9
–children’s games
–puzzles
–riddles
–acrostics
–anagrams
The first set of terms reinforces the general sense of instability of genre designations encountered above,
offering dramatically different terms for essentially the same shows. This already weakened genre identity
is further underscored by relating quiz shows to a rather diffuse set of everyday genres. Again we face
the impossibility of assigning shows like Uncle Jim’s Question Bee or Vox Pop to appropriate categories.
Instead, the everyday genres that are listed above point to the alternative of theorizing genre as a non-
exclusive process of tentative classification. It seems quite plain that a quiz show could incorporate
elements of parlor games such as puzzles or riddles. Terms such as these seem to demand none of the
classificatory exclusivity that our standard notion of genre demands. A number of genre theorists have
recently used Jacques Derrida’s essay The Law of Genre to theorize this point.
23
Derrida argues that a
text cannot belong exclusively to one genre, that its affiliations are tentative, multiple, and non-exclusive.
He opposes the law of absolute belonging and replaces it with the notion of participation in a genre.
24
We
can thus think of texts as productively invoking a genre as a communicative act, but we have to surrender
our belief in the absolute rule of the law of genre. We can then replace the question ‘Is
Vox Pop an
audience participation program, a sidewalk question bee, a sidewalk interview, a question and answer
program, or an amateur hour?’ with the question ‘What genres does
Vox Pop participate in?’ Derrida
considers the law of participation as a mode of excess where multiplicity is unavoidable and singularity is
unattainable, so that a variety of the categories above can simultaneously serve as genre designations. In
general, indicators of genre participation can be found in multiple sites: the textual structures of the
program itself, the often contradictory classificatory attempts of program creators, program publicity, and
the reading practices of various audiences, as far as those are accessible.
Genre and history
Convention