Theme Schmeme

So a group of Rouge Wavers who are students at the UCLA screenwriting program collectively wrote in and asked me to address the topic of theme.

But listen. Theme is for suckers. Don't worry about it and don't bother. Your story just does not need to have a subtextual or deeper meaning beyond what is going on in the plot. Audiences don't care to be touched or moved in a deeper way than right on the surface. They don't pay to see a movie in order to then have to think, feel and experience the story in a primal way. And they certainly get plenty of satisfaction with themes like "love conquers all" - I mean, that's really engaging stuff for anybody. And if your "theme" - should you choose to be all namby-pamby and have one - is something like "blood is thicker than water" or "you have to earn trust" or "being responsible is a good way to live" I guarantee you that whoever reads your script is going to just really, really connect with that message. It will be so different from any other script they've ever read because the specificity of that - I mean, "responsibility" as a concept, that's just so... maaaan that's just not been done before. No sirree. Rest assured.

So if you feel overwhelmed by the concept of theme, you're just wasting your time, man. It ain't no thang. Just dance your interesting characters through a story for the sake of it and don't worry about what the story means, at the end of the day. Don't worry about giving audiences something to mull over or discuss or have a revelation about. Theme is only for babies who want more out of a movie than fleeting entertainment. It's for people who want their entertainment to be "meaningful" and speak to "humanity" with "universal themes." Can you believe these jokers? Unreal. You'd think that for 12 to 14 bucks a pop, they'd be happy just to sit there and watch whatever is on the screen - a bunch of moving images and plot and explosions. C'mon.

Theme is what intellectual, sensitive writers with no clue sit around and freak out about. What is this story really about? What is WALL-E really about? Oh come on, it's easy, Wall-E is about a lonely robot. Period. That's why it did so well. And THE DARK KNIGHT is just about how Batman battles with crime and the Joker. And the Joker is just the Joker and seriously - why does everything have to mean more than that? NETWORK? Um, angry anchorman goes nuts. JAWS? Battling a big shark. STAR WARS? AMERICAN BEAUTY? LETHAL WEAPON? There are no themes there! That's just good story telling. There is nothing more to observe or discuss when the movie is over. Am I right? I don't know what this world is coming to sometimes.

Oh and get this - there is this crazy cabal of writers, dramatists and teachers who think that "theme" should be present in every character, on every page and in every set piece of your script. So that if your "theme" is related, say, to an entertaining question and therefore is something ridiculous like "what makes us human?" then your script is really like a conversation about that. So then every set piece should have "what is it to be human" in the set piece some way somehow.

So if you actually followed this crazy idea of layering universal theme into your story, you'd actually then have to know what your theme is, know that it is the root of your story and know that the plot just services exploring that theme. Crazy. Total pain in the behind.

So as one example, say you were making a decision about what job your main character had, in a story with this "what it means to be human" theme - so you'd probably want to then make your main character's job dressing mannequins or painting portraits or teaching history - see how each of those could fall into the theme of what it means to be human? So all of your story decisions and details would all be under the umbrella of the theme. Some total nut jobs even name their characters in ways that allude to the theme.

Writers who identify and articulate a complex and yet universal theme, who really know, foundationally, why they wanted to tell this story, they weave that theme into every single page. The theme is a conversation between every character and situation in your script and the audience. Are man-friends important? Why is so hard for men to have emotionally intimate relationships with other men? Do buddy/friendships come between a new couple? So every conversation, every detail, every character and character's job and ancillary characters - everything drops into the funnel of what the theme is. In different permutations. What is your theme? If it's a sappy Hallmark card generalism that's okay. Just dig deeper. Try harder. Get to the slightly more specific, interesting part. Write that theme down on a post-it. Stick it on your computer. And explore that theme in every way possible in your script. The theme is the North Star and the script is a ship sailing under its guidance.

What a buncha hokum, huh? Theme schmeme - who needs it? Theme is for eggheads and intellectuals. Theme is too hard for you to figure out. Theme is something you need to buy 12 screenwriting books to understand.

Phooey. Theme is the fundamental topic of your story. It's what drew you to wanting to write the story in the first place. It's not the purview of intellectuals, it's not rocket science, it's what your script is actually about. You just need to work out what your theme is and articulate it and then every page, every scene, every bit of dialogue you write ask yourself, is the theme present on this page, like invisible ink?

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The Entertaining Question

So your structure is great, your character arcs are satisfying, your premise is original, the dialogue is snappy and organic and you have a theme. Or, you think you do. But what is the entertaining question in your script?

The entertaining question is tangentially related to the theme. In fact, in some ways one might say that it's a specific expression of theme - posed as a question.

A significant part of the screenwriting learning curve is figuring out what theme really means. Many new writers say that the theme of their script is something like: love is all you need. Or an eye for an eye. Or time heals. Or family ties endure. Okay, these are not themes. They are truisms and - I'll go ahead and say it - cliches. Kill me with a spork and do it now. You know why these tired cliches are a no-go? Because the answer is freaking self-evident. When anything is self-evident in life - it's boring because now I have no reason to engage with it. Yup. Love heals all, alrighty....oh forgive me, I nodded off there for a minute.

Now, there is one glorious example of something being beautifully self-evident and that is when you are fighting with your boyfriend and it's SELF-EVIDENT he is wrong and then you've arrived at Valhalla, Nirvana and Avalon all at once. But that's another post. In scripts, a self-evident or cliched theme is boring. And boring anything when it comes to screenwriting is death.

Okay imagine Google Earth. You see the globe, right? That's the equivalent of saying the theme of your script is time heals all. Uhyep. Uhyep it sure does. So we're staring at this globe, right? Mining for a deeper, more specific theme is taking that Google Earth image and zooming in on a continent. Then a country. Then a city. Then a street. That's where you'll find an expression of your theme as an entertaining question.

So one might go from, on a global level, "time heals all" to something very focused and entertaining like "If your brother slept with your wife, could you forgive him? Ever?" See what I did there? I mean, you're going to start off with whatever your premise is, but the entertaining question is an expression of theme in a very personal way which allows the audience to engage it in a WWYD way.

Whenever audiences can engage with the material in such a way that is both meta (the premise) and micro (the entertaining question) then the experience of viewing your movie is both universal and personal. And because movies are a vicarious and cathartic experience for viewers, posing an entertaining question is the brass ring, is it not?

Audiences LOVE to think: Oh god, how can he DO that! I wouldn't do that! He should do this instead of that! Take one of my favorite movies of all time, DOG DAY AFTERNOON. The theme (or meta observation, if you will) is: Love drives one to desperate acts. But the entertaining question is: What would you do if you robbed a bank to pay for your lovers sex-change operation - and it went terribly wrong? Is there a way out? Can this situation be salvaged? Okay that's kind of clumsy, let's try a few others:

Or WHEN HARRY MET SALLY: the meta-theme is friendship can lead to love. But the entertaining question is: Can men and women be friends without sex entering into it? Ever?

A SIMPLE PLAN: meta-theme: Greed destroys humanity. Entertaining question: If you found a briefcase full of money on a downed plane with a dead pilot - would you take it?

3:10 TO YUMA: meta-theme: Pride forces a man to take risks. Entertaining question: Would you risk your life for the money to save your family and your pride even if you would wind up dead to do it?

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE: meta-theme: Destiny overcomes hardship. Entertaining question: Would you have the courage to risk your life to save the girl and go on national television when it would be easier to give up and accept your destiny of helpless poverty?

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD: meta-theme: Marriage requires sacrifice. Entertaining question: If you loved your spouse but HAD to experience change and excitement, would you leave the marriage to go get it? Or stick with it? What if there were children involved?

BLADE RUNNER: meta-theme: What makes us human? Entertaining question: Could you kill a replicant that had human emotion - even if those emotions were programmed?

You can see that some entertaining questions are more compelling than others (in my half-assed iteration of them this morning) for example, the BLADE RUNNER entertaining question is wildly engaging. I mean - wow!

So take a look at your script today. Can you articulate your theme - or meta-theme as it were? Don't beat yourself up if it's something kinda cliched like "friendship lasts forever." Just use that Google Earth function in your brain and try to locate the specificity of that theme within your story. Zoom in. Zoom in more. Zoom in again - what, specifically is the micro of that theme, expressed as a question that has an element of what would YOU do? So you are poking your theme with a stick and asking - DOES friendship last forever? Can it? What if THIS happened?

Now, instead of serving up a big bowl of yes of course it does, you are adding some texture to that. Because in reality, cliches and truisms are ideals. Yes, it would be great if friendship lasted forever. And maybe in the emotional ending of your script, it does. But I have to wonder, along the way (whether reading your script or watching your movie) if the resolution really will be so neat. How will this friendship arrive at that happy conclusion? Well, if you're going to entertain me, not without a bunch of pretty big bumps in the road, right?

Heads up tip. If your entertaining question is super specific (Would you marry Bob even if you knew he slept with Stephanie, like three years ago at that party behind your back?), try to articulate that in a slightly zoomed out way: Could you maintain a friendship with a friend who betrayed you with your boyfriend without ever dealing with it head on? Or something.

p.s. Dear Anonymous: yes, I am mixing meta with micro when it it should be macro and micro but this week I am a big fan of the word "meta" and the opposite of meta is "kata" but nobody knows that including me before I looked it up. So stuff it.

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