By Morf Morford, Tacoma Daily Index
Ever walk out of a screening of a newly released movie and think, “I’ve seen that movie about five times before”. Not that exact movie of course, but the same plot line, set of characters and scenes.
It might be a different setting – as in further in the past or in the future, or in the city or a desert instead of a forest or with a female protagonist instead of male or even children (or animals, or animated figures) in place of adults, but the story line and standardized characters seem to recur in almost every “new” film.
And now, besides this screen-to-script lack of imagination, we can add the repetitive and redundant use of tropes, cliches and stereotypes of scenes, technology and body/ethnic/gender types.
One fairly recent trope and cliche is the prominence of smart phones in films. Smart phones have become, in some films, something approaching a leading character, as they have become visible in almost every scene and their use, or loss or misuse, is a sub-theme of the larger theme – if there even is a larger theme.
Future audiences, as in just a few years from now, will marvel at the obsession with such clunky, intrusive and ineffective devices that are held on to, and treated as if they are akin to sacred artifacts.
Mid-life crisis “R” us
I’ve never liked the term “mid-life”; what does it mean anyway? Aren’t we always in the “midst” or “middle” of life? Does mid-life presume a time of crisis, challenge or a significant life change? A “tipping point” or at least a point of no return?
And this, for better or worse, is the opening scene of many of the stories we read or watch.
How about the plot line of the cubicle dweller who leaves the urban pace and dead-end job and finds a new life in an idyllic small town (in Vermont or Italy or an unspoiled Mid-western small town), where, of course, they find love and, in most cases, a local dilemma or criminal enterprise that only the newcomer can solve.
Or how about the opposite of that plot line – the person born and raised in an idyllic small town, in most cases engaged (or in some sense obligated to) a high school sweetheart, runs off to the city to find (or create) yet another level of professional, personal or romantic complication.
And how many times have you seen the movie (or mini-series) where the fugitive from an all-too-familiar/predictable or seemingly stifling life, realizes how wonderful home – and the previously overlooked potential partner – actually might be.
Whatever the setting, this premise of quitting and starting over is one of the most basic themes in recent American films.
The lost/misunderstood/under-appreciated genius/artist/heir/orphan/potential lover is one of the most over-used character types and tropes in movie history.
How about the 99% predictable smarmy and horrible potential (often predatory) romantic or business partner in the familiar formula?
If there are categories of repetitive film syndrome that are your particular (un)favorites of if you’d like to see another point of view of cliches and scenes we’ve all seen too many times, take a look at this article.
PBS/BBC shows
My wife loves the BBC dramas and mini-series broadcast on PBS (like Masterpiece, among others).
If these are set in Great Britain or former British territory (as most are) the hero almost always is an earnest, intrepid character (usually male) with a vision or a cause and is stifled/compromised by (1. A rich, corrupt, bloated, reprobate land-owner or local semi-noble family, who wants to steal the poor but honest character’s land, inheritance or love interest; or (2. A loud, sleazy, crude, buffoonish American (usually with immense wealth) who is running some kind of impersonation/financial scam, and in most cases, has cast a spell over the before-mentioned love interest.
Many of these shows feature rich and idle people who seem to have nothing better to do than preen themselves and wallow in self-pity as they live on and blatantly exploit the labor and resources of those “below” them.
Sometimes as I’m watching them I wonder who the “good guy” really is. I also tend to wonder if I’m looking at a period piece set in some mythical past or a just as likely setting in a vague and distant future.
Anything new under the sun?
It’s not just movies that seem to be on an endless repeat of remakes and sequels.
I know that Shakespeare reused plot lines and characters from familiar tales and legends, and as more than one literary analyst has put it, almost every story is the Cinderella story.
Perhaps movies are like other forms of art – they reflect and embody our basic human tendencies and preferences. And, until we change ourselves, from relationship patterns to what we have for dinner, perhaps, as ancient scripture puts it, there is indeed nothing new under the sun.
What has been is what will be, and what has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun. -Ecclesiastes 1:9 (TLV)
