The Hero's Journey: Hollywood's Formula, Our Illusions, and the Need for Real Change

Hollywood relies on story structures like the Monomyth for success, yet critiques arise regarding conformity, illusion, and imposed meaning, inspiring alternative narrative forms reflecting fractured realities and offering hope.

• The Monomyth/Hero's Journey: A prevalent story structure where a protagonist in an ordinary world faces an inciting incident, leading to a quest, encounters with mentors, a midpoint of no return, conflicts with antagonists, a low point, a transformation, and a return home with a changed life philosophy.

• Aristotle's Influence: The three-act structure originates from Aristotle's Poetics, defining elements like 'reversal of the Situation' and 'recognition'. Gustav Freytag further developed this into a pyramid diagram (exposition, rising action, climax, resolution).

• Hollywood's Reliance on Formula: Screenwriters follow these structures for box-office success, supported by a story-structure industry with gurus like Robert McKee and Christopher Vogler (who popularized Joseph Campbell's "hero's journey").

• Concealment of the Formula: While many films follow this structure, its success relies on being hidden. The inciting incident must feel surprising and organic.

• Critiques of Traditional Structure:

  • It can be subtly conservative.
  • It may reinforce conformity by acting as a safety valve.
  • It might offer a fantasy of change rather than actual change.

• The Monomyth vs. the Human Condition: The Hollywood formula aims for redemption and restoration of normality, while the deeper monomyth captures the human condition, where protagonists face trials for what they need, not what they want.

• The Inciting Incident as a Worst Fear: Craig Mazin says the inciting incident is the protagonist's worst fear, forcing them to confront a suppressed side of their personality (Jung's Shadow).

• The Illusion of Agency: We may feel like puppets in a predetermined plot, influenced by media, advertising, and societal structures.

• Storytelling as Infantilization: Being told a story can suspend critical faculties and be covertly persuasive.

• The Danger of Imposing Meaning: Imposing meaning on life events can prevent proactive change and responsibility.

• Alternative Story Structures:

  • Rejecting the "masculo-sexual" three-act structure.
  • Exploring patterns found in nature (fractals, meanders, networks).
  • Focusing on "containers" (Le Guin) to describe what people actually do and feel.

• Art Reflecting Fractured Times: Contemporary art should reflect the fractured nature of reality and adapt to shorter attention spans.

• Modernism's Rejection of Illusion: Modernist literature rejected the smooth illusions of 19th-century fiction, grappling with the dislocations of postwar modernity.

• The Monomyth and Continuity: The monomyth dramatizes change but also embodies continuity.

• Commercial Forces Stretching the Monomyth: Franchises and sequels extend stories for revenue, potentially distorting the original structure.

• The Need for Hope: Stories should offer hope and a model of what's worth living for.