Toward a metafictional aesthetic in the Netflix television series, You : ambiguity, genre and spectatorship

Abstract

My research study provides a critical analysis of the Netflix series You (2018) and seeks to provide an answer as to why the show and its protagonist engenders paradoxical interpretations that alternate between two diametrically opposed genres, namely: romance and thriller. I approach this consideration of the series’ dualism by first placing Joe Goldberg in the context of the anti-hero tradition. By outlining Tom Pollard’s explanation of the decline of modernist heroes, who embody the Weberian ideal of ‘great men’ to increasingly postmodern heroes, who embody moral ambiguity, corruption and defeat (Pollard, 2000), I indicate the necessity of analysing Joe in terms of the postmodern ethos. After establishing Joe as a postmodern hero, I move beyond the characteristics of the protagonist to consider the narrative and the way in which the narrative is represented. By analysing the formal elements of cinematic narration implemented in the series’ audio-visual display, I expose the series’ subversive treatment of genre as a crucial factor that feeds the existent paradox of describing or interpreting the series as both thriller and romance, and Joe as both hero and villain. I propose that the series’ conflation of genre engenders an awareness of form, specifically that of the romance formula. I therefore suggest that the series be treated as, what Linda Hutcheon terms, a ‘narcissistic text’ (Hutcheon, 1980). By combining Hutcheon’s theory regarding the narcissistic text (Hutcheon, 1980) and David Bordwell’s work on cinematic narration’s inferential model (Bordwell, 2008), I illustrate how the viewers’ understanding of both the narrative and Joe is ultimately manipulated. My work on the series’ conflation of genre coupled with an understanding of the series’ narcissistic narrative identity supports my argument that the paradoxical interpretations found in both journalists’ and fans’ deliberation about the series result from the contestation between thriller and romance constituents within the cinematic narration, as well as the deliberate manipulation of the viewers’ inference through the awareness of form, that is the awareness of the romance formula. My research study concludes that the answer to the question regarding the conflicting dualism surrounding the series’ narrative and protagonist stems from a complicated amalgamation between three crucial components: the postmodern hero, the subversion of genre and narcissistic tendencies. In addition, my analysis of the series’ subversive and narcissistic treatment of genre exposes a meta-dimension functioning in the series You that ultimately places the onus of interpretation on the viewers.