out to carve her own path. Using her own gifts for deduction, she focuses her prosecution on the suspects she wants to bring in. When needed she can either spin her investigations to trap the suspect or manufacture the evidence or charges needed to get the conviction. She upsets the comfortable and causes all kinds of shock waves through the corridors of power, but the public loves her and that's what she wants. See, he was absolutely right. This character does write itself.

To be continued . . .