Narrative and Neoliberalism
You know what the real problem facing this country is?
The liberal media.
Wait! Don't go! Hear me out.
It's true. The liberal media has given way to the rotting foundation of this nation's decaying moral backbone, but it's not for the reasons you might think. In fact, the liberal media, the liberal Hollywood elites, whatever you want to call them, are all not so liberal after all.
Now, this might not come as a surprise to some, but it seems to be a worthy discussion in a political landscape that seems intent on rightfully shunning Fox News, whilst ignorantly protecting the work being done at supposedly "liberal" media outlets like CNN and MSNBC. Those allegedly liberal networks may satiate Democrats' craving for Trump-bashing and Obama-era-nostalgia, but I can assure you they benefit from, and arguably even prefer, a Trump presidency to any other. The corporate structure of American media necessitates conservatism. Profit and capital are the bottom line, liberal talking points be damned. Republicans like Mitch McConnell provide perfectly punchable scapegoats for the liberal establishment, which includes but is certainly not limited to these far-from-progressive news outlets, but their continued political power ultimately lines the pockets of each and every member of the establishment, allowing the media to remain horrifyingly unconcerned with who does and does not hold power in this nation. Partisan politics have so heavily invaded the minds of American citizens that we have allowed ourselves to become divided along these inadequate party lines. But Fox News and CNN and MSNBC, no matter the political affiliations we may be tempted to slap onto them, all remain conservative in nature. All of these mainstream networks remain terrified of true systemic change, even if some package that fear in racism and hate, while others package it in empty platitudes.
To be perfectly honest, however, I'm not all that interested in discussing American news media. I'm interested in storytelling. And if the conservative nature of mainstream news media in this country does not concern you, perhaps the reality of American storytelling might.
Narrative, insofar as how it has been defined and understood within American media, is inherently conservative. The very nature of storytelling demands conservatism, and no amount of progressive buzzwords or plot points can detract from this troubling but essential point.
All too often, we hear conservatives complain about how liberal and PC Hollywood is, but I am instead disappointed, even overwhelmed, by just how safe and far-from-progressive its storytelling is.
Consider what you know about your prototypical American film or television show. It almost always features a single protagonist, maybe two if you are lucky. And it surely follows the traditional three-act structure, complete with a rising action, a climax, and a falling action. American stories follow that classic bell curve that so many of us studied in eighth and ninth grade, and therefore must provide a clean resolution to a conflict in two hours or less. Stories, no matter their inspiration, intention, or nature, must therefore be squeezed and manipulated to fit the proper American arc - the only and only story shape. Narrative therefore carries an inherent conservatism.
Perhaps more accurately, narrative, like so much of America, is neoliberal.
An individual, facing a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, prevails. Every film and every episode of television therefore celebrates the power of the individual, and ignores the need for systemic change, even those with content we would deem progressive. The environmental angst of films like Chinatown, Rango, and Mad Max: Fury Road are seemingly progressive on the surface. In all three films, a private power protects and controls access to water in a community. This is a very real and notable conflict, not too far off from the crisis that continues to affect Flint, MI today. Rather than focus on the responsibility of governments or corporations to provide free and equitable access to water in their communities, these films focus on the adventures of a single hero in their efforts to combat this kind of private control. Individualism has always sat at the foundation of the United States, but its presence in our storytelling is especially worrisome in its refusal to think beyond the individual's capacity for large-scale change, which, if the last several years are any indication, is pretty low in a country so heavily catered to the interests of the top 1%.
Even films about systemic change or the overhauling of institutions saddle a select few individuals with that responsibility, ignorantly downplaying the role of governments and social movements. You really think Harvey Milk championed gay rights all by himself, as a film like Milk would have you believe?
And speaking of such a film, "what about true stories?" you might ask. May I first kindly refer you to an earlier piece I wrote about why I remain a biopic-hater. It is no secret that stories must be manipulated and edited in order to be properly adapted into a film or show, but consider the implications of that dynamic. Consider what it is that gets cut. In telling the life story of Freddie Mercury, Bohemian Rhapsody could have wrestled with societal attitudes towards homosexuality and drug abuse, but instead offered a cursory glance at these topics. In forcing Mercury's life to fit the traditional arc-shape, the film abandons the very important issues facing us in our reality in favor of the escapist nature of Hollywood narrative.
Now, I do not aim to write off the entirety of our media as bad (except for Bohemian Rhapsody, which is very bad) but rather to ask how we might push for a better, more impactful collection of stories. We have allowed ourselves to accept mediocrity in place of true, world-changing cinema. Films like Green Book act as band-aids over much larger issues facing this country, and I fear that the more we recognize conservatively-minded films of all sorts, the further we stray from the world that we so desperately need.
And so, here a few suggestions for how we might combat this troubling revelation, and a few examples of films that (sort of) get it right.
STOP SQUEEZIN'!
As I mentioned previously, American films crush, squeeze, mash, and whip their stories until they have arrived at the oh-so-vaunted "arc." In doing so, we lose much of what makes a story so important: the struggle. In American narratives, change and growth are simple. Just wait approximately ninety minutes, and surely change will come. Just try hard enough, or even worse, believe hard enough, and surely change is possible. This kind of storytelling is so evil and deceitful, I am prepared to label it as propaganda. It is reminiscent of the same kinds of platitudes that so many establishment politicians offer their constituents in place of any real support or accommodation.
My love for Bojack Horseman is well-documented on this site, and a lot of my admiration for the show has to do with this very idea. The series resists the traditional "arc" shape of storytelling, overtly acknowledging the ways in which life rarely follows this shape. Bojack suggests narrative therefore shouldn't follow this structure either. Life is an amorphous series of ups and downs, perhaps absent of a resolution or any clear causal effect. In squeezing every story in such a way that forces clear resolutions and causal relationships, we are deciding to tell a story about our world devoid of detail and complexity.
If you've been on social media anytime in the last couple weeks, these ideas may sound rather familiar. Disney+'s release of a filmed version of Lin Manuel-Miranda's Hamilton has reignited a debate about properly representing the past. While the musical does feature a colorful and diverse cast, it cannot overcome its own sanitization of history, particularly its erasure of slave ownership amongst its cast of founding fathers. Of course, there is a separate discussion to be had about the responsibilities of storytellers and just how faithful these kinds of adaptations need to be to the "truth," but as long as these approaches to storytelling persist, they do take hold in audiences' minds whether we believe them to or not, which leads me to a different but related suggestion for future storytellers.
MORE MORE MORE!
We seem to have a societal aversion to long films, which I never truly understood. Sure, I suppose many of us live busy lives, but long films tend to allow for the most room to breathe, the most room to explore. There are exceptions, of course. Avatar spends a bloated runtime committing itself to every boring narrative convention in the book. But a film like Malcolm X, on the other hand, runs for over three hours, resisting the temptation to squeeze and manipulate its titular figure's life into a more comfortable narrative arc. As a result, while the film does still follow the standard cradle-to-grave structure so many other biopics do, it crafts a more complicated, honest, and informative portrait of Malcolm. If we allowed ourselves the time to engage with longer films, and if creators entrusted their audiences with watching longer films, perhaps we would find narratives willing to meander, crawl, and explore just as life tends to do.
A much more recent long film comes to mind in Martin Scorsese's The Irishman. While both The Irishman and Malcolm X still participate in the tradition of narrative, and therefore carry the same inherent neoliberalism that I have previously identified, they do mark steps in the right direction worthy of further discussion here. The Irishman does something especially significant in reckoning with its director's body of work, and by extension, American culture more broadly. The film asks viewers to reckon with a history of violence, and glorification of violence, and how that may have contributed to a sort of numbness, represented in the film through Robert De Niro's Frank Sheeran. If we are not going to overhaul our approach to storytelling, perhaps we can at least reckon with where decades and decades of antiquated storytelling have landed us today. So, allow me to discuss that a bit further...
KEEP ON RECKONIN'!
The Irishman is a rare example of Hollywood wrestling with its past, and questioning its present. But if we are to advance or evolve narrative as we know it, much more similar work needs to be done.
Interestingly, some of the most impressive "reckoning" work I have seen in recent years has been in the comics industry. Ta Nehisi-Coates is currently following up his acclaimed run on "Black Panther" with a run on the classic "Captain America" series. The character of Captain America has always invited his writers to interrogate American culture and politics, but Coates' work has further pushed the envelope in this way, speaking to our current moment and asking readers to consider the implications of celebrating a vigilante who wraps himself in American red, white, and blue.
Even more fascinating is acclaimed writer Tom King's latest adaptation of the classic DC Comics series "Strange Adventures." For much of its existence, "Strange Adventures" has focused on Adam Strange, a human who was one day teleported to the planet Rann, where he is suddenly entrapped in various space adventures and battles. Strange eventually becomes the ultimate defender and liberator of Rann. King's rendition, however, asks readers to reckon with precisely what it means to "defend" or "liberate." The series is only a couple issues in, but it is already a fascinating commentary on issues of colonialism and imperialism, as well as the ways in which we whitewash and sanitize history.
The nature of the comics industry permits writers and artists alike to interrogate its history, as new versions of characters and new takes on stories are constantly being reintroduced. But as comics continue to receive Hollywood adaptations, why can't this same sort of reckoning pervade the rest of our media? Superhero cinema and television stands out as especially relevant to this entire conversation, as our numerous adaptations somehow repackage many of comics' most progressive and exciting moments as tales of neoliberal nothingness. Superhero films present themselves as progressive, but ultimately suggest the status quo reign supreme. The Marvel Cinematic Universe may raise questions regarding military presence and the privatization of public services, as seen in films like Captain America: Civil War, but it does very little to move the needle or revolutionize such discussions. Even worse, Christopher Nolan's lauded Dark Knight trilogy, while undoubtedly impressive films, have some terrifying things to say about police, class, and government surveillance. I mean, it's hard to read the end of The Dark Knight, despite its dazzling theatrics, as anything but a ringing endorsement of the PATRIOT Act.
Comics, however, are not the only medium that film, television, and theatre should be looking towards for new ideas...
LET YOUR LOOSE ENDS FLY!
The "loose end" is a bit of a faux pas in storytelling. It is frequently used as an indictment of a particular work, but I kindly ask that we pump the brakes on such a perspective. I took a screenwriting course in college, and one of the things that was stressed above all else was the importance of EVERYTHING - that's EVERYTHING with a capital E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G - contributing to the overall plot. In a proper screenplay, there are no asides. If there is an aside, we as viewers are programmed to pounce on it and, in all likelihood, write it off as inconsequential to the singular goal of the text: to tell a story.
This, of course, is not the goal of storytelling in every medium. Literature most prominently welcomes a willingness to stray from the narrative at hand. Entire scenes or even chapters in a novel may be dedicated to extraneous characters or settings. These moments allow for a world to be fleshed out beyond the primary narrative, and their respective novels are often better off for it.
Video games offer an even more intriguing take on these moments, often allowing players to discover more about the game's universe and its inhabitants via constructed side missions or even simple open-world exploration. Just strolling down the sidewalk in Bioshock Infinite or Grand Theft Auto V invites the player to overhear nearby conversations between NPCs or to inspect storefronts that are otherwise inaccessible. These opportunities are not vital to understanding the narrative of these games, but they do encourage a sort of inquisitiveness and even sloppiness that is much closer to the kind of thinking and exploration we must do in our everyday lives. Cinema does veer somewhat close to this dynamic in the form of "twist" or "puzzle" films, such as Inception, Memento, or The Village. These movies encourage viewers to play detective and interact with the text via a healthy dose of skepticism. While they do not stray narratively, they do complicate the very notion of what is narratively relevant and what is not, which has the power to heavily inform how one engages with their sociopolitical surroundings.
Still, one could read a novel or play a game and find themselves entirely invested in a detail that is otherwise unrelated to the major events at hand. The key difference is that, whereas film mandates that everything acts in service of plot, these other mediums only require that everything is in service of theme, or even mood. In this way, literature is closer to video games in terms of interactivity than a film even is. I have long been fascinated by and in favor of bridging the gap between video games and cinema, but doing so would require an utter transformation of cinematic storytelling as we know it, which brings me to one final idea as to how we can bring about such a transformation.
PROLIFERATION OF PERSPECTIVE (say that 3x fast!)
None of these suggestions present panaceas for American's broken storytelling system, but this final one might be the closest we will ever get.
It may be unreasonable to expect future stories to ignore centuries of traditional narrative structure. I get it. I really do! There is a reason narrative as we know it has been so successful; it's entertaining! But perhaps what we can ask for instead is a shift away from such an intense narrative focus on the individual, towards one that welcomes and even celebrates multiple perspectives. These kinds of narratives are not without precedent: films like Robert Altman's Nashville or PTA's Magnolia weave tapestries out of several unique characters. They may abide by traditional three-act structure, but their focus on several different individuals invites us as viewers to similarly adopt multiple perspectives. These films celebrate a crucial concept that I refer to as "connectedness." They consider the ways in which our lives are intertwined, and all part of a larger phenomenon. Alejandro González Iñárritu explored connectedness on a global scale with his 2006 drama Babel. Dave Holstein's Showtime dramedy Kidding (featuring Jim Carrey in a role he was born to play) establishes connectedness as vital to our media and to our families. In fact, I would endorse the show as one of the better examples of contemporary media done right. An even more recent example is Michaela Coel's new HBO dramedy I May Destroy You, which ostensibly focuses on the experiences of a sexual assault victim, but also allows itself to wander off towards the experiences of other characters in each episode. I highly recommend Coel's show for a number of reasons, but mainly for its willingness to take its time and treat each and every one of its perspectives with the care and attention they deserve.
Even more traditional films like last year's Best Picture winner Parasite participate in this proliferation of perspective by refusing to establish a single individual as the protagonist. Parasite's focus on the family unit emphasizes collaboration as crucial to our current moment.
One of my all time favorite films is Richard Linklater's School of Rock. While Jack Black's Dewey Finn is obviously the protagonist of the film, Linklater manages to effectively develop every student in Dewey's classroom so as to celebrate the fusion of various perspectives and personalities.
(By the way, Linklater's Before trilogy acts as a beautiful example of cinema that is willing to wander off and come back again.)
Like so many of you, I am desperate to return to the movie theaters and watch brand new films (only if everyone is wearing a mask and is properly distanced, of course.) But as we take this time away from the cinema, shouldn't we reflect a little bit and consider how we might come out of all this with stronger storytelling, the kind that not only can change the world, but is willing to do so? I am eager to digest new content, and I will continue to do so alongside you all, but I hope you will join me in demanding the truly progressive stories that we deserve.
Until next time,
Cory