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Belen Torres

Dr. Sharity Nelson

English 1301 – 102

09 November 2023

Essay 3

On October 20, 2022, Mario Slugan authored an article for scholars in text-oriented film

studies who are focused on the theorization of fiction in films titled Fiction as a Challenge to

Text-Oriented Film Studies. Slugan argues that wrongly categorizing films as fiction may cause

problems to arise. Slugan states, “Whether something is fiction or not […] is not defined solely

through authorial intention and/or textual features” (433). When fiction is wrongly categorized it

“may lead to both misunderstanding of audience experience and ethical problems alike” (426).

Slugan expands his argument by claiming “the difference between fiction and nonfiction is not

whether something refers to the real world or not […], but whether we are mandated to imagine

it” (432). Mario Slugan’s article is mostly persuasive because it presents ideas from other experts

in the field and multiple examples of loosely defined fiction films in support of its argument.

First, Hawkes provides multiple definitions of fiction from other experts in the field to

support his argument, effectively appealing to both logos and ethos throughout his article. Slugan

provides “one influential strand of psychoanalytic film theory running from Brech,” a famous

playwright who, “did speak of cinematic illusion or ‘impression of reality’ where, due to the

conflux of the properties of the apparatus, the medium, and the realist narrative form, spectators

were at least momentarily said to have been fooled into believing the content of fictional
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representations” (443). However, Slugan also informs the reader of a counter argument, in the

following paragraph he states, “But these ideas have been criticized extensively by cognitivists

and psychoanalytic theorists alike and have lost currency. Cognitivists have pointed out that there

is no need for recourse to incompatible or wavering beliefs to describe the impression of reality”

(444). Another instance in which Slugan uses this strategy is when referring to “a scholar who

was initially relatively close to this institutionalist approach but went on to espouse

intentionalism on par with Currie and Wilson is Noël Carroll” (433). Because fiction defined in

film is a highly theorized topic among film studies, there are multiple definitions and ideas of the

role fiction takes in films, addressing the holes in these claims, helps in making Hawkes

argument more effective.

Second, Slugan uses multiple examples of films that cannot be strictly defined as fiction

throughout his article, effectively appealing to ethos to support his argument. Slugan goes on to

provide examples on “TV shows like The Office (BBC 2011–13) and films like The Blair Witch

Project (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, 1999) [which] make extensive use of

documentary aesthetics. Yet they constitute fictions, nonetheless” (429). Similarly, Slugan then

refers to animation films which are often associated with fiction. He argues, “It is undeniable that

if a film is made from hand-drawn pictures, then at the very least it is a documentary recording

of those hand-drawn pictures and may even be a documentary of whatever those drawings depict

as is the case with The Sinking of the ‘Lusitania’ (Winsor McCay, 1918)” (431). Slugan also

presents examples of nonfiction animation films like “the almost completely animated Waltz with

Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008) and Tower (Keith Maitland, 2016)” (429). Slugan uses these

examples to show that some films cannot be placed into the fiction box without stepping out the
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lines. If this is the case, he argues the categorization of fiction in films and media must be

reevaluated, which is supported by his use of ethos.

Finally, Slugan is less persuasive in supporting his argument when using rhetorical

strategies that appeal to emotion. Slugan applies his claim to staged reenactments, which also

have gray areas on fiction vs nonfiction. He writes, “Consider a situation in which I wish to

convey to my friends how my speech at my relative’s wedding appeared. […] I could also be

completely misrepresenting how my speech looked like in order to, say, present myself as wittier

than I was, but this would not make the re-enactment fictional – it would just make it a deliberate

misrepresentation” (441). Using first person pronouns in this made-up scenario allows for the

reader to put themselves in Slugan’s shoes; however, this emotional appeal is weakened by the

suddenness in which he presents it. The example itself is not a bad one, but in the context of the

article it felt out of place from the rest of the journal. Slugan switches back to a third person

point of view again shortly after and in no other point of his article does he use first person

pronouns again, this makes the appeal to pathos through first person pronouns feel out of place in

his article as there were other times where he appeals to pathos in a more effective way. For

instance, Slugan compares films to children playing with dolls to illustrate his point on what

counts as fiction. He claims, “The main difference is that whereas in children’s games the

mandate is most often explicit in the sense that children usually announce that this object will

stand for that fictional entity, in cinema and the arts in general it is implicit meaning no such

pre-emptive announcement is made,” (432). This appeal to pathos of inducing childhood

memories when compared to the previous one illustrates the ineffectiveness of the use of

first-person pronouns in Slugan’s article. Overall, hurting Slugan’s argument.

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To conclude, despite the out of place use of first-person pronouns, Mario Slugan’s article

presents ideas from other experts in the field and multiple examples of loosely defined fiction

applied to films in support of its argument. Therefore, it is mostly persuasive. Fiction in film

theory, if to be taken as a serious topic of discussion must then be evaluated in a credible and

respectable manner. What Slugan hopes to invoke in the reader is the importance of the role of

fiction in film theorization, in this sense he succeeds. Readers are encouraged to think back to

movies or TV shows they have seen and theorize for themselves whether that piece of media was

strictly fiction.
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Work Cited

Slugan, Marion. “Fiction as a Challenge to Text-Oriented Film Studies.” New Review of Film

and Television Studies, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 427-450. Killiam Library,

DOI:10.1080/17400309.2022.2132072