The Happy End Industry
These thoughts of mine that I pour out on “paper” are quite diverse, so just bear with me. Moreover, I assume that by this point you might have an idea of what I’m going to rant on about, so let’s get to it.
Would you please kindly stop?
That over there is the most polite thing I could come up with, that you should say to any Hollywood movie writer if you ever get a chance to see one. “What should they stop doing?” you shall ask.(No you shan't. Because I am going to explain it below. *insert evil laugh*) And I shall answer “Tell them to stop putting a happy ending in every freaking movie script they ever produce”. I mean, yes, I do understand how the industry works and yes, I understand that some… ok that majority of people want those, but seriously, and I’m going to quote Walter from “The Big Lebowski” (which, by the way, *SPOILER ALERT* doesn’t have quite the happy ending at all), “am I the only one around here” who is absolutely sick of the happy endings? And I am not talking about the appropriate ones like in romantic comedies or cartoons for kids. I’m talking about the thrillers, horror movies, dramas etc. As always, I referred to Wiki and found out the definition of the drama genre in films.
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes.
Development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. It might just be me, but doesn’t the term “realistic characters” include the actual characters being realistic? (Was that a tautology? I’m not from around here so I can’t really tell.) Because if it does, I might just tell you a little secret. Hold on to your seats… Not everything in real life has a happy ending. I know, it’s a shocker, right? But explain one thing to me though, how is it possible, that if it is so blatantly obvious to every single one of you, the movie directors can’t get it at all?
Inside the Industry
Let’s jump straight into theory and see what we can come up with. So there was this French guy called Roland Barthes. He was a theorist and a philosopher and to cut the long story short, he came up with this idea of two types of pleasure - plaisir and jouissance. Not to go into the details, the first means pleasure that audience gets when something that they expect happens in a narrative, and the second - pleasure we get when something unexpected happens, i.e. plot twists. What I’m trying to get to, is that there should be a balance between the two and that by definition jouissance (translates as ‘orgasm’ from french) is a stronger feeling, or whatever you want to call it. And you can see examples of that in the real life. Everyone enjoys a good plot twist much more then just sitting there saying, “naaaah, he can’t die. He is the main character”. And that brings me onto my next point, that many filmmakers are just simply afraid of killing the main character! (or any character that you have an emotional connection to at all for that matter) What are they, afraid to hurt our feelings? Or are they afraid that someone is going to sue them for an emotional breakdown after watching their film? Let’s take a look at Hitchcock for example. I’m sure all of you have seen “Psycho” (if not, then *SPOILERS AHEAD*), right? The main character in that dies 20 minutes into the film! And you just sit there going like “What the hell did just happen? What now?!”. And although you might not realise it at first, you like it, and you enjoy watching the movie.If you don’t like the classics let’s try something more “up-to-date”. R.R.Martin’s “Game of Thrones” is a grand example of how to kill characters, make people suffer and still have them enjoy the show (or the book) even more after these plot twists. And you know what? I do not know the ending to the “Song of Ice and Fire”,(no one does , he hasn’t finished writing it yet. Duuuh) but one thing I can tell you for a fact, it is not a happy one.
A simple concept that any film institution is a business and a business is not any good if it doesn’t make money ruins the creativity and shuts down the endless possibilities, which should be open to the scriptwriters. The media conglomerates would rather make more money by pumping out these mindless sequels to movies that carry no cultural value what-so-ever, than release a good movie with an original idea and a good script, and that, ladies and gents, is quite sad, indeed.
I’m sure that there are people out there who want to see Leonardo DiCaprio survive in the end of every story, but I’m sure there are as many people who are, just as I am, sick to their stomaches with this nonsense and would rather see him decapitated publicly half way through the film, because let’s be honest, that would wake you up and make you follow the plot a tiny bit more carefully, would it not? Like it or not, but that’s the one thought in the back of my head that I wanted to share with you tonight. Thanks for your time.
