How Hollywood Has Been Selling You The Same Pair Of Socks For Decades (and why you love it anyway)
By: Esme Sloane
Tags: Film, Disney, Hollywood, Entertainment, Movies

Aerial view of the Hollywood sign captured by Cameron Venti (source: Unsplash)

‘The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories’ (2004) by Christopher Booker describes how there are only seven stories that exist in the world: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. This essay will prove that Christopher Booker is not only right, but his thesis is also the reason Hollywood continues to make money with little to no creative expenditure.

Our first basic plot is called ‘Overcoming the Monster’. In this plotline, a hero sets out to defeat an often evil force that threatens them or their homeland. Stories such as that of Perseus; the demigod who defeats the Gorgon Medusa, ‘Seven Samurai’; the story of seven samurai warriors who teach a village to protect themselves from invading bandits, and the ‘Star Wars Original Trilogy’; the story of a small group of individuals banding together to defeat the imperial evil empire, all follow this basic plot structure. The second basic plot is ‘Rags to Riches’, a plotline in which our hero is raised from poverty (materialistic, psychological, or spiritual) and must fight in order to keep their boon. Stories that follow this plotline are ‘Cinderella’; the mistreated girl becomes a princess, ‘Aladdin’; the poor boy marries a princess, and ‘The Princess Diaries’; a middle-class girl discovers her late father was a royal crown prince. ‘The Quest’ follows the story of a hero and their companions on a journey to a certain place or to acquire a certain object in the face of obstacles and distractions. Stories that follow this archetype are ‘The Odyssey’; a group of warriors coming back from war must sail back through treacherous waters in order to go back home, ‘The Lord of the Rings Trilogy’; companions must trek across their earth to rid the world of evil, and ‘Avengers: Infinity War’; in which a group of highly specialized individuals must travel through space to save half of all life in the universe. ‘The Quest’ is closely related to ‘Voyage and Return’, the only distinction being that ‘The Quest’ requires the hero to journey- the value of the story coming from the quest itself, rather than the return, while ‘Voyage and Return’ require the hero to return with life experience. The story of Orpheus; a man journeying through the Underworld to bring his wife back to the land of the living, ‘Alice in Wonderland’; a girl finding herself in a strange dimension attempts to return home, and ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’; a prisoner of war journeys with a seasoned warrior to free a tyrant’s enslaved wives, all share the same plot structure. I would argue that, in theory, there is a difference between ‘The Quest’ and ‘Voyage and Return’, but that most of their exemplary stories fit perfectly into either category. ‘Comedy’ is a category with seeming ubiquity, yet hold a rigid structure. Most of what we know as comedies do not fit into this plot structure. Its requirements maintain that characters must be light and funny (this strikes out any ‘straight man’ comedy) and with a satisfactory ending for the heroes after they overcome a conflict that through the story becomes more and more confusing, resolving itself at the end. Examples of common stories that follow this plot are Aristophanes’s ‘The Birds’; in which two men search to live outside of society by consulting birds that were once men, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’; in which visiting noblemen and resident noblewomen scheme amongst themselves to pair each other and break each other up, and ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’; in which a hopeless romantic gets into social mishaps in her search for love. ‘Tragedy’ in its misappropriation is similar to ‘Comedy’: most of what we consider a tragedy does not fit into the ‘Tragedy’ plot line. ‘Tragedy’ dictates that the hero must meet an unfortunate end due to a flaw in their character, eliciting sympathy from the audience. Notable examples include ‘Macbeth’; in which a nobleman lets his ambition go unchecked, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’; in which a young nobleman allows his vanity to go unchecked, and ‘The Star Wars Prequel Trilogy’; in which a young and powerful warrior allows his extreme emotions to go unchecked. All notably end in the hero’s downfall, leaving the audience both saddened by their defeat, yet justified in it as well. This is a moral retribution. The last of the Seven Basic Plots is called ‘Rebirth’ in which our hero is forced to change their ways for the better after an external event shakes them. Common examples are ‘Beauty and the Beast’; in which a selfish prince is transformed into a Beast and forced to find true love in order to lift the curse, ‘A Christmas Carol’; in which an old curmudgeon is visited by three ghosts to make him more charitable, and ‘Iron Man’; in which a weapons manufacturer is forced to see the effects of his business when he is kidnapped by insurgents using his weapons.

The true aim of this essay is now to use this information and find out the following: If there are only seven stories, then how does Hollywood keep making movies (far more than seven per year) and turning a profit? The answer lies in superficial rebranding, nostalgia branding, technological advances, and artistic influences. Superficial rebranding can be done in three main ways: changing the genre of the story, cast change, and time/location altering.

Turning Kurosawa’s ‘Seven Samurai’ into the western classic ‘The Magnificent Seven’ is a prime example of genre change. There is a definite argument to be made that the American show business regularly checks in with its international counterparts to see what they can sell to the American audience, only after making it more palatable. Think of it this way: How many of your friends would like to spend their Saturday evening watching a Japanese foreign film subtitled in English? How many of your friends would like to spend their Saturday evening watching a macho-packed Western? Chances are those two groups of friends don’t tend to have intersecting consumer desires, and thus by altering the genre of films, Hollywood can widen its pool of customers. Cast Change is possibly the easiest to spot of the three main ways superficial rebranding is done; just look up ‘Hamlet movie’. The top three searches are three different movies with three different casts of the same story. If there is an afterlife, Shakespeare must be hoping there’s an after-afterlife so he can escape how many times his beloved work has been done to death. These movies keep being made for a couple of reasons, but the reason that fits most is the cast. I like to call the strategy of cast changing “Who’s playing Hamlet this week?” because…well, here’s a list of actors who have played Hamlet in a movie: Nicol Williamson, Kevin Kline, Richard Burton, Kenneth Branagh, Mel Gibson, Laurence Olivier, Benedict Cumberbatch, Derek Jacobi, Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Tennant, Innokenty Smoktunovsky, Ethan Hawke, Campbell Scott, and so so so many more. I don’t expect that audiences keep coming to see these movies because they want to see if Hamlet will land a very palpable hit this time. The final branch of superficial rebranding is time/location altering. What is the Disney movie ‘Aladdin’ if not a male-lead version of ‘Cinderella’ in the desert? The story follows the same basic structure beyond simply ‘Rags to Riches’. In both stories, the hero escapes poverty from wooing a royal with the help of animal sidekicks and a magical being whose powers only go far enough to help the hero, but not do all the work for them. They must also overcome the villainy of those close to them, preventing them from the object of their affection. What makes the movies different is Cinderella is a woman in Europe (depending on which source material the exact location varies greatly within Europe) and Aladdin is a man in Agrahbah, a fictional Middle Eastern kingdom.

Nostalgia branding, however, is far more upfront about being the same story over again. Disney is particularly nefarious in this sort of branding- instead of making new stories, they simply adapt older ones into live-action or television spin-offs. I, for one, don’t mind them despite the controversy they seem to conjure. Audiences keep turning up and they are enjoyable to watch. Let’s not pretend that just because Disney calls the latest ‘Lion King’ movie live-action despite it being completely CGI that no one turned up to see it. We’re going to watch it, we’re going to applaud or bitch about it, and the Mouse gets his cheese. It isn’t like this hasn’t been their business model since the beginning of the 2000s. The ‘live-action’ remakes also go hand-in-hand with technological advances. Disney would not have been able to remake a ‘live-action’ Dumbo movie twenty years ago, and now that they can, they’re going to sell tickets to people who want to see a real-life elephant skyrocket into the heavens. Technological advances also mask the non-originality of ‘original’ stories. James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ is honestly just a very expensive version of ‘Tarzan’. A researcher explores virgin land only to find that there is a culture beyond their original assumptions and falls in love with a member of that culture, risking and fighting other team members of their exploration to avoid the exploitation of the land and its residents. Finally, artistic influences make a movie look so different than the story it’s imitating that viewers don’t even realize it’s not the real McCoy. ‘Chicken Run’ is a claymation of ‘The Great Escape’, but one is far easier to look at for children and the appreciation of the artistry that went into both come from two very different places. This is done plenty of times with music, taking a beloved song and covering it with your own style is the cornerstone of the fame of ‘Hallelujah’.

Taking all of this into account, it’s difficult to look at any movie and not figure out that you have definitely seen this before. But before you start throwing your popcorn or taking a sledgehammer to your television, consider this: you still enjoy the end product. Sure, ‘The Force Awakens’ and ‘A New Hope’ are both the same story, but are you going to let that ruin the fact that both are exceptionally fun movies to watch in their own right? Does the formulism of teen movies prevent you from getting that swelling feeling in your chest when Elle Woods kicks ass in the courtroom? No! Do you not sing along to ‘The Lion King’ just because it’s animal Hamlet? Were you raised in a pig sty? No! The simple fact of Hollywood is this: you give your money where you bet you will be the most entertained. Are you not entertained?