A Story We Can Believe In

Writer/director David Chase on why his show The Sopranos was such a success:

"Here's my guess, my official guess -- I think there were two reasons.  James Gandolfini was so compelling to watch.  And also it's because the audience really didn't know what was going to happen next."

Much of last week was spent in exultant international Monday morning quarterbacking.  Pundits from here to Zimbabwe have analyzed and theorized about how it happened that a black man became America's 44th president.  Me, I've been thinking about marketing a t-shirt to be worn by African-Americans after the inauguration that reads: "My brotha is the most powerful man on the planet -- what does yours do?"

Seriously, though, being a writer, when I mull over how the whole thing played out, I can't help perceiving President-Elect Barack Obama's win as the triumph of good storytelling.

 

Every week in my UCLA Extension master class in screenwriting, I sit around a table with a bunch of dedicated students figuring out What makes a story work?  Why does one story grab people and another one elicit indifference?

We've identified one vital element: a compelling protagonist.  That's not rocket science; all writers would probably agree that good stories feature a character who's got a clear purpose (the more specific and passionate the better), is credible (i.e. we believe that he or she is capable of ultimately achieving that purpose), and is empathetic (i.e. we feel them).  The X-Factor I always add to this short-list is complexity: a compelling protagonist is more than one thing.  Humans are walking contradictions, and the most compelling characters have inner lives -- they show us evidence of complicated, often conflicted desires, thoughts and feelings.

Back in the silent era, a Western movie established its hero by having him walk out of a saloon and pet the dog that sat by the door.  The villain was the guy who kicked the dog.  These days, we're more likely to believe the guy who, inside the saloon, shoots down six people in cold blood... then comes outside and gives the dog a biscuit.

In the respect that we the people now live in an era of vast complexity (and, true to the ethos of contradiction, yearn for simplicity), the dueling shows of McCain and Obama made an intriguing contrast.  One of the problems with McCain's campaign, often articulated in the media, was its lack of a consistent, coherent story line.  Obama's narrative was clear (his very presence in the race was an embodiment of change),  yet somewhat sophisticated: this change mandate was made up of myriad  elements, requiring a viewer -- I mean, voter -- to hold more than one idea in mind at a time.  Meanwhile, what the GOP candidate ended up with was weirdly simple-minded.  McCain seemed to be saying, "I'm a patriotic war hero, and he's... scary."

I saw this concept -- the contrast between a story that convinced and one that didn't -- espoused in a letter to the editor of the NY Times, in their Magazine on Sunday:

What McCain’s handlers miss[ed] is that a plot synopsis is not a story. In good stories, even true ones, contradictory labels coexist quite easily.  John McCain could have been both a maverick and an experienced Washington hand; a fighter and a conciliator; even a leader and a celebrity. Obama’s popularity shows that Americans can grasp a story that’s about both roots and change, in which a man with an African father, an Indonesian childhood and a Muslim middle name reminds people of John Kennedy, and whose old-fashioned eloquence inspires rock-star adulation.  Americans like a good story — not a simplistic one.  (Francesca Polletta, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Irvine)

During the campaign some media observers noted that what McCain tended to sell on the stump was his biography, as opposed to a well-articulated position and specific policies.  In screenwriting terms, we'd say that McCain was pitching a situation as opposed to a plot.  Obama delivered both protagonist and plot, which brings me to the second crucial factor in what makes a good story -- that it moves from an A to a B (or C through Z).  A good story is about transformation.

In a three-act structure, the status quo is disrupted and then restored... but with a difference: the status quo, however radically or subtly, is changed.  This is what we want from a story well told.  We want to see how Something Happened, and how this led to Something Else.  What is transformed is actually the point of the story event.

Certainly for Americans, the favorite story subject is transformation itself.  We came here with nothing... and we made something of ourselves.  The true American hero is the self-made man (the boy raised in a land where "anyone can grow up to be president"), and in this, Obama is the myth incarnate.  We heard the setup (the absent father, the food stamps moment, et al),  and we saw the obstacle implicit in his origins: the color of his skin.  Watching Obama speak at a rally was looking at an enactment of the American dream.

Viewed in this light, McCain was really up against it.  Because McCain, born to privilege as an heir to admiralty, couldn't really go "up."  In screenwriting terms, we'd say he had no second act; his first act break, the POW experience, heroic though it was, had led the protagonist on a predictable path.  McCain went into politics, and however bumpy the road, he was of the ruling class, the established status quo; the depth and breadth of the obstacles he faced could not compare, nor could the desired outcome, relative to his beginnings.

In our daily lives, we're wholly invested in knowing what's what -- in being right.  Who wants to be proven wrong?  But when we're an audience for a good show, a rare thing happens: getting it wrong delights and excites us.  We thought it would go like this, but OMG, it went like that!  Finally, what we prize most in a good story is an element of surprise.

(It has to surprise us in a believable way, of course, which is why certain of the McCain campaign's story ideas went so glaringly wrong, like McCain's theatrical and ultimately ineffectual "campaign suspension" -- as a reader covering this script, I'd be citing bald contrivances -- while Obama held his undramatic but presidential-looking course.  Anyway...)  What we were voting for when we voted for Obama was, in a very real sense, a satisfying third act climax: a transformation in the status quo brought about by a passionate, credible, empathetic and complex protagonist. 

And the idea that we were betting on hope as well as change is telling: in an underdog narrative such as Obama's, we get surprise at every plot turn.  Given McCain's 90%-Bush record, his imagined victory promised merely more of the same.  But if any one characteristic has distinguished the tale of Obama in the days since the election, it's the element of suspense.  We got the guy in there... so now what?  We're still riveted to our screens, because we've banked on a largely unproven quantity. 

Anyone doing a bio-pic on Obama, in fact, would have to make a crucial choice: is his being elected president a great ending... or is it merely the end of a longer movie's first act?  Given that its ability to impel a reader to turn the page is the fundamental essence of a successful read, you gotta admit that this Obama saga is a hell of an absorbing story.

 

Comments

[E.C. Henry]

Interesting musings, Billy; Obama vs. McCain as seen with them as the protagonist in a feature film.
I TOTALLY agree with what you had to say about McCain, "McCain tended to sell on the stump was his biography, as opposed to a well-articulated position and specific policies." The fact McCain didn't sell his interpritation of solutions to the obvious, well known problems the U.S. faces miffed me. The Republican party has a lot of work to do in that department.

As far as the "black canidate" thing. I would MUCH rather have David Palmer of Fox's "24" fame on the ballet to vote for, as opposed to Barak Obama. Like you hinted at "... we've banked on a largely unproven quantity."
BUT then so did the Republicans when they took a chance and put Sarah Palin on their ticket. Am I the only one, or did she seem so ill prepared, so over her head. Guess with McCain representing old school politics, they felt Palin gave them a bit of a face-lift. LOVE that thought, but Palin was too much eye candy, not enough solutions.

Regraurdless of how I voted last Tuesday, I honor Obama's election into our nation's highest office, and hope he can help cure our country's most pressing needs: a better economy with more high paying job availible to all.

Love how you articulate politics, Billy. Maybe someday you'll even run for office -- on the Romantic Comedy platform. Hey, I'd vote for ya!

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

[Judith Duncan]

Hey Billy,
Wow,that post confirmed for me why I constantly log in.It has been incredible watching this story played out on our T.V. screens.Each week I have a Skype session with friends in America with whom I did a screenwriting class at UCLA online .A great group of talented and supportive people (we're helping each other with rewrites)who were constantly amazed and touched that I should be so invested in the election of an American president (I'm an Aussie).Yet the whole world needed this story,a new story,the chance to believe in transformation.The 'old guard' of politicians took us down this dark road to nowhere,with 2 wars,
failing economies and a refusal to
acknowledge environmental issues are slowly being voted out.It reminds me of one of my favorite films,'The NeverEnding Story',
where the NOTHING,(people's lack of belief)was slowly destroying fantasia.One boy's decision to believe was all that was needed to halt the destruction and rebuild fantasia.I think that was the kind of story Obama gave to people.The idea that a belief in a change for the better and a desire to work towards it can bring about the transformation we all so deperately need for this planet right now.Thankyou to all those who voted for Obama.Do I think we can make this world a better place? Yes we can!

[j]

I like this story. A lot.

[mernitman]

EC: Now if we could only get into the White House like, tomorrow...

Judith: Fingers are crossed around the world!

j: yeah me too.

[Catherine Svehla]

Yes, yes, yes. The enactment of the American Dream, the rise to the top, the self-made man in all his compelling complexity, complete with the promise of transformation. Well said.

So now, where will he go (he's at the top?) and what will he do? What happens in the sequel? My own background in story suggests that there will be a crisis (one we don't know about yet) and the solution will bring a new cultural value, and likely a larger circle of such self-made heros, to the fore. Seriously, we are in fact living the story as you point out so I wonder what stories, novels or movies, come to mind as a place to look for patterns for our future.