Film and TV becomes more and more popular all the time, and vast amounts of content is available out there – large proportions of it of high intellectual and analytical value. So, since we can analyse these as much as we can analyse a novel or poem, do they count as literature?
Literature is defined as “written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit”. That in itself is the first argument against film and television being literature – evidently, they are not written, and are instead a visual form of art. However, this straightforward approach doesn’t take into account certain nuances – for instance, story-based film and TV shows are, usually, written in the form of a screenplay. What is the difference between a screenplay and a play, a well-established part of the worldwide literary canon? After all, a play is also a visual art, and whilst interpretation of plays generally centres around words on a page, potential staging and audience interpretation is also important. By the logic of film being excluded from literature due to it being visual, any play that has ever been staged should be excluded, especially since in any play there is a certain degree of improvisation . “Plays change with each production. […] But novels, too, change with every reader” (Jays), so by its very nature literature is made to be changed, reinterpreted and evolved. As Annette Brook wrote, “do we believe that a poem once read aloud is no longer literature? No, we don’t.” So why would the fact that a film is written to be experienced in a form beyond just words on a page stop it being literature? Arguably, by this logic, one of the most beloved literary minds in history, Shakespeare, would not be valid literature, as his plays were certainly not written to be read, but rather to be performed.
Perhaps the most convincing argument against film and television being literature, is that it is a medium in its own right. In terms of subjects of study, film and television comes under Film Studies, or to a lesser extent, media studies. And indeed, studying these genres has its own skills with which it is associated – filmmaking techniques, performances, and other features are important, beyond the script. However, again, Theatre Studies or Drama is also its own subject, yet plays are still studied as literature.
Of course, the literary approach and dramatic approaches to analysis of plays, whilst having similarities, are different. The skills are certainly similar – and as someone who has been looking into universities, a very large number of universities now have film studies as optional modules in an English Literature course, so these subjects evidently have a lot in common. Films, especially literary adaptations, are also frequently used by students to assist in analysing a text too, even outside of a film module (certainly I am, since my EPQ is on film adaptations!). However, since courses generally still centre at their core on traditional literary texts, does this not confirm that film and literature are separate, if similar, entities?
There is certainly no denying that film can reach the same level of creative sophistication as literature. However, perhaps it is our society’s elitism that argues that only literature can have value, therefore good film must count as literature too. Literature has been around for millennia – film and television has only really been around for a century – so it is natural that these new art forms are often devalued and depreciated. So perhaps trying to group it with literature, despite not being written, is just an offshoot of society’s obsession with the high-brow/low-brow divide? After all, Shakespeare plays were once considered as much popular culture as films are now, and now theatre in general – but especially Shakespeare – has been elevated to be high culture. And what is literature, beyond what we, as a collective, decide is high culture?
So, should Film & TV be literature? In short – who knows? After all, there is still debate over whether plays should count as literature. The nature of literature is an evolving one, with new works, and new interpretations of old ones, being created all the time. The concept of the literary canon is also everchanging, and just as its contents change, so does its very concept. ‘Classics’ in literature have always been what we strive to study, but these are constantly changing. Even the medium of a novel was once considered rather low-culture. So who’s to say that in 50 years the great films of our time won’t be elevated and incorporated into an evolved idea of literature, just like Shakespeare’s low-brow, pop-culture plays were hundreds of years ago?