Interesting article on “does everything have the same plot?”

[jsmiam]

Article link: https://aeon.co/essays/why-does-every-film-and-tv-series-seem-to-have-the-same-plot

A version of the link, since sometimes links stay and sometimes they don’t: The website is aeon.co (just co, not com). Then everything else after the aeon.co is /essays/why-does-every-film-and-tv-series-seem-to-have-the-same-plot

Seems like the kind of article this group would find interesting.

 

[TheRedChamber]

My revolutionary new movie framework.

1. The story starts with the status quo - the hero is either happy or unhappy.
2. The hero often has a need. This need is usually something the hero doesn't have because if they did have it, they wouldn't need it. Sometimes they already have what they need but they lose it early on in the story and have to get it back.
3. Something happens to change the status quo. Either the something from outside makes the hero less happy or the hero does something to address their need.
4. The hero meets some people. Some of them are nice and some of them are not nice. Sometimes the hero already knows these people. Sometimes the people are just in one or two scenes or sometimes they stay in the rest of the movie.
5. The hero does some things vaguely consistent with their motivations so far. This often involves going to different places to do different things.
6. Sometimes the things done help with what the hero wants to do and he is happy. Sometimes they fail. Regardless the hero then does something different or at least the same thing in a slightly different context because they've already done the first thing and doing it again in exactly the same context would make a boring story.
7. The hero either gets what they need or doesn't get what they need. Sometimes the hero realizes that they didn't need the thing they needed. Sometimes they get something better. Sometimes the hero dies at the end.
8. The hero either restores the status quo or creates a better status quo completely different from the original status quo. The new/original status quo might not be the actual status quo but we have to assume it is because the movie ends there and we don't know if anything further changes the status quo, so as far as we, the audience is concerned the new status quo is going to last until they make a sequel. If you are worried about this a good way to finish the movie is to say that 'they all lived happily ever after.' They still died because everyone does, but dying makes people sad so we won't mention that unless we want a sad story.
9. It's often nice to finish your movie by telling people who made the movie. This can involve not just the actors and the people who point the cameras at people but also the people who tell them where to point the cameras and the people who tell the actors what lines to say.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

There are some good points in the article, but god do I hate this kind of posturing.
It felt like reading an article by Slavoj Zizek - a myriad of disconnected quotations and thrown-in notions, while not bothering to substantiate any of those with concrete examples and analysis.

 

[lovecraft68]

I stay away from these things. I think they affect people negatively by trying to put them in a box.

Just tell your story the way you want to and don't worry about all this pretentious yapping.

 

[Wifetheif]

As stated above. There are no real examples and it is well known that the Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell has been the blueprint for movie plots for quite a while, especially after Star Wars. It's saying nothing new with no examples.

 

[Voboy]

Just tell your story the way you want to and don't worry about all this pretentious yapping.

This.

Just write. Your story's fine. If people read it and enjoy it, who cares if some academical dickhead thinks it's similar to something someone wrote in second-century Gaul?

 

[XerXesXu]

Article link: https://aeon.co/essays/why-does-every-film-and-tv-series-seem-to-have-the-same-plot

Yes, why do capitalists produce commercial fiction to entertain the masses instead of disruptive art to promote progressive thought? Can it just be the money? How will the world move forward if we're fed bread and circuses?

Fortunately, Hollywood's moving into a basement near you, very soon. You can do your own thing.

 

[Britva415]

why-does-every-film-and-tv-series-seem-to-have-the-same-plot

People keep reading and watching them, so apparently it isn't a problem if they do all have the same plot.

 

[SimonDoom]

These kinds of things are interesting up to a certain point, but if you take them too seriously they hamper creativity. I remember reading Aristotle's Poetics a long time ago. It was interesting, and I learned some things from it. But I don't actively think about it when I write, or about any other scheme. It's too reductionist and confining to write that way.

 

[crookedletter]

I only skimmed this, but to my mind it's a little bit like saying every human being is indistinguishable from the next because we have two arms, two legs, ten fingers, etc...

Plot isn't story. It's the structure you hang the story on. I'm interested in what happens because I'm interested in the characters it happens to, I'm interested in the craft and delivery of character and setting and insights into human nature and a well-delivered payoff to questions established throughout the proceedings.

Hamlet and The Lion King and The Northman have -- quite literally -- the exact same plots. Are they identical? Are they similar?

 

[Cali_Love]

All anyone needs to read on the subject, as passed down to me through three generations before: "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell

 

[Cagivagurl]

I haven't read the article, but....
Since stories have been told, they all follow the same plot...
There are only a few actual plots anyway.
So, is today worse than those of the past????
No, we're just seeing more of them.
These days, there are thousands more appearing every year.
Has anything changed? No, not in my opinion, ell. Aside from the quality... Many movies produced today are of such poor quality...

Does it affect hobby writers??? Nah just enjoy your hobby.

Cagivagurl

 

[iwatchus]

Has anything changed? No, not in my opinion, ell. Aside from the quality... Many movies produced today are of such poor quality...

Pick a decade that movies were made and there were LOTS of bad ones. Only the better ones from the older decades still make it through.

 

[Cagivagurl]

Pick a decade that movies were made and there were LOTS of bad ones. Only the better ones from the older decades still make it through.

Don't doubt that for a minute.... Do not disagree.
Age doesn't equal quality...
My point was more about quantity. There are so many more made today... Some not even good enough to go straight to DVD...

Cagivagurl

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Yes, and all songs have the same chord progression and the same ABC structure.

Hamlet and The Lion King and The Northman have -- quite literally -- the exact same plots. Are they identical? Are they similar?

You can add Sons of Anarchy to that list.

Just tell your story the way you want to and don't worry about all this pretentious yapping.

/thread

 

[SkyBubble]

if they did have it, they wouldn't need it.

Who are you, Yogi Berra?

 

[lovecraft68]

Yes, and all songs have the same chord progression and the same ABC structure.



You can add Sons of Anarchy to that list.



/thread

Are we still discussing heroes Journey?

I don't see SOA following that. To me its in the Sopranos mold and the style of "Look, all these characters are thugs and dirtbags, but um, they're cool troubled thugs and dirtbags?"

I know the anti-hero has been a long standing thing, but for me the turning point seemed to be Silence of the Lambs where people began rooting for a sick cannibal serial killer. Of course the horror genre always glorified the antagonist and the cast was there just to be killed except for the final girl (a trope in its own) but that's horror, Lambs seemed to wake the more mainstream up to it.

Probably earlier examples, but that's the one that comes to mind first

Then you get Terminator where after the first movie Arnold's terminator is somehow the good guy. It seems when a character is deemed cool, the industry gives him a white hat.

I'll unprofessionally dub this the WWF method.

 

[XerXesXu]

The article's author is intelligent, articulate, has an engaging prose style and authorial voice, just the sort of girl I'd like to tease at a dinner party. I looked her up. She's a paradigmatic, middle-class, bourgeoise polemicist - wine might get spilt. She has a degree (Oxford) in Eng Lit, a PhD in the same, has been a reader in creative writing, yet she's never published a work of fiction. Well, not under her own name. I'm sure she's had a go at writing her own stories/fantasies, publishing them anonymously - perhaps on Lit.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Are we still discussing heroes Journey?

I don't see SOA following that. To me its in the Sopranos mold and the style of "Look, all these characters are thugs and dirtbags, but um, they're cool troubled thugs and dirtbags?"

No, it doesn't follow the Hero's Journey. But while The Lion King is Hamlet in Africa, Sons of Anarchy is Hamlet with motorcycles.

 

[lovecraft68]

No, it doesn't follow the Hero's Journey. But while The Lion King is Hamlet in Africa, Sons of Anarchy is Hamlet with motorcycles.

The finale does end in a Shakesperean tragedy.

Great use of the song Come Join the Murder

 

[TheRedChamber]

The article's author is intelligent, articulate, has an engaging prose style and authorial voice, just the sort of girl I'd like to tease at a dinner party. I looked her up. She's a paradigmatic, middle-class, bourgeoise polemicist - wine might get spilt. She has a degree (Oxford) in Eng Lit, a PhD in the same, has been a reader in creative writing, yet she's never published a work of fiction. Well, not under her own name. I'm sure she's had a go at writing her own stories/fantasies, publishing them anonymously - perhaps on Lit.

I'd say 'is this what they are teaching at Oxbridge these days?' but I went to Oxbridge and actually knew some people who went on to write for the Guardian. And, yeah, it was ever thus...

Have you ever noticed how articles by Guardian columnists follow exactly the same structure.

1. Have a thesis statement which is far too strong for what you can demonstrate and which you yourself clearly don't actually mean - "Almost every movie and TV series has exactly the same plot."
2. Assume that everyone shares your current general disillusionment with the topic you are writing about.
3. Quickly contradict yourself without appearing to contradict yourself (it's perfectly fine for Mulholland Drive to use a three-act structure because it's well hidden and because we like David Lynch).
4. Mention COVID.
5. Mention Western consumer late-stage capitalism. It will be mentioned a lot so pick any two of those modifying adjectives each time you drop it into your essay.
6. Give a lengthy run-down of traditional theories by dead white men (the Ancient Greeks are white) so you can attack it.
7. Say that there are new competing or 'better' theories. The reader is already tired from stage 6, so don't give them the same level of critique, just say it's great that they are 'challenging' the existing ideas.
8. Mention someone from an ethnic minority who is doing work in this area.
9. Mention a woman who is doing work in this area.
(You must do both 7 and 8 or you are not intersectional!)
10. Mention Donald Trump regardless of any connection he may have to your topic.
11. Pivot to suggesting that the issue is not just unfortunate or lazy but actually sinister.
12. Mention how your 'friends' are challenging the status quo.
13. Conclude that we can't actually change things but we need to understand them.

For what it's worth, I'm nominally a liberal, but I'm often shocked these days at how lazy and predicatable the average persuasive essay is these days. (I'd say it's since we stopped paying for journalism but I suspect COVID and Donald Trump have something to do with it as well...)

 

[TheRedChamber]

Who are you, Yogi Berra?

No, if you read my big-brained posts above you'll see that I am smarter than the average Yogi Berra.

 

[ronde]

The thing that turns me off about most movies today is that they seem to rely on CG instead of development of characters and then fitting the plot around those characters. In many cases, the movies from the 50's and 60's were actually character studies. The plot evolved around how those characters reacted to the situations of the plot. Today's movies are like, "OK, we said a little about so and so, now lets blow some stuff up and show how he or she manages to survive against impossible odds and keep on blowing stuff up." If you want to keep me watching a movie where the plot is a repeat of another move, that's OK if you show me real people doing what real people do.

 

[TheArsonist]

I found the essay quite poor. It doesn't say anything original, and the argument largely relies on rhetorical sleight of hand.

It starts off talking about how many Hollywood movies and TV shows follow a repetitive formula, something most people will intuitively agree with. It then asserts (without evidence) that it is always the same formula, and equates this formula with the hero's journey/the monomyth. It pauses a moment to distinguish the Hollywood formula from the "more deep-seated monomyth, a universal blueprint," but does not bother to maintain that distinction, extending its criticism to authors like E.M. Forster, W.G. Sebald, Jane Austen and Shakespeare. Various ideological criticisms of particular types of stories (implicitly equated, though I doubt the people quoted are really all talking about the same thing) are then lobbed at this framework.

Now, if you actually look at the details of the hero's journey as described by Campbell, it becomes clear that many stories do not adhere to it. You can often fit a few of the points from Campbell's list (depending on how flexibly you interpret them), but major parts of the story will not be covered by the framework. Even something that's explicitly based on the theory, like Star Wars, is not a perfect fit, and trying to fit all of storytelling into that one structure is preposterous.

By the end of the essay, it appears that the author has broadened the meaning of the "narrative prison" she is criticizing to "something interesting happens that is important to the characters," since the alternative mode of storytelling she proposes is accounts of normal everyday existence with its "minute-by-minute tedium" and "mundane details," ideally without any moment of revelation or insight.

Now, I think you can write great fiction with that alternative approach (though some surprising event or realization is often liable to creep into the story), and I think people have been doing so all along, especially in short-story format (though classics like Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past/In Search of Lost Time are massive multi-volume works). Which only goes to show that the diagnosis was wrong in the first place. At the same time, I think this in itself is a much more restrictive straitjacket for storytelling, and that it's pretty obvious why more overtly eventful and extraordinary tales have wider appeal.

I would add that, contrary to the ideological stance of the essay, I think insisting on these "everyday life" stories as more truthful is to take the point of view that placid stability is normal, which is a very middle-class and in some ways conservative perspective. As J.G. Ballard said about his childhood in a Japanese WWII internment camp: "I don't think you can go through the experience of war without one's perceptions of the world being forever changed. The reassuring stage-set that everyday reality in the suburban West presents to us is torn down; you see the ragged scaffolding, and then you see the truth beyond that, and it can be a frightening experience."