Full Reset

In narrative there needs to be conflict. In a good narrative there needs to conflict that is not easily surmountable.  Hopefully, if we are lucky, there is both internal and external conflict.  There is an appropriate rush as reader, or viewer, when there is an escalation of tension over  a period of time before it is let off.

The problem, however, comes with the fact with so much media and storytelling out there is far too little attention paid to appropriate levels of tension and too much attention to resetting the story to normal.  One of the greatest enemies of such crappy writing is, not surprisingly, children’s television.  Many action cartoon shows have a reasonable simple premise.  There is a group of good guys and a group of bad guys.  At the end of the episode the bad guys slink away defeated.  The bad guys don’t learn their lesson, they don’t adapt to their failure, and everything resets just the way it was.  G.I Joe saves the world and no one gets hit by lasers unless they’re a robot.  Hundreds of damn laser shots by trained military elite and no one gets hit.  How can COBRA be a credible threat if they never win.  If they never injure anyone or blow up home base or capture or kill anyone important.  It’s designed to keep simple attention spans.  Bad jokes, simply violence where no one actually gets hurt and million toys being sold.  But no realistic tension.  No one is afraid Lady Jane will be hurt.  I’d lump Transformers in there but the animated cartoon movie actually pulled the trigger and released us from the thrall of lack of change.  I used to root for the bad guys and get upset and their stupidity.  The bad guys were always more interesting almost more fun than the boring good guys.

You could say that children’s television is always poorly created and not much is placed into their writing and creation.  This is undeniably false.  There are too many coincidence of choice for thse shows not to have some manner of thought involved.  Looking at say Looney Tunes, or even Tom and Jerry, we always see the protagonist as the animal of prey while the antagonist is the predator.  The prey, usually smaller or without weapons (read child) is against the dominant individual who is punished for the adherence to the normal social role.  Tom was just a house cat doing what any normal house should and he was punished for doing so.  Elmer was hunter and, as Looney Tunes pointed out, he would so rigidly abide by the law he wouldn’t shoot an animal, even one making fun of him, outside the correct season.  He was an idiot who couldn’t understand that season’s don’t change five times in one day but there is some cartoon logic to be allowed.  We had children related to the smaller smart-alecky screwball who flippantly gave authority the middle finger.  What child doesn’t find saying no to authority invigorating or fun?  This had to be intentional.  You can look at the classical combinations to see the pattern; Tom and Jerry; Elmer and Bugs; Wile E Coyote and the Road Runner; Sylvester and Tweety; Chip and Dale versus Donald Duck;  and more.  Pepe le pew, however, is outside this conversation for this point as he is oddly not a character that defied society but was simply confused and probably a date rapist.  No means no, you perverted skunk.

But what angers me the most is the expectation of tensions this build up towards an eventual release when the whole thing is derailed and all the tensioned is eased off leaving no satisfaction.  A good examples of proper tension in Die Hard.  Die Hard also ruined the action hero it defined.  So many movies tried to be just like it but failed miserably it hurts me to think about all the bad films perpetrated on audiences.  What made Die Hard great, other than being the best Christmas movie of all time, is there was a reasonably normal protagonist placed in a bad situation where he probably shouldn’t be able to make it through.  We felt nervous when he had to run through the broken glass.  We felt scared when the weight of the fire hose was pulling him out the window to certain death.  We felt terror as he led around Hans Gruber’s great impersonation of a scared businessmen.  There was a moment of deceit on the directors part when the character had more knowledge than the audience.  McClane knew the gun wasn’t loaded but we didn’t.  The villain wasn’t an idiot either.  He was more than likely significantly smarter and more prepared than McClane.  The kicker is McClane won out the day, not because of being smart, or stronger, but by his wits.  He made them laugh, then he shot them.  Yippe ki yay.

I bring up tension and this need to reset because it sucks.  We don’t need this safety this return to normal.  It isn’t good storytelling.  There should be danger.  There should be questions.  The hero doesn’t have to win.  People need to die.  Even if they are the character you like.  X-Men: First Class brought me to this train of thought.  The reason being that it so clearly outshined the rest of X-Men movies.  Besides the coherent plot it presented real villains who had the potential to win.  There, at all points of the film, were moments when no one felt safe of above sacrifice.  Characters died.  It made the previous movies feel safe and lackluster.  Also the Cuban Missile crisis was a culturally significant moment of great tension.  Even reading about that period of time makes the hair on the back of your neck stand.  Two modern nations were seconds from annihilating each other.  That is tension, that is good narrative.  Bad politics, and indescribably abhorrent, but great storytelling.

Ben