This is kind of a spin-off of my previous two posts about stories.
I had a brief discussion with Mike about stories. He said one could argue that any story had a “good guy vs. bad guy” situation - even in the news. He gave the example that most news stories have a victim or someone you are rooting for. I agreed with it and the conversation went on with its usual tangents.
I didn’t remember the conversation until recently, when my eyes darted around and saw this headline:
Wow, talk about villain. It was like I could see a bunch of news articles floating in my head:
“The guard donated money to children. Children with diseases.”
“That guy who shot the guard? White supremacist.”
“Neo-Nazi”
“Suicide bomber”
“Speaks german”
“Eats babies”
“Clubbed a seal”
“President of Rosie O’Donnell fan club”
etc
So I went further into news to see if I could dig up anything that sounded like hero-worshiping or villain-demonizing. Here’s just a few:
The tabloids and celebrity gossip crap seem loaded with hero/villain type stories, but I’d rather not sift through all that useless crap.
But anyways, there you go: heroes and villains even in the news.
15 users commented in " There are no more original ideas, News at 3 "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI disagree with the good guy/bad guy approach. I think there are plenty of stories without a good guy or a bad guy that can capture the attention of an audience, however, good guy/bad guy stories do rule. Many stories start off with a gg/bg approach and even end without either of them being good or bad. Honestly, there are lots of original ideas out there. It’s just that people don’t care about most of them, i.e., look at most japanese animation. many of them follow a DBZ-esque approach to the supernatural, however, many of them are completely new, with twisted and insane story lines. I remember Su showing me some crazy anime she was watching where these little kids have 4 invisible psychotic arms that are ridiculously strong and kill anything that threatens the kid. i forgot the name…
I vaguely remember this conversation, I was basically saying that a lot of supposedly “objective” writing still must contain the attributes of classic moral narratives. Villains victims, and hero characters will never go away, and we shouldn’t wish them away.
Khalid is right, not ALL stories have these attributes…there’s the anti-hero and things like that. But some of these newer narratives intentionally make people morally uncomfortable or feeling unsatisfied. Seeing something through a classic moral picture is often the best way to get through to people
In positive sum games like economies, these narratives just don’t always fit. This first came up I think with Robin Hanson or Bryan Caplan talking about news articles in reference to the credit crisis. Banks are villains or the Federal Reserve is a villain or Fanny and Freddie were villains and borrowers who can’t afford their houses and taxpayers are victims. This is an easy way for people to take in what happened, even though none of those individual actors really knew what they were doing was so bad.
Another common narrative is the oppressors/oppressed.
Funny, I’ve been thinking about this lately. I think a lot of our culture is dependent on distinction. It upsets people if they can’t place the blame on one or the other. For example, in the Jon & Kate story they are both assholes and their relationship is complicated but the media needs to choose who is the one to blame in order to set reader’s mind at ease. Society is disturbed by shades of grey and sleep better at night knowing that everything can be sectioned off into good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, etc.
“President of Rosie O’Donnell fan club” made me lol
right, when there are 2 sides, it gives people the opportunity to stand on solid ground (pending there is no apparent “grey area”). This can be seen as a haphazard of society when the majority is pulled in to choose on a commonality.
Think of it this way: Suppose in any set of people, the person(s) has to determine what direction would be best for their set of person(s).
Example 1: One person sees a movie and has many complex ideas about the movie ranging from right to wrong to impartial to anything he can think of. He/She can choose whatever they wish without regard to anything outside of their vision.
Example 2: Three people see a movie and come up with different values and perspectives, but must choose a common viewpoint FOR THE GREATER GOOD. their scope is, more than likely, more limited than if they were to all choose individually on a common goal.
Example 3: Democrats and Republicans
Democrats blow, Republicans SUCK.
Btw, that white supremacist neo-Nazi? Also into child porn:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/18/museum.shooting.porn/index.html
I say… if there is a god he needs to bring the floods of Noah’s era back wash away the bad evil people and filth, kinda like a world wide hard reset. Hey for the politically minded look at it this way, it will solve the unemployment status, even create more jobs with the reconstruction effort. It is a genius plan and I have to say maybe Al Gore is right, Global Warming is melting the ice caps… where else is god keeping the flood waters? He/she/it/the almighty didn’t pull aside its astral omnipotent robes and just piss the flood onto the earth. it always was and shall ever be.
You have read it, you cannot Un Readed it!
Well unless you read backwards but that only works 0.006% of the time.
I say GOD IS DEAD
lol broken windows
The fact that America has a 2 party system while many western countries do not (proportional representation of several parties) strengthens that idea of how there is only 2 sides to the story and 1 is right and 1 is wrong.
But there’s a lot of voting against your own party in America. We especially like the narrative of the individual vs. the collective. American politicians often get rewarded for appearing to be “mavericks” within their parties, whereas in most proportional representation systems its frowned upon.
“Profiler: Fort Hood suspect a loner”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/11/texas.fort.hood.investigation/
Interesting article in New Haven Advocate:
“Murder Through the Looking Glass - What we’re really talking about when we talk the killing of Annie Le”
http://www.newhavenadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=15316
Why is this news?
“Alleged Fort Hood Shooter Frequented Local Strip Club”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,573052,00.html
Really interesting article:
The Ft. Hood Killer - Guilty But Not Evil
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/just-listen/200911/the-ft-hood-killer-guilty-not-evil
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