Art, Porn, and Strong Female Characters

September 17, 2015 / Vito Gulla / 0 Comments

I want to start off this post with a definition–two definitions or really, a distinction. Writers and critics often talk about the responsiblity of the artist, what things we should and should not do and how, and as I’ve said in the past, I’m not too fond of burdening creative people with an intent of social justice. (This is not to say art doesn’t provide moral instruction: It is more so that art presents a multitude of moral possibilities and shouldn’t serve merely as propaganda.) That tends to be a recipe for didacticism rather than enlightenment. However, I do think that art itself is meant to do one thing: It shows the world as it is, as the writer sees it. Now I know that may sound absurd, especially when we take into account the many genres available to us. How does the fantasy or sci-fi writer depict the world as it is, when the story takes place in an entirely different universe? Well, the story, no matter the species or world, should connect to those experiences we all share as human beings. There are flaws in human nature, things we don’t like about ourselves as much as there are many strengths. Neither will ever be exitinguished. Societies, even those that appear utopian, still give into our failings. That’s what makes stories worth reading. But if, instead, we depict the world as we want it to be, as we’d like it to be, we begin to tap into something else: pornography. You see, pornography, to me, is not just something that excites or titillates us, but shows us a world we’d like to inhabit. Have you ever watched a porn? Depending on your own personal fetish, you are the viewer of your own particular fantasy. Do you wish women would fawn all over you and decide to have sex with you in moments of meeting you? Do you wish your man would massage you and spend a lot of time on foreplay? Whatever it is that turns you on is there with a few clicks of the mouse. But the world doesn’t operate under those conditions. Our lives are not fantasy, and if you want to see your perfect world in art, you’re only engaging in masturbation.

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I can’t remember the name of it, but a few years ago a book came out that depicted a homosexual love story in a very conventional way, in the sense that it was merely about two gay people in love with one another. I do not know whether the novel was very good or not, but that’s besides the point. There were two camps of people who had two very different reactions. First, there were the supporters, who felt that the novel was a good one and found it refreshing that the novel didn’t concern itself the societial struggles of the couple. It was just a love story where the characters happened to be gay. The other side thought the novel avoided the issue, that it should have been a main theme of the book. My problem is with the latter group. Who says that the characters have to face the structural oppression of their culture? Can’t they face other challeges? The story is about their love. The writer’s experience and knowledge is what dictated the focus of the narrative, not his or her political agenda. I’m sure the writer is for equality, and if he or she is gay, they are tapping into their world as it is. Does being gay change the governance of a story? Does it mean that the structure must be completely different? Do the characters have to act a certain way? We seem to want to straddle this line of categories are important/unimportant, that we are unique and also part of a group. But if our characters can’t represent that unique perspective, then doesn’t that make for fiction that is largely the same?

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One of the best movies to come out in a while is Mad Max: Fury Road. It’s brilliant in its construction and reminded us how exciting (and visual) films can be. It’s also one of the most feminist films I’ve seen. Furiosa could have easily been one of those hard-nosed, masculined female characters, the kind that fuck but can’t connect to people. She, however, is Max’s kindred spirit: She is his equal in almost everyway. There are some things Max is better at, like killing a bunch of guys in the fog, but she’s a better shot and driver. They work together in perfect harmony. They’re both sensitive and caring, even when they know they shouldn’t be. And really, if Max wasn’t a crazy drifter, I would even think that the two of them would have been more than happy to start a physical relationship to add their emotional one. They play off one another and serve each other’s stories, helping one another to find redemption. That’s pretty rare on-screen or off. 

Unfortunately, we have a lot of narratives that don’t do this–and it’s not because of institutional sexism as so many critics claim. It’s because they’re poorly written, and somehow we’ve forgotten this. (Art is really, really hard. Writing even an essay is strife with traps. It’s hard enough to convey an idea through argument and evidence. When you add story, it gets that much harder. Most of the time, people don’t know what the fuck they’re trying to say with their art.) To me, lovers in any story must be equals; otherwise, what’s the point of putting them together? Han and Leia in Empire and even Jedi are a terrific example. Once their initial courtship ends, they face challenges together. They aren’t spending their time quibbling about stupid shit. They have a mission, and it’s one they attack as a couple. Sure, they might squabble over how best to do it, but they still end up working together as a team.

One thing I find particularly frustrating, in television mostly, is when the writers wedge problems into the relationship–especially after seasons of will-they-or-won’t they. Why is it that these couples end up bickering in the subplot? Sure, relationships aren’t perfect, but why waste my time with something that shouldn’t be a problem? The goal is achieved. Turn your attention elsewhere. The next goal isn’t making things work: It’s taking on the new challenge or challenger as a team.

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I read an article just recently that says that “Female characters often aren’t allowed to have their own story arc.” I’m not fond of this particular generalization. I can think of few good stories where this is the case. Every character wants something, and by the end of the story, that character should either succeed or fail. In Die Hard, Holly Gennaro wants to be a successful business woman, and she thinks that means she has to sacrifice her relationship with her husband. They, of course, have to put those martial problems aside in order to stop the terrorists, which they do as a team. In the end, she recognizes that they can be together, and presumably, doesn’t need to distance herself from her husband in order to be a success. In Batman Begins, Rachel is Batman’s conscience–and has her own strategy to achieve their common goal. In Iron Man, Pepper Potts primary goal is to keep Stark Industries running. The love stories aren’t tacted on: They’re integral to the story because a good writer knows they should never put something in that doesn’t serve a purpose. But there are plenty of writers who don’t recognize this, and that’s just what the author of that article is inadvertently complaining about. It’s not a gender issue. It’s quality control.

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Critics say we need more “strong female characters” in art. First, what the hell is a strong character? When I hear it described, what it sounds like is a complete character, one who is complex and real, but people tend to take this as “women need to be badass.” I object to that as much as I do the term “strong female character” for its inaccuracy. 

Just about every movie nowadays that has a squad of soliders needs to have that badass female in it. Those characters tend to be as one-dimensional as the rest of the squad. So really, what’s the point? Characters in the background are just scenery. Ripley is complete; Vasquez is just a diversity credit. It doesn’t matter what those ancillary characters are or do, really. If you want a “strong female character,” they can’t come from the background.  I think we should recognize that there’s little benefit to making some tertiary or quaternary character a woman, a person of color, a homosexual. How do you characterize this minor player? How can you get your reader to know who they are in the paragraph or two in which they appear? Do we have a shorthand to solve this? We do. They’re called stereotypes.      

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So what makes a “strong” character strong? The answer should have started to reveal itself by now. A strong character is our focal center: It is the protagonist. No other character can compare to them, except maybe the antagonist or love interest or best friend. You can’t render every character as completely as you would like. 

And how do we remedy this situation? Obviously, we need more characters of certain categories, but who should create them? Should we burden the predominate writing population (read as white, cis, heterosexual males) with the solution? It might seem blasphemous, but I say no. Critics quibble with any act an author makes, binding them to a strict biological essentialism. They say a writer’s female or ethnic characters are stereotypes or that they’re writing about an experience they’ve never had. (It is should be obvious, but I am not suggesting that writers cannot write outside themselves.) But the solution comes from those people of color, those women, those gays and lesbians, those transgendered individuals who bring their own unique experiences to their fiction. I don’t think it’s absurb to say that they we tend to write best what we know best. Sure, we might not know what it’s like to shoot an Arab man for no comprehensible reason or to kill a pawnbroker because we want to tap into our own little Napoleon, but we do know what it feels like to be in our own skin. That no one can take away from us. Women, I would bet, write women best. Same with any other category. 

If we want more “strong female characters,” we need more strong female writers. There, fortunately, have been quite a few so far: for example, George Eliot, Jane Austen, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Flannery O’Connor, Alice Walker, Alice Munro, Tillie Olsen. (Literature, for the most part, is one of the most democratizing of the narrative artforms.) But frankly, that’s not enough. It’s easy to say that women aren’t recognized enough in the arts, and to a certain extent, that’s true. But the bigger issue is that greatness doesn’t appear in small numbers. Just look at film. Name all the talented female directors. Julie Taymor, Kathryn Bigelow…and then? And neither of those two would I call great. (Though I would argue Taymor is far more talented visually, unfortunately, her films, like David Fincher’s, are only as good as their scripts.) There’s such a small pool of female talent–of any underrepresented group–that greatness among their ranks is limited, if not shown at all. We need a larger sample size.

We tend to forget that dreck is not unique to any one group, especially, under today’s microscope of social justice. There are a lot of great male writers; however, there are also a lot more bad male writers. Just look at the latest issue of New Letters. All three pieces of short fiction are written by men, and all three suck. All over America, we have these shitty–but somehow successful–artists, whether James Patterson or Michael Bay. So the question remains: Why shouldn’t those spots go to anyone else? 

Plot, Structure, Form

June 11, 2015 / Vito Gulla / 0 Comments

When it comes to plot, structure, and form, people too often confuse one for the other and discussing all three doesn’t exactly help. However, all three are an extension of the same source and must be viewed as blocks which build one on top of the other, originating from the story’s theme. 

I like to think of it this way:

Theme determines form: form determines structure: structure determines plot.  

With that said, we’ll start at the macro level and work our way down.

Plot 

Plot, in its most basic description, is nothing more than a series of events which happen over the course of a story. E. M. Forster, in Aspects of the Novel, gives the following definition: “A plot is…a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. ‘The king died and then the queen died’ is a story.  ‘The king died, and then the queen died of grief’ is a plot.” Unlike Forster, I don’t see much of a distinction between plot and story; however, his emphasis on causality is of great importance. 

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Rob DiCristino, of the Ugly Club Podcast, introduced me to a wonderful exercise for plot, which he learned from Matt Stone and Trey Parker of South Park. Apparently, the writers gave a lecture on narrative at some film school or another. (I am ignorant to most of the details.) And they said when they first started working on the show, they would write out the events of the story and link them together with the phrase “and then.” In other words, they plot it like so: “Cartman ate chicken wings, and then he went to the bathroom.” It wasn’t long before the writers recognized the flaw in this model. It didn’t emphasize causation–what good stories are all about. And they modified the template accordingly. Instead of writing “and then,” they wrote “therefore.” So “Cartman ate chicken wings, and then he went to the bathroom” became “Cartman ate chicken wings, and therefore he went to the bathroom.” Of course, what if the first event was undermined in some way? This too did they plan for. In those instances, they wrote “but.” So now we have “Cartman ate chicken wings and needed to go to the bathroom, but he was stopped by Mr. Garrison.” 

This, I think, is one of the finest and simplest ways to look at a narrative. 

Each event is not seperate or disparate, unrelated and cut off, but a larger part in a causal chain. 

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My writing mentor, Bob Mooney, was a student of the late, great John Gardner and his advice to me was often verbatim from one of Gardner’s books. While he oversaw my thesis, Bob would write out little aphorisms on the manuscript. When I had too much summary, he would write, like Henry James used to, “Dramatize! Dramatize!” But there was one that really stuck with me: “There are only two kinds of plots: Someone goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.” This is one of those old apochraphals that Gardner supposedly said, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Bob had heard from the man himself. But when I thought about it, I realized, as much as I didn’t want to admit that such a binary could exist in art, it’s pretty damn true. Just think about all the great works in literature. The Odyssey: Someone goes on a journey. Beowulf: A stranger comes to town. Hamlet: Someone goes on a journey. The Tempest: A stranger comes to town. 

And if you think about it, it’s really the expression of the same thing: It’s all a matter of perspective. The Dark Knight is a story of a stranger (The Joker) coming to town–a threat to the status quo–but if you flip it on it’s head and look at it not from Batman’s perspective but The Joker’s, it’s his journey. 

Plot is a disruption of the ordinary and the effort to restore it but slightly improved. Of course, a good plot is not so simple. The master’s show us that these events don’t just exist to further the plot but to demonstrate something larger. 

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In Paul Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, The Wife, and Her Lover, the titular wife is trapped in a marriage to a loud-mouth gangster who spends his time in an opulent restaurant, pontificating about shit and sex, and she finds love in a bookish professor who eats alone (a stranger comes to town). Every action of the film relates to its themes of high vs. low pleasures–shitting, eating, and fucking vs. culture and love. Our heros consummate their relationship in the restaurant’s bathroom, then move to the kitchen, and finally his study. It is a literal movement towards those higher pleasures. Of course, the thief of the title tries to drag them back, using those lower pleasures: He mashes peas in the the professor’s book, insults his wife about her regularity, and force feeds the professor the pages of his own books. These events are not arbitrary. They are ripe for analysis. They communicate the grandness of this work of art. Plot, ultimately, is a reflection of theme.

Structure

Structure isn’t as complicated as most people make it out to be. It’s just like a good academic essay. There’s an introduction which explains the subject and sets out a point that it will prove, a body which proves the thesis, and a conclusion that wraps it up and answers that question of “So What?” It can vary here and there. It can be linear or non-linear. It can be logical or illogical. But at the end of the day, it’s all, more or less, the same thing: a beginning, a middle, and an end. 

Of course, we can break that down a little further. 

(The following breakdown is a bastardization of a variety of sources, most notably, Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat.)

Beginning/Act One

  • Status Quo/Something’s Missing: This is world before the disruption. Things are mostly copacetic. It’s Luke living on the farm with his aunt and uncle in Star Wars. Of course, even though people are happy and there are no threats, there’s still something missing from our main character’s life. In Star Wars, Luke is looking for a life of adventure, but on the farm, he’s not getting it.
  • Inciting Incident: This is the moment that changes everything. This is when the bad guy shows up or the telegram in the mail. To return to the Star Wars example, it is finding the message from Princess Leia. 
  • Debate/Theme Stated: Of course, change is scary, and no one will do so willingly. Luke wants to join Obi-Wan on his adventure, but he must attend to his duties on the farm…
  • Can’t Go Home Again/Choose Act Two: This is when the choice becomes clear for the protagonist. He or she is no longer questioning themselves. Whatever was holding them back is gone. Luke returns home to find his aunt and uncle have been murdered, tying together his quest for adventure and revenge: He can leave with Obi-Wan and take on the Empire.

Middle/Act Two 

  • The First Obstacle/Shit Just Got Real: This is the first roadblock in our hero’s path. They have a clear goal now, but there’s a hurdle they have to clear first. Even though Luke knows he has to rescue the princess, he doesn’t know how he will get there; therefore, he must find himself a pilot, which he does in the form of Han Solo.   
  • B Story: This is the nugget of the story, the subplot that emphasizes the theme. It is a nice little distraction to the events. Typically, this comes in the form of a love story, but of course, there are other possibilities as well. Luke and company have to board the Death Star (and evade Jabba), but they won’t be get there for a while, so, in that time, Obi-Wan can give him a little sage advice and training: Use the force; trust your instincts. 
  • Midpoint: Depending on whether the story is a tragedy or success, this is the point where everything is great or terrible. It is, at this point, our hero’s greatest success or failure. The hero has finally reached his goal. Luke boards the Death Star and saves the princess. However, things quickly go downhill from here. 
  • Bad Guys Close In/You’re Surrounded: The hero is surrounded and his success is short lived. He has to find a way out, which he does–only to find himself in an even worse situation. Luke has saved Leia, but they end up in the trash disposal with some kind of killer trash snake. And the walls are closing in. They’re all going to die! 
  • All is Lost/Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire: The hero has escaped one certain and found himself in another. The mentor dies. The odds are stacked against them. They’ve been going the wrong way. Obi-Wan sacrifies himself for Luke, and our heroes must battle their way out of the Death Star.

End/Act Three

  • Third Act Twist: This is the ultimate change in direction. Our hero is done licking his wounds and being a bitch. He realizes what he must do to save the day. He puts on his big boy boots and flies straight towards the enemy. The Rebels decide to launch an assault on the Death Star, and they know just where to shoot.
  • The Showdown: The villain and hero come face-to-face in a climatic battle. Things here will either go one way or the other: The hero wins or the villain does. Luke leads the Rebels to the Death Star, trusts his instincts (which calls back to our B Story), and takes it down with his torpedoes with Han’s help.
  • Resolution: Everything returns back to normal. Our hero has accomplished his story goal and his character goal. He has changed for the better. This is the result of his happy (or unhappy) ending. Luke and company are given their commendations and everyone smiles for the camera.

Form

This is the most interesting and overlooked piece of the puzzle. Of course, it’s also the most difficult. But done right, this is a sign of absolute genius. It is an atom bomb that change an either genre in one drop. Form is the greatest expression of theme an author has. It is a question of how best to reflect the considerations at the heart of a work and often leads to innovation. It is a reconsideration of what that modality has to offer.

Works like As I Lay Dying, The Sound and The Fury, Naked Lunch, Watchmen, Pulp Fiction, Annie Hall, and Ulysses demonstrate this better than most. In Watchmen, Moore creates a post-modern masterpiece which deconstructs the limitations of both comic books and their heroes. Each chapter borrows from a multitude of styles and genres. Chapter one concludes with a memoir excerpt. Chapter four has bits of a textbook. Chapter seven includes part of the psychological file on Rorschach. Moore, like Joyce, imagined new possibilities for his form. And both authors did so in order to emphasize their particular theme. Joyce wanted to expose the intricacies of the mind, the modes of consciousness, and the typical realist novel failed to prove capable: He combined elements of Greek myth and plundered every work of literature, creating a polyphonic cacophony of styles. Moore, on the other hand, wanted to expose the flaws of the super hero, but the typical comic book wouldn’t do. He needed to put them in the “real world” and rewrote the rules of the form in the process.  

Form is as much a matter of technique as it is appearance. And no writer should ignore it.

So concludes our discussion of plot, structure, and form. Stay tuned as next time we will move into the heart of all stories, the very reason we write: theme.