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Essay 3
Essay 3
Belen Torres
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
representations” (443). However, Slugan also informs the reader of a counter argument, in the
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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
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
lines. If this is the case, he argues the categorization of fiction in films and media must be
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
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
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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