House of Eratosthenes

A few months back I had expressed some of my regrets about picking on poor Joss Whedon. Whedon has accomplished some amazing things, and it’s a mystery to me why I don’t genuinely like any of them. I know I probably should. He’s got this cool post-apocalyptic world going on full of dusty old used-junk spaceships, interesting characters…I just can’t watch it. Ten minutes of it bores me to tears. And I don’t know why. This is true of all of Whedon’s work that has been brought to my attention. There’s something about it that just puts me in a coma. If I don’t know something came from him, I can figure it out pretty quick, and I don’t consciously know what tips me off.

So I went to Gamestop and grabbed a bunch of three-for-price-of-two used movies, and made sure Serenity was in there. I had heard nothing but good things about it, after all. And it is good, in it’s own way.

But it puts me to sleep. Quickly.

And I think I know why. Whedon, it turns out, has some rules that he observes very carefully. Whether they are good rules or bad rules depends on the viewpoint of the person watching. But in my book, they’re bad rules. And I can’t help but get the feeling that if every carbon-based life form on this planet agreed with me, And Whedon came to figure this out, he’d still want to keep all of them.

As near as I can figure, the rules are these…and I should disclaim, a lot of them are absolutes and I don’t know if they have been observed absolutely because I’m a damn sight far away from an exhaustive scholar of Whedon material. But this lock-step observation of these twelve rules, seems to cause me a lot of boredom very quickly, like in ten minutes or less. So they don’t have to be observed very tightly at all in order to sabotage everything. It’s sad, in a way, when George Lucas can tell a story better than you even with that crappy Lucas dialog, but let’s face facts: First time I saw any given chapter of the Star Wars saga, I had no idea what was going to happen next and it made the film a pure delight. With Serenity, I’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen next, even though I know far less about what’s going on, and don’t particularly care what’s going to happen to these carefully-developed characters. It’s just plain bad story-telling.

1. Character over story. It’s okay to chew up massive amounts of footage defining the characters, and nothing else. Heroes hold meetings to figure out what to do, but what is done cannot be the result of new ideas, compromise or negotiation; it is always the unaltered, undiluted, uncompromised vision of whoever “won.” Nobody ever, ever, ever yields half-way because that would be confusing.
2. It’s far more important for a line to be clever than for it to be convincing.
3. The audience should have no uncertainty whatsoever about who’s right and who’s wrong. It is preferable that the designated antagonist do some stuttering to remove all doubt. This is an attribute of the character. Whoever is wrong about something, can’t be right about something else later. That would be confusing.
4. When men and women share a scene, any revelations meaningful to the story must be delivered by the woman.
5. Men must not be too threatening. The largest man must be no bigger than 5’10” and 170 pounds. Facial hair is for bad guys, and even on them it must be immaculately groomed. A five o’clock shadow is a metaphor for some deep, serious character flaw. This, too, is an attribute of the character. Whoever is clean-shaven at one time can’t be grizzled later, and vice-versa.
6. The telling-off is an all-important ceremony. At no time can fifteen minutes pass by without someone telling someone off. Women can tell women off, men can tell men off, women can tell men off, but it is never, ever, ever appropriate for men to tell women off. Women may implore men to calm down, men may not implore women to calm down because that might be threatening. See Rule #5. Calming-down is just as important as telling-off. Nobody is allowed to tell anyone else to calm down, without extending the right hand, opening it broadly, pointing the palm down to the floor, and shaking it while the left hand rests on the left hip.
7. Fight scenes can have action, but no suspense. There should be a designated victor. The victor sustains no blows, not even a scratch, unless he or she possesses some mystical power that makes physical injury impossible or trivial. The victor may be damaged, wounded, bleeding at the end of the fight — in fact, he/she must show some damage somewhere — but it is prohibited for this to have actually come from anywhere. Think of Chris Penn’s demise in Reservoir Dogs. If the story calls for the other guy to throw the first punch and start the fight, which is usually the case, this first punch must miss.
8. Amnesia, truth serum, alternative realities, brainwashing, and other forms of loss of mental control are indispensible story-building tools. Because they might be considered “abuse,” they are always inflicted on women, never on men. But refer back to Rule #6 — if a woman who cannot trust her own senses is in an argument with a man who can trust his, the man must yield.
9. Character flaws are reserved for men. Women do not have flaws; they have tragedies that took place from which they are continually trying to recover. They are never quite finished with this.
10. Nothing may happen quickly. All scenes, save for cut-scenes, must last two minutes or more. Three minutes is even better.
11. When the script calls for someone to interrupt someone else, it should be completely obvious. Whoever got interrupted, should yield immediately even if the line used to do the interrupting, meanders laboriously and awkwardly.
12. Whatever looks like a good idea at one point in the story, has to stay that way. The heroes cannot be deceived or betrayed, unless mannerisms and speech inflections are used to clue the audience in from the get-go that this is what is about to happen.

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Whedon’s RulesSaturday, May 12th, 2007

Whedon’s Rules
Saturday, May 12th, 2007