I saw the new Seth Rogen movie Observe and Report last week at a sneak preview and thought it was a great example of applying the trappings of story but never actually delivering a story. The same can be said for many companies today.
Some are applauding Observe and Report for taking risks while others are condemning it for picturing date rape. Seth Rogen explained the date rape scene.
When we’re having sex and she’s unconscious like you can literally feel the audience thinking, like, how the fuck are they going to make this okay? Like, what can possibly be said or done that I’m not going to walk out of the movie theater in the next thirty seconds? . . . And then she says, like, the one thing that makes it all okay: “Why are you stopping, motherfucker?”
The line let me laugh, but it didn’t completely free me to laugh out loud. The line makes it okay to laugh but not a 100%. It is a black comedy after all, you have to expect this kind of stuff. That interplay however is a great way to sums up the movie – horrendously black comedy matched to character development and tricks to let you feel okay enough to laugh. What the film makers forgot in all of this was the storyline and as any screenwriter knows, without a storyline the audience can’t get fully engaged. They do some character development which was nice but the storyline is just a collection of jumbled cliches – the loser going after the popular girl, the quiet girl secretly pining away for the loser, etc. The black comedy bits start popping up and we’re along for the ride, but never committed. Seeing it as a sneak preview the film actually cut out half way through and the lights came on. I and another friend debated walking out as it was unknown how long it would take them to get the movie back on. We could have walked out and never thought twice about how the story ended, because there was no story. Fortunately the film started seconds later.
All black comedies use tricks and character to let me laugh but great black comedies like Dr. Strangelove involve storyline as well. Compare the two films and see if you could walk away from either, if you can laugh fully, if you’re engaged.
Missing storylines aren’t only a concern for movies. As Seth Godin said, marketing is about telling a story. But today many companies are just using the trappings of story in their marketing and PR. They never flush out the whole story because many of them don’t have a complete story. I bet if you ask the creators of Observe and Report what their inspiration was, they might mention wanting to put some of the darker moments on film. What I doubt you would hear is anything about showing a character overcome their position in life.
How many times have you been caught watching a horrible movie but can’t step away? Even as friends plead with you to turn it off and go with them to dinner. Minutes earlier you admitted that it was a horrible movie, but somehow you can’t step away without seeing how it turns out. That’s storyline. Adding the trappings of story to a product or company will help a little, but you need a full storyline to get people fully engaged. The trappings can make date rape funny but without the storyline the movie is destined to fade away without much of a trace – not unlike some companies.
