Apocalyptic Visions and Commercial Constraints: Gregg Araki’s Negotiation of Emerging Modes of Indie TV Auteurship

With the airing of his 2019 Starz series Now Apocalypse, Gregg Araki, a feted independent cinema auteur-director, returned to the helm of a television series for the first time since an ill-fated foray at the turn of the millennium, when he developed a (rejected) pilot for a teen-focused comedy-drama, This is How the World Ends (2000) for MTV. While Now Apocalypse, as the names suggest, bears an affinity to the earlier pilot, it also aligns with themes and distinctive aesthetic tropes that are a hallmark of the director’s work in independent cinema, demonstrating a porosity between cinematic and televisual modes in Araki’s output. The director is best-known as a leading light of the New Queer Cinema (NQC) movement and in films such as Nowhere (1997) and Totally Fucked Up (1993), the director portrayed the intimate lives of disaffected teens and young people in a stylish and provocative manner. The present chapter traces the complex entanglement of the director’s oeuvre with teen indie tv, utilising Araki as a case study to examine the convergence of industrial and aesthetic norms in the realms of television and independent cinema from the 1990s to the present. Given independent cinema's role as a proving ground for directors who often transition to careers in long-form television drama, this chapter interrogates emerging trends in such professional migration. Gregg Araki, US independent cinema provocateur and leading figure the New Queer Cinema movement, provides a case study. Araki's forays into television, both as director-for-hire and showrunner-auteur, generate an analysis of the creative opportunities and constraints offered by indie TV. Firstly, the chapter traces how signature aesthetic and thematic features of Araki's provocative films are increasingly evident within US youth-oriented long-form television. This, it is argued reflects contemporary affective and economic uncertainties that have spread beyond the abjected communities depicted in New Queer Cinema. Secondly, Araki's directorial work on teen dramas Riverdale and 13 Reasons Why is used to exemplify auteurist artistry under the creative stewardship of a showrunner. Finally, an examination of Starz’ drama Now Apocalypse enables a contrast between Araki's director-for-hire work and his first broadcast series as a television auteur. Overall, the chapter charts distinctive features of 2020s’ independent screen culture, including aesthetic shifts, evolving pathways for industry professionals (both in front of and behind the camera), and the industrial and social factors that shape the commissioning logics of television networks.