Friday, 4 September 2015

The Problem with Robert McKee

Today's post may be a little dry compared to others. One of my bugbears is with the theory of narrative promulgated byRobert McKee. In today's post, I am going to cut and paste an excerpt of an essay I wrote a couple of years ago when completing an MA in Creative Writing - it concerns McKee. It is double spaced because I don't know how to single-space it.

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What is a story? The minimal theory of narrative devised by Todorov (1970) is that a story begins with a fictional world in equilibrium, that this equilibrium is disturbed, that the characters must act to restore it and that the story concludes with the establishing of a new equilibrium. It is useful to compare Todorov’s theory to Campbell’s notion of the Hero’s Journey (1949). Campbell argues that the hero begins the story in the familiar world, that he receives ‘the call to adventure’, engages in some sort of quest through a fabulous world, overcoming obstacles but eventually reaching his goal, and then returns to the normal world with the ‘boon’ that he has won. Campbell’s theory sharply contrasts with Todorov’s. In Todorov’s theory, a single world that is in equilibrium is disturbed and then returns to equilibrium while Campbell’s theory involves two worlds: a familiar one and a fantastic one, the narrative involving a passage by the Hero from one to the other and back. In Todorov’s theory the state of the world causes the action; in Campbell's it is a summons from the other world.

In Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting (1997), the influential screenwriting teacher Robert McKee proposes a theory that seems to combine aspects of Todorov’s and Campbell’s. McKee argues that the unifying ingredient of a story is Desire:

For better or worse, an event [the inciting incident] throws a character’s life out of balance, arousing in him the conscious and/or unconscious desire for that which he feels will restore balance, launching him on a Quest for his Object of Desire against forces of antagonism (inner, personal, extra-personal). He may or may not achieve it. This is story in a nutshell. (p.196-197)

McKee’s notion that the story begins with a disturbance of equilibrium that motivates the protagonists(s) to ‘restore balance”, is reminiscent of Toldorov. By describing this as a ‘Quest’, it is more similar to Campbell.

These theories are similar because they emphasize the idea that is story is held together by the goal-directed agency of its protagonists. Mckee’s theory seems particularly plausible. However, I believe that it is incorrect. We can see it is wrong by considering how many stories do not fit the formula. In Othello, for instance, the protagonist has no clear desire until towards the end (when he decides to kill Desdemona); it is Iago who possesses active desire, the desire to destroy Othello, and it is Iago who drives the story forward. In King Lear, Lear sets the story in motion by giving his kingdom away to two of his daughters but, for the rest of the play, he is simply responding to the actions of others. In Moby Dick, the story is driven by Ahab’s monomaniacal obsession but it is Ishmael who is the protagonist. In Benny and Joon the romance between Sam and Joon drives the story forward but it is Benny’s reactions to this romance that is the focus. In all these examples, the protagonist is reactive rather than active.

What drives a story forward is not the desire of the protagonist but the way he reacts to the situations in which he finds himself. The protagonist is not ‘the desiring agent’ but a surrogate for the audience; the question a story always asks its audience is, “What might I do if I was this character in the same situation?” If the protagonist of a story decides, for no reason, to rob a bank, we do not identify with him. If he is put in a situation where he has no choice except to rob a bank (because he is up to his eyeballs in debt, perhaps), then we identify with him. Even Star Wars (Lucas, 1977), the modern paradigm for a well-structured narrative, presents a protagonist who is reactive rather than active. Luke’s first desire is to find Obiwan Kinobe; later it is to rescue the princess; in the last act it is to help destroy the Death Star. Each time he changes his desire it is as a reaction to his circumstances. The intention of the film, to be sure, is to show that Good triumphs over Evil, but Luke does not begin the story with a burning desire to destroy the Death Star, nor formulate this desire as a response to the princess’s plea for help. He ends up the hero without ever seeking to become it. Luke’s desire changes and, I believe, this is what many of the best stories show. They dramatize how a character’s desires change as a reaction to different situations.

Generally speaking, then, the protagonist does not drive the plot forward but is rather caught up in it. Other examples that show this include A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984) and Friday the 13th  (Cunningham, 1980). In horror films, the protagonist’s ‘desire’ (if we can call it that) is simply to stay alive; in no way, though, can this be compared to a Quest.  It is not necessary for a protagonist to have a constant desire. This is important to my film because its protagonist Jess has no well-defined desire; I worried about this when I was writing it. I now believe, however, that the convention that the story should begin with a character determining to achieve a goal and ending with him attaining it is more the exception than the rule.

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This could be better written but the point is solid. McKee is wrong. Perhaps in a later post I will elaborate on the other idea of the protagonist of a story reacting to it rather than be an active driver. It is true of virtually all stories.

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