Cautionary Tales of Human Folly

I don't know where I picked up this phrase but I think about it all the time. It seems we live in an age where it's easy for people to get confused as to what to do with the information they derive from the stories they consume. Call it the lesson or the wisdom, all stories have a point (otherwise we lose interest). We talk about tales feeling heavy handed or obvious after time because as we become more sophisticated. We don't need to be told the basics over and over again. Murder leads to suffering (and often more murder). Greed consumes the greedy. Revenge destroys self and community. So, how does an "obvious" story like 1984 become a handbook for authoritarian control? How do people start identifying with the Empire in Star Wars? How does the Joker become a heroic figure? These things happen when folks don't grasp that all good story is, in some sense, a cautionary tale of human folly.

Del Close used to say we get on stage to hold up human behavior for examination and the tool we use is human behavior. That's why story can get tricky. I can make the most heavy-handed anti-war movie ever but if it's got amazing action / war scenes, little boys won't get the bigger idea and will just say "Cool! It all got blowed up!" Making your point by being over-the-top sexist can still appeal to the sexists in the audience. Comedians deal with this constantly. You'll hear them say "They were laughing, but for the wrong reasons." You can tell when someone gets the point and when someone is just responding to something other than the bigger idea. That's why we spend so much time designing stories to be clear. Yes, the Joker is the cooler character in The Dark Knight. He's dynamic and funny, free and powerful and smart. He's also a terrorist, a murderer, anti-civilization and ultimately anti-human. (Let's hope he doesn't run for president.) If you are young or naive in the ways of story, you might think The Joker is what the movie is about. Only later would you realize he's useful in the story but not a great character to follow in that he doesn't grow, makes no hard decisions, and acts as a random force of chaos wherever he goes. The Joker is us at five. He's just walking, talking, doing. He described himself as a "dog chasing a car. I wouldn't know to do if I caught it!" Not a hero. Not even a protagonist. Not a character we can look to for enlightenment on how to live a better life here on Earth. Consider the basic story we tell (and consume) over and over. A protagonist has to made decisions and take action in order to escape a trap. That's you and me all the time, right? I mean, we know that even though it seems as if the world is changing by the hour, there are actually only a few ways we humans end up in a trap. We either get ourselves into a trap through our own actions or find ourselves in a trap because of the way the world works. The reason we watch (seemingly) the same story over and over is because our human brains are designed to look for clues for how to avoid suffering, how to avoid the traps. And knowing we will find ourselves in yet another one, we are constantly storing information on how others got out of their traps. "Story is equipment for living" is the way Robert McKee describes it. I think cautionary tales of human folly is another way to describe the same thing. Story is life. Story is human. Story is everything. Story, story, story!