Soap Opera as a Distinct Form of Storytelling

People often use the term "soap opera" to refer to a kind of storytelling, but it seems to me they rarely spell out what they mean in a clear, useful, way.

In trying to do better it may help to consider the fundamentals of "good," dramatic, conventional storytelling in the Western tradition going back to Aristotle and since developed by people like Gustav Freytag.*

From such storytelling we expect a story to be a "completed action." We expect a unity of "time, space and action." The result is that we expect that of the cast of characters one will clearly be protagonist; we expect that there will be a clear, main line of plot development; we expect the details to all matter (in line with the principle of "Chekhov's gun") as we proceed from exposition to rising action, climax, falling action, denouement--and beginning, middle and end.

This does not wholly exhaust the standard, but it is what is most important in it for explaining how the soap opera differs from it, because it lacks all these qualities. Rather than that completeness and unity of structure with its requirement of some measure of tightness of construction it is apt to be rather loose--a "loose baggy monster" if it goes on for long. Rather than having a clear protagonist it is about a bunch of people of whom one is unlikely to be, or remain for long, clearly more central than the rest. There may be a starting point--but there will not necessarily be an end, and hence no middle, because what the narrative does is follow those many people not through one big action, but an assortment of different, perhaps unrelated and nonsynchronous actions likely to involve some and not others one after the other (with, it might be added, many actions making little to no difference in their lives because the show must go on, so to speak); while if there is an end it is more likely to be a matter of the writer ceasing to follow those characters' doings (even if he comes up with an end point for them that makes their ceasing to do so look logical) than because some trajectory starting at the beginning has satisfyingly run its course by this point.

In short, soap opera is fundamentally different from conventional, unified, plot pyramided beginning-middle-end-type storytelling--with, I want to stress, the accent properly on different (as I have no interest in getting into the issue of "worse," "as good," "better" here).

As the reader may have guessed from this, while we call this storytelling mode "soap opera" this is only because soap opera (a term originated with radio shows) tends to work like this, not because soap opera invented this kind of narrative, which we are apt to find plenty of in nineteenth century novels, for example. (The term "loose, baggy monster" comes from Henry James' characterization of War and Peace, which I think can fairly be called a soap opera in the sense in which I use the term here--the more in as Tolstoy intended it to be just part of a far larger saga.) Moreover, if the kind of programming we associate the soap opera with, the daytime television soap opera, is one in deep decline these days amid the general revolutionizing of media in the digital age, this kind of storytelling is still fairly widespread--the more in as the looseness of the format is such a convenience for executives handling messy productions, eager to keep writers on a tight leash, and ever happy to spread out and drag out their tales with extra seasons and sprawling shared universes for as long as they remain profitable. Episodic television generally works that way--and so do the many movie franchises that, as they become more prolific, function more like TV shows than movies or movie series'. Indeed, the Marvel Cinematic Universe can be taken as a soap opera--while in Disney's hands there seem to have been notions of turning the storytelling of the Star Wars saga into a soap opera.

As all this makes clear, people do enjoy soap opera--but sometimes taking this approach proves very ill-advised indeed.

* Even if you've never heard of Freytag you probably know Freytag's explanation of plot structure (popularly known as "Freytag's pyramid").

Is the Hunger Games Prequel Actually the Hit of the Season?

Initially considering the prospects of the Hunger Games prequel I was pessimistic--expecting this to be another case of a formerly hugely successful franchise flopping with its latest film in the way we have already seen a great many times in 2023. The low estimates for the film's gross did not change that--and nor did the lackluster opening weekend gross (the $44 million it made domestically in its first three days not only a far cry from what the films of the original saga made, but at the low end of the range anticipated for this one). Still, the film had better-than-expected holds two weekends in a row, leaving it with $121 million grossed after its first seventeen days. This is, of course, much less than what the original The Hunger Games made in just its opening weekend (about just three-fifths of what it made in its opening three days if we adjust the figures for inflation), but it beats anything released since Five Nights at Freddy's (and seems likely to overtake Freddy's too before all is said and done). Moreover, with Wish underperforming very badly, Napoleon falling fast and the outlook for Aquaman 2 grim, all as the chances of anything proving a Super Mario Bros Movie, an Oppenheimer, a Barbie this holiday season seem very slim indeed, such that amid this very weak competition the prequel might well be the Victor of this season's Games.*

* The Hunger Games made $152 million in its opening weekend in March 2012--which amounts to $204 million in October 2023 prices, going by the Consumer Price Index.

Is Box Office Failure Getting Boring?

When back in early March box office-watchers were realizing that, after its sensational opening weekend, Ant-Man 3's ticket sales were going flat--and certainly not kicking off the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Phrase Five with the hoped-for triumph--there seemed to be real surprise. There was less surprise when Fast and Furious 10 and Transformers 6 performed poorly by the standard of their franchises, because expectations were lower, but it added to the normalization of the failure of the kinds of films that until very recently tended to be considered nearly sure-fire successes, as did the opening weekend of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (even if this was partially compensated for by good legs), the letdown that was the release of the live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid, and, especially after its earlier insane hyping, the catastrophe that was the release of The Flash into theaters, as that very same weekend Elemental underperformed (its measure of redemption, too, coming a lot later and being limited in nature), and two weeks after that Indiana Jones 5, suffered (even considering the lowering of expectations after a poorly conceived worldwide premiere at Cannes) as bad a box office catastrophe as anything up to that point in the year. By their own more modest lights the superhero film Blue Beetle and The Expendables 4 franchise did just as badly.

By the time Captain Marvel 2 rolled around it seemed that no one was very hopeful for it--and the initial tracking-based estimates left less scope for disappointment, as you see rechecking the old figures. A month before release Boxoffice Pro told us that The Flash and Indiana Jones 5 would both finish well north of $200 million at worst, with the $350-$400 million range within reach, in just the domestic market. Alas, The Flash barely broke the $100 million barrier (pulling in less than it was supposed to make on just its opening weekend), while Indiana finished with under $175 million. By contrast Captain Marvel 2, expected to fall short of $200 million in even the best case scenario, and not outdo The Flash by much in the worst, had less way to fall--even as it did indeed fall lower than that ($100 million looking out of reach for the movie now). Meanwhile, as Disney's Wish proves a significant disappointment commercially (with the film's opening weekend again falling short of the low expectations for it, followed by a bad first-to-second weekend drop), and the prediction going that Aquaman 2 may not do much better than The Flash or The Marvels, it seems that the commentariat can scarcely work up a response. All that can be said has been said--even as the phenomenon continues, with every sign indicating that flops of this kind will continue in the same steady succession through 2024.

Of Robert Iger and "Unsupervised" Film Directors

Robert Iger, who seems scarcely able to open his mouth without disgracing himself, recently did so again with a silly statement about the lack of "supervision" on the set of The Marvels as the supposed cause of the film's failure.

It is another shabby instance of the old propaganda of the media business that the "creatives" are floopy-brained idiots who can produce nothing of value without the Practical People playing the strictest of strict parent to them--being, to use that awful cliché beloved by a certain kind of ideologue, the "adults in the room." (Consider, for instance, the lame script used to destroy the leading lights of the New Hollywood over and over again in succession. "Oh, they're a perfectionist!" "Oh, they can't stay within a budget!" "Oh, these artists and their visions!")

Just as before that propaganda has been dutifully, respectfully, passed on to the public by the entertainment press--because its members, courtiers by profession and indeed instinct, know that when they must choose from among those to whom they usually suck up, it is safest to go with the executives rather than the artistes. And the public believes them because, apart from usually believing what it is told, the prevailing schema of values has society respecting businesspersons infinitely more than artists. (It is one reason why artists, even when attaining great wealth as artists, seek renown as businessmen and businesswomen as well, pursuing such recognition like some latterday patent of nobility. "I'm not just an actor! I'm a businessperson!" Because I slapped my name on some crappy products.) It is all so pervasive that even people who ought to know better seem less cognizant of the pattern than they ought to be. (Thus did the usually very incisive Peter Biskind not call it out in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, all too often presenting much more conventional morality tales about talents ruined by their own hubris when recounting the shattering of those careers.)

It seems to me--and if I may so, a great many others--that the folks in Hollywood really in need of supervision--in need of adult supervision--are the ones who think that because they have big offices and wear expensive suits they are adults who know what they are doing, even as all they really seem to know how to do it is put holes in their company's balance sheets.

Wish's Opening Weekend: How Did it Do?

I wrote this after the first weekend but I was delayed in putting it up. Here it is anyway--with an update.

BoxOffice Pro projected for Wish a $35-$44 million gross over its first Friday-to-Sunday period--and $49-$66 million over the five-day Wednesday-to-Sunday period of the long Thanksgiving weekend.

As it happens the film made less than the bottom end of the range for the 3-day period over the whole five-day period--a mere $32 million (of which a bit under $20 million was collected over Friday, Saturday and Sunday). This is significantly below expectations that were already weak to begin with for a major Disney animated release (indeed, were weak for such a film even before being revised considerably downward this past month)--to say nothing of a movie that seems to have initially been conceived as a grand 100th anniversary event celebrating the founding of the historic studio.*

Of course, as I keep saying cinematic hits may be becoming less front-loaded, and we forget that at our peril. Certainly box office watchers were quicker than they ought to have been to write off both those Disney releases Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and Elemental (both of which had better than expected holds, with Guardians in the end looking respectable, and Elemental going from flop to hit in the process), while this very weekend the Hunger Games prequel had a better than expected hold itself, indicating some hope for a movie that had also had a disappointing debut. The holiday season seems especially likely to work out this way for Disney releases. (Remember, even before the pandemic upended the film market, how things went for Mary Poppins Returns?) Of course, it will take quite the multiplier to make even the low end recently estimated for the whole-run gross possible--even quintupling the five-day gross does not get one much further than $150 million or so, beneath the bottom end of the range Boxoffice Pro anticipated for the movie a week before its release ($165 million). Still, it may be safest not to rush to the cry of "FLOP! FLOP! FLOP!" just yet.

* The expectation for the three-day period as of a month ago had been $45-$65 million, and $64-$94 million for the first five days in release.

UPDATE: Wish has had its second weekend which saw a 61 percent drop for the film from its unprepossessing opening, leaving it with a mere $42 million after ten days--less than the bottom end of the range for the first three days in the first Boxoffice Pro forecast. The result is that it will be tough for the movie to get to $100 million, never mind $165 million (or the near-$300 million previously treated as a serious possibility).

On the Routineness of Ex-Special Forces Protagonists in Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

I recall running across a gripe session on a discussion board among people annoyed with the trope of a zombie apocalypse scenario where the hero just so happens to be ex-special forces.

There was more in the way of amusing cracks than genuine insights into the matter, but it still got me thinking about just why we see so much of this. One way of looking at the matter is to say that the reason there are so many such characters in these stories is that they are such natural protagonists for them--people trained for combat, survival in harsh conditions, etc. having skills that would be very useful indeed in such situations, and besides being helpful to them potentially helpful to any group of people they link up with.

But people sure have seen it a lot, so much so that it seems predictable, and "convenient," and trite.

That suggests another, larger, problem--namely that there has been so much writing in this genre for so long, so that like any genre that gets so deeply exploited for so long it is tired. The issue, then, seems less the kind of protagonist than the fact that people had seen this story so many times before.

And that in turn suggests a bigger problem still--that we are overdue for some new genres with which to amuse ourselves. Alas, pop culture is stuck in a rut—likely because everything else is too.

Social Withdrawal as Social Protest

Considering the issue of social withdrawal I have generally found myself looking at reports on the matter from or about Japan, and discussion of the issue as it may apply elsewhere in the English-speaking press (mainly though not exclusively the American press). Recently, though, I happened on an item in the French newspaper 20 Minutes discussing the topic, which caught my attention right away with the title: "Hikikomoris français: 'J’ai fui le monde car il était trop dur, trop brutal, trop insécurisant, trop injuste, trop dégoûtant.'" Translated the quotation, from one of the article's interview subjects, says "I fled the world because it was too hard, too brutal, too insecure, too unfair, too disgusting."

I have long tended to the view that there is something of this view of society in much of the social withdrawal we see (in regard to work, for example), be it the milder forms of withdrawal in which people may hold a job, etc. but do the absolute minimum to survive and keep aloof from other people at all other times, or the more severe forms we see, as with the hikikomori who refuses to even come out of their room and face their family--but the preference has long been to see it as a matter of individual pathology, etc.. However, here we have an explicit social criticism on the part of one of the sufferers, who flatly says that he found the world outside unbearable--a reaction hardly implausible given how society is structured, how people treat each other, and the rest, and especially how all this is felt at the "sharp end." The fact that the response to such criticisms so often tends to be sneering callousness ("Welcome to the real world!") only underlines the fact--and suggests that those seriously interested in where the world is going would do far better to put such phenomena in their proper context than, in line with the conventional, cowardly, mediocre norm people treat as mature and pragmatic, deny the existence of any context at all.

"I Never Rewrite!"

Read much about writers with any amount of attention and you will come across quite the number who claim that they never rewrite their own work.

Read their remarks with attention and you also note that, if true, this is because they can count on others to do it for them--because, frankly, they are prominent enough to be indulged that way.

The rest of us, alas, can only dream of ever enjoying anything like such privilege, leaving us enduring the process--and, unpleasant as it is, probably producing a better result for it a fair amount of the time.

Just What is an "'80s Jerk?"

I recall years ago happening on the Teen Titans, Go! episode "Nostalgia is Not a Substitute for an Actual Story." For the most part the episode was up to the standard of the show's very good best, but I was confused by the discussion of "'80s jerks" as a particular, distinctive, type.

That confusion did not prompt me to look into the matter--but more recently I found myself running across items that discussed '80s pop culture as featuring mean-spirited characters out to wreck the hero's effort to attain some goal, often without there being much practical gain in it for them, and wondered whether there was any substance to this at all.

Assuming that there is indeed such substance one possibility is that this truly standard storytelling element seems '80s because after the '80s the big movies that had a chance to make a significant pop cultural impression had less room for such jerks--because of the way big splashy action movies crowded out the littler comedies and light dramas where they tended to feature. Thus the bad guys were not mere jerks, but rather something grandiosely malevolent in very high-stakes situations (like a Thanos).

It may also be that as the "cult of the asshole" grew and grew the default level of "jerkiness" we came to take for granted meant that even where they could possibly have made an impression jerks of the old kind would scarcely be noticed--the more in as the hero themselves was now likely to qualify for "jerk" status themselves. (How else would you characterize Tony Stark, certainly in his Marvel Cinematic Universe incarnations? Or the more recent incarnations of Batman as Hollywood embraced the idea of "Batman as unhinged fascist?")

Considering all that, even granting that unlike some others I do not think film is exactly suffering from a lack of small-time villains motivated by petty or pointless meanness, it does seem to me that the way "jerk characters" have become less conspicuous reflects how film has become a good deal more limited than it used to be--all as the threshold for what constitutes insufferable behavior keeps rising.