Some open-ended thoughts on story

Over the last two years or so there have been various subjects that I have been learning about. These are subjects that keep coming up in my conscious thought, either because they are current issues and events that everybody is dealing with (i.e. the election) or because they are just something that seems to be personal and meaningful to my life, and I’m trying to sort them out. What I’m talking about now could be both, because I am hearing more and more talk about it in the Christian community and also because it affects the way I look at the world, and my role in it. I am talking about story.

Today I read this blog by Don Miller and I found it both funny and compelling. There are certain things that get under my skin so easily. For example, Christian radio gets under my skin very easily. It is hard for me to listen to it without getting angry. In the same way, teenage TV shows annoy the living daylights out of me. I couldn’t watch an episode of Hannah Montana or any of these other similar shows without getting mad. They always seem very shallow and superficial, emphasizing “cool” based on the stupidest things – how good you look, who you are dating, etc. Every character, especially the most important ones, are attractive and the parents are cool and the worst problem a kid could have is whether they have a date to the school dance or not.

This is not reality.

But how much influence do these shows have on kids nowadays? Miley Cyrus can go on tour and probably sell out a show in any city she wants. I see kids all the time with Hannah Montana apparel. Teens and kids alike love this stuff. My question is how much does a show like this affect a kid’s values, outlook on life, and self-perception?

With this in mind, it’s interesting that Don mentions one of my favorite TV shows, House, and mockingly calls it a documentary. I had to laugh at this, because clearly House is not a documentary. It’s a compelling show, but the “reality” of this show is brought into question by a few various occurrences, a few of which I’ll go ahead and point out. One of House’s nurses looks more like a supermodel than a medical professional. This is not to say that there aren’t hot nurses out there, but it does lean more to the fact that this is a TV show. And because it is a TV show there is no chance of an ugly nurse getting a place on House’s team. That’s just how it is. Also, in season 4 House stuck a pocket knife into a plug outlet to see if there was an afterlife. He died, was revived, and by the end of the show we find out that there is no afterlife. Thanks for clearing that up for us, House. Add to that an overly dramatic bus accident that left a woman with a leg impaled by a metal bar and you have the beginning of a list that illustrates that House is not as close to reality as I might like to think sometimes.

It’s funny because over the past year I have watched every episode of House I could get my hands on. And after watching this show I have to admit that it has had a certain amount of influence on me. It’s crazy but by viewing this show it’s like a part of it gets inside of me and adds to this growing soup of influences left on me by people, books, songs, etc. I can see it in how I act and how I look at things. I even look at the world in a different way, partly because of this show.

Another example of this is in my other favorite TV show, The Office. One of the characters, Dwight, often starts to ask a question by saying something like “Question – What is the easiest way to track a bear?” A few times, without realizing it, I have needed to ask somebody a question and just like Dwight I have said something like “Question – What did we eat for dinner last week?”

It’s no question that the things that I watch, read, and listen to leave an impression on me, but I have been wondering lately which of these impressions are affecting me in a positive way and which ones are affecting me in a negative way. Like a kid watching Hannah Montana, is the impression that is left on me something that is positive or is it something that is making me a worse person? For example, is it bad that I like a character who is an outright atheist? Or is it harmful for me to look at reality through the lens of The Office, which is a show that is funny and entertaining, but doesn’t represent the whole of reality?

The interesting aspect of this is that all of these TV shows tell stories. Whether it’s Hannah Montana, House, or The Office, they are all telling stories. And it’s interesting to me because all good stories follow a universal set of principles that are in place and we have no idea where these principles came from. For example, all good stories have elements like setting, characters, conflict, and climax. Without these elements, there is no story. We have these elements in our everyday lives but stories are powerful because they bring these elements together in a way that is meaningful. In fact, Robert McKee says that stories give meaning to our lives. I think this is true, because what is life? Is it a set of random facts and occurrences that ultimately lead to nothing? Or is there an overall narrative that streams everything together in one universal story?

Another interesting aspect of stories is their ability to resonate with people. I love watching the Lord of the Rings movies. I would watch them more often but they are just so long. But whenever I do watch them for some reason I want so badly for the stories to be real. I really want to believe that somewhere there are hobbits, elves, and dwarves fighting orcs over some majestic landscape in an ultimate battle between good and evil. I watch the great wizard Gandalf defeat a Balrog, an ancient demon hidden in the depths of Moria, and so badly I want to be brave, wise, and powerful like Gandalf. Great stories just seem to stimulate something inside of people, and where does it come from? How did that get there?

Once, several weeks ago, I was sitting in church and it was church like any other Sunday. Sometimes I like to look around at other people sitting in the pews. Do they look bored? Are the engaged? Are they asleep? Like I said, this was a Sunday like any other Sunday, and many people looked bored and kind of tired. The sermon wasn't bad or anything, but I noticed that not everybody seemed to be all that captivated by it, and neither was I.

But then Pastor Ron started telling a story. And he is a great story teller, really able to tell a story in a way that it makes you want to know what happens next. I don’t remember what this story was about but I remember that it had really caught my interest. I was alert, my head was up, and I wasn’t off in La-la land thinking about something else. When I looked around at others I noticed that they were all captivated too. Their heads were up and they were more alive, not sitting there like lifeless bodies in a pew. The story had us all. We cared; we wanted to know what was going to happen. How was this story going to end?

What I’m wondering is this: if story is a universal and powerful way of communicating meaning to people, then are all stories good? Or can stories be used to promote ideas and viewpoints that are harmful? Can they glorify things that are bad and make good things look wrong? If so, does this speak to a universal good vs. evil or does it depend on the values and belief of the person hearing the story?

I left this one open-ended because 1) I don’t know the answers to these questions and 2) I would like some input. So if anybody has any, it would be nice. Maybe we can sort this out together.