The Tyranny of 'Why.'

SO AS I alluded to the other day, a return to development means questioning a whole bunch of stuff about how you work and how to focus a new concept. Luckily, that means being able to have conversations with smart people.

One of those smart people is the Producer who I'm working with on one of my development projects. Al Magee has been praised elsewhere, so let's dispense with that one right off the bat. A few weeks ago, we're having a meeting about this project, and after I talked in circles for a little while, Al said something that I found unbelievably trenchant:

The Brits used to make movies about "what happened." The Americans make movies about "what happens next." And we tend to get pushed into movies about "why it happened." Which as box office shows - nobody really gives a shit about.

What happened. What happens next. Why it happened. Three simple phrases.

Two of them can lead to pretty good, or even great -- films and TV shows.

But the "Why..." The Why will kill you every time.

Canadian TV is forever about the why. Most of the time you will spend in a meeting with the network, they will want to talk about 'the why.' What you're saying, why the characters are doing this and that. We employ freelance 'story editors' on film, and even development TV projects. And if they've been raised under the Canadian system and they're doing their Telefilm best, they'll steer you clearly toward the shoals of "Why it happened." In the unlikely event that you do manage to score a scintilla of press coverage for a show, you're probably going to get asked questions about the why, and most creators who get a show will blather about the why given half a chance.

It's all specactularly wrongheaded.

Why?

(Oh come on, you knew that was coming.)

Before I unpack why 'Why it happened' leads us down a bad road, let's examine the reasons why the Canadian system has evolved that way (and for those who aren't Canadian, this is still instructive if you're a newbie writer because a lot of newbies play this game too):

1) The Desire for 'Cultural Importance.'

Many Canadian TV shows and movies, traditionally, have been developed by people who look at the dominant U.S. culture and find it wanting. They want to do shows that look as slick as U.S. shows but have "higher aspirations." That's why you couldn't swing a Dead Cat in a Development Pitch at a network a few years back without hearing "Six Feet Under." It's why FLASHPOINT getting on CBS is the most important thing everrrr... and why the P.R. for that show goes to great pains to point out how a straight-up CBS procedural is very different from U.S. cop shows.

Sometimes the people wielding the power in these situations are Producers who chafed under the industrial model, where U.S. creative would come up here and boss all the Canadian Line Producers around. One day, they vowed, we will do better.

Writers, too, usually see the writing on the wall. Those who want to sign up for the 'loftier sell' stick around, and those who have a more 'commercial bent' -- traditionally -- have lit out for L.A. at the first opportunity.

I could get into a cultural sidebar here and point out that every person I've ever met who talks about wanting to 'do better' than the U.S. culture generally reveal the more they talk, the less they really understand about the United States or Americans, and also how they fold in some pretty elitist ideas about Canadians, too...but that's a digression too far this morning.

The Desire for Cultural Importance is one of the main reasons why an actual, very Canadian show that's a huge worldwide success -- Stargate -- is never mentioned in the press here as a Canadian show. Even though ALL the key creative behind it are, in fact, Canadian.

It's also why everybody gets skittish about praising Trailer Park Boys. Look at Rob Salem having to defend his praise for the show in the Toronto Star because of 'outraged readers.'

Notice that both Stargate and Trailer Park Boys are shows that actually draw a dedicated audience. A measurable one, I mean. They have actual 'fans.'

The disconnect between shows that people watch and shows that fulfill the Desire for Cultural Importance is key.

2) The Government in the System

Telefilm, the CTF, all public funding of TeeVee and Flim requires you to blather on and on in documents about what this project does to further Canadian culture. Bureaucrats like reading about how this show will explain Canada to Canadians. The "Why," then, becomes the most important thing in the project to secure your fundings. The more time you spend talking about the why, the more it feeds back into the DNA of it. Why is also an easy thing for people to talk about. It's way easier to talk why than to talk story or character, because that discussion requires some level of craft or writing knowledge.

This pear-shaped discussion process leads to meetings where people tell comedy writers, "oh, we know it will be funny, but we want to talk about the heart," as if nailing the funny was the easiest thing in the world. And as if people tuned in to shows to see 'the heart.'

3) Unfamilarity with the Medium

There are a whole lot of people who make TV in this country who don't watch TeeVee. And a whole lot of people who make films who only see films at Film Festivals -- which is not how 90% of the viewing audience sees them.

The Tyranny of "Why this Happened," separates the makers of filmed entertainment from the consumers of filmed entertainment. It's one of the big reasons why so many shows fail to find an audience.

Why Why Sucks:

Tell me if this happens to you. Last week, watching a TV program with my Dad, I quietly endured the usual outbursts. My dad likes to try and 'figure things out.' In the opening scenes of a show, if a mystery is set up, my Dad will spend the next fifteen minutes saying, "he did it," or "I think it's her" or, sometimes, "they're related." -- whatever it is. Point is he's trying to figure out the mystery.

It doesn't matter that he's almost always wrong. The truth is that the only difference between my father and everybody else is that, um, he doesn't use his internal voice. We're all trying to figure things out all the time. That's how we derive pleasure from watching a show. In a comedy, we laugh out of anticipation, and then we laugh again out of surprise when it goes somewhere different from where we think it's going. In drama, one of the reasons why procedurals are so popular is that desire to figure out why. The reason why they're satisfying and hold our attention is because most people try to figure it out, and delight when they can't. That's what keeps them watching.

In both cases, what do you notice about people? They're not the monolithic couch potatoes they're supposed to be. They're engaged in the process. They're trying to imbue meaning, and their search for that meaning is the thing that makes them like the show. LOST is entertaining because we all try to figure out the mystery, and never quite get there.

Marshall McLuhan famously deconstructed his visions of media, and described TV as a 'cool' medium, meaning that we need to do more work to extract meaning from it. That, in fact, is the point.

The problem with making a show about 'why it happened' then, is that you are fundamentally robbing the audience of their part in the transaction.

They're the ones who get to decide what it means.

If you remove them from that process by making your show all about explaining, or lecturing, or hammering home the why and the theme, you are actually forcing the audience to disengage, not further engage in your presentation.

A light sprinkling of theme helps to focus you -- but only if you're focused on the what happened, or what happens next. If you spend all your time thinking about 'why,' then you are almost guaranteeing that you'll wind up with something that's not engaging to the viewer.

Which, by the numbers, seems to be most scripted Canadian TV.

Sounds simple when you put it that way, don't it?