Deconstructions

I predict that within 10 years, Hollywood will have made a movie about Osama bin Laden's death.  It makes a great story, after all.  Those rugged, underdog, freedom-loving Americans taking down that evil warlord.

And now for something (almost) completely different.

We know the formulas.  We know what to expect from your typical action movie, romantic comedy, superhero movie, or fairy tale.  That is why "historical" based movies (as well as movies that come from books, or in fact any other source material) suffer so badly.  They have to be shoehorned into the mold, often distorted beyond recognition.

However, there has been a recent trend among moviemakers and novel writers of deconstructing the familiar motifs.  With varying degrees of success.  Superhero stories with a sympathetic villain, for instance.  Or fractured fairy tales.  These deconstructions fall into three types.

1)  Satirical deconstruction, in which the story is written using the formula in order to make fun of itself.  Slapstick comedy.

2)  Brutal Deconstruction, in which the story is shown to have a darker, often gorier side.  Keyword, ick.

3)  Practical Deconstruction, in which the story is played straight, but tries to act more realistic.  Focus on characters.

And if you don't want to take my word for it, I have a long list of examples.

The main culprits for the formula/deconstruction trap are variants of the Hero's Journey - namely, Superheroes, Fairy Tales, and fantasy literature.  For instance, a satirical deconstruction of the superhero genre would be...well take your pick.  I have not seen "Kick-Ass," but from the trailers I believe it one of these.  What I am familiar with is the film "Mystery Men."  A ragtag group of heroes with some awkward superpowers defeat a not very memorable villain.  Played for laughs.

A brutal deconstruction, on the other hand, is Watchmen, both the film and the graphic novel. No superpowers, just the silly costumes and crime-fighting.  The characters are set along a scale of pathetic idealist to villain who kind of has a point.

The closest thing to a practical deconstruction that I am familiar with is "The Incredibles."  Yes, it follows the typical superhero pattern, but it has a few deconstructive elements.  It might almost be considered a family drama. 

Now for Fairy Tales.  You know what I'm going to say.  Yep.  Shrek (Note that "Fairy Tale" in this sense is more of the Disneyfied version, rather than actual folk legends).  In fact, Shrek was created by a disgruntled former Disney employee and is essentially a declaration of war on the entire Disney franchise.  Need I say more?

A brutal deconstruction is, without a doubt, Gregory Maguire.  Author of Wicked.  No, not the musical - that got re-Disneyfied until it wasn't sure what it was supposed to be anymore and sucked.  Good music, though. 

A practical deconstruction is harder to pin down.  I have not seen "Enchanted," so cannot offer any opinion on that.  Perhaps "Ever After."  She marries the prince after talking and having an actual relationship with him, and becomes a princess to actually take care of the people in the kingdom.

And of course my passion, fantasy.  You may have gathered by now that as much as I love this genre, I love to hate it as well. 

Terry Pratchett is definitely the iconic satirical deconstructor.  I have only read one of his books, so I don't have much to say about it, but there isn't really that much to say.

Brutal deconstructions of fantasy have been gaining in popularity.  Terry Goodkind was the first one I have been aware of.  Before he went all crazy anti-socialist and still thought he was writing a fantasy epic.  Very...detailed battle scenes.  Other writers such as Mercedes Lackey sometimes attempt to do this, and heap misfortune and trauma upon their characters, but somehow at the end, all the important people get to ride away on their pretty white horse with seemingly no lasting psychological harm.  This is a case of Failed Deconstruction.

My very favorite books ever - The Last Rune series, by Mark Anthony - is a practical deconstruction of fantasy.  In fact, it is hardly a deconstruction at all.  The story is played completely straight, with the ordinary protagonist from the Real World becoming the prophecized Hero who has to save the Pseudo-Medieval European Fantasyland from a Dark Lord.  The reasons that this series is not cliche garbage are many and subtle, so I will only mention one:  Anthony treats his characters like real people.  All of them.  He also (okay, two) strikes a very delicate balance between "Good always wins," and "The world sucks."

What did any of this have to do with bin Laden? 

The key to a practical deconstruction is making the story realistic, which also has the effect of making the story complex.  But complex stories don't make money.  When we go see a movie for an afternoon's entertainment, we want to be entertained.  We don't want to think.  That is why formulas are so useful.  The audience already knows what is going to happen and can enjoy the movie without any major worries. 

Bin Laden's death changes nothing, and I don't have to know anything about politics to be certain of that.  Al-Qaeda is not going to fall apart like the army of orcs at the end of Lord of the Rings.  But America is so locked into our ideals/formulas/tropes/narratives that we fail to realize that.  Real life is a messy and boring deconstruction of fiction that nobody wants to read.