Why We Tell Stories

One question you can ask about any piece of art is “why?” Why sing those

lyrics? Why tell that story? Why use those colors? Why devote all of your time to

that​? This is a question that has puzzled me for a long time, and as a creative

person myself I sometimes look at work that I’ve done and I have no idea why I did it.

It’s as if what I’ve created hasn’t been done by me, but through me. It’s a joulting

concept, and I don’t really know what to make of it, so in this paper, I’m doing my

best to find an answer. Since it would take a lifetime to study the various reasonings

behind the creation of all art, I’m localizing it to what I know. For many years now I

have had a deep interest in the consumption and production of film, and it is this art

form- that combines many others, that I will be using as the basis for my journey into

why artists make what they do. I will also be delving into the meaning and

significance of stories, and venturing into why we have been telling them since the

onset of our self-aware state. Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson once stated that

“Art bares the same relationship to culture that the dream does to mental stability…

The dream is something that extends you beyond where you already are… It’s like a

pseudopod that’s going out into the unknown. That’s what art is.” (The Rubin

Report). In regards to this metaphor, this paper will act as an analysis of this cultural

dream, examining what it is telling us about ourselves through the lens of stories new

and old. My focus question for this project will be: what compels artists and

filmmakers to tell stories?

I had a conversation with Geoff Boucher, a writer for the L.A. times, and

professional interviewer. Boucher has interviewed people such as Steven Spielberg,

Ridley Scott, Clint Eastwood, and Peter Jackson, so of course I wanted to ask him if

he’d gotten any information regarding my question. Boucher demonstrated similar

curiosities, as he had received insights into what inspired three great directors to

make films that they are famous for. The first he mentioned was Jon Favreau,

director of ‘Iron Man,’ and the latest ‘Jungle Book,’ who apparently built a love for

story telling when he played Dungeons and Dragons as a kid. Sam Raimi, director of

‘Spiderman’ and ‘The Evil Dead’ told Boucher that his mother painted a Spiderman

mural above his bed, he would look up at it every night and dream of one day putting

it to film. Ridley Scott, director of films like ‘Alien’ and ‘Blade Runner’ started out as a

painter, and he saw a painting of gladiators and wanted to make a film about it, and

so we have ‘Gladiator.’ What these three examples tell me is that the stories we want

to tell are often brought on by other stories, whether they be on canvas or created by

the imagination with the help of a dungeon master. Cult favorite, and two-time

academy award winning screenwriter, Quentin Tarantino once said “when people

ask me if I went to film school, I tell them no, I went to films.” (BBC News). It seems

the greatest creative motivator and teacher is other creative works, they show you

what's possible, they inspire you to move past what has been done before and no

matter what the artistic medium is, it seems to have this effect.

So why do we come up with and tell stories to begin with? Stories are as old

as human consciousness, told through paintings on cave walls, present in ancient

myth and legend, and immortalized in our holy books. One's first assumption might

be that the plots of stories are specific to the societies and time periods they were

created in, and this is the case if you look at the stories literally. At face value, the

myths of Ancient Egypt seem far detached from the Bible, the Bible appears nothing
like Harry Potter and Harry Potter definitely doesn’t seem close to Die Hard.

However, you can look closer into these stories and see similarities that at first might

not have been apparent. It appears that there are eternal story structures that act as

the basis for specific plots. This is articulated by many through the phrase that there

are only about ten basic stories, of which virtually all narratives can be simplified into.

So there must be an aspect of these stories that is deeper than we consciously

realize, something within us that considers these plots thematically correct, and

possibly even integral to our survival and success.

An explanation for this desire to tell and be told these transcendent stories

comes from mythologist Joseph Campbell. Campbell elegantly suggested in an

interview that “the ego can’t reflect upon itself unless it has a mirror against which to

read itself, and that mirror would be the mythological schedule that let’s it know

where it is... the ego sees itself in that (mythological mirror) and knows where it is on

the scoreboard” (jfc.org). In other words, without myth, stories, art, and (in regards to

this particular paper) film, we would have nothing to compare ourselves to. Now, one

may declare that we can compare ourselves to history, to our friends and family, and

to our competition. To a similar point, wolves and other pack animals don’t need

stories to tell them where they lay in the dominance hierarchy; so why should we?

Well we have grown to a level far more complex than any other species, and moved

past a competition of sheer physical dominance- as seen in the animal kingdom.

Humanity exists with a system of almost infinite hierarchies in fields such as art,

science, sports, and academics. Without stories we would have no way of motivating

us towards the top and showing us the most effective way to get there. This is “the

moral of the story,” what we learn from a tale that helps us survive. With narrative art
we are forced to ask ourselves who we represent in the plot of life whether we are

aware of it or not. The proof lies in the fact that stories exist in the first place, as they

wouldn’t have otherwise evolved into our psyche’s in a way that calibrates with how

we learn so perfectly. Canadian novelist, poet, and author of ‘The Handmaid's Tale,’

Margaret Atwood once demonstrated how and why stories resonate with us so

strongly: “We know that people learn and assimilate information much more through

stories than they do through charts and graphs and statistics. What really hits people

is story because it’s not an intellectual thing, and it’s not just a scream, it’s not just

pure emotion, it’s a melding of those two things which is where we exist as human

beings. We’re not thought machines, we’re not screaming machines, we’re

thought/feeling machines” (BigThink).

These recurrent stories, symbols, and characters seen throughout cultures

and time periods are known as archetypes. These archetypes are almost impossible

to escape, and they act as tools for the creative mind to help craft the entities

present in our stories. Some examples of archetypes are: ‘the wise king/old man’

(Nestor, Mufasa, Ben Kenobi, Dumbledore, Uther Pendragon); ‘the

devouring/tyrannical mother’ (The Witch, Evil Stepmother, Cruella De Vil, Mama

Fratelli); and ‘the jester/trickster’ (R2D2, Beetlejuice, Dionysus, Merry & Pippin,

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern). There are many other archetypes, and once my

attention was brought to them I started seeing them everywhere in fiction and the

real world. As I explored this new psychological realm, one archetype seemed to

stand out above all, and that is the story of the hero. The hero is one who stands

willingly in the face of that which the group is too fearful to face, the hero defeats this

opposing force and brings what is gained from the endeavour to the community
which flourishes as a result of the heroes quest. We see examples of the hero's

journey in every medium of art; in the epic poems of Homer, in the alluring art of

Michelangelo, and filling the isles of your local comic book store. Joseph Campbell is

famous for pointing to the significance of the hero and he articulated the hero's

journey as such in ‘The Power of Myth,’ he says: “The courage to face the trials and

to bring a whole new body of possibilities into the field of interpreted experience for

other people to experience-- that is the heroes deed” (Campbell, 42). The hero

represents that which we could be, it specifically lays out what the ideal person could

achieve and receive if they conquered their fears and slayed their personal dragons.

"Why do dragons hoard gold? Because the thing you most need is always to be

found where you least want to look." (Slaying the Dragon Within us)

So when kids dress up as Captain America, Wonder Woman, or King Arthur

they’re showing their desire to step into the role of the hero. Yet we also dress up as

archetypes that most of us don’t want to become, taking on the role of the monster or

villian. I asked Boucher about this childhood response to archetypes, his response

brought light to reasons why we dress up to represent both the dark and the light.

Boucher said: “We’re trying on the qualities of these people at a very young age. We

don’t articulate that or even grasp it, but if you try on a dracula costume it’s so that

you can handle your own fears, if you dress up as a monster then you’re scary so

you’re not scared of the world. When you dress up as captain America you’re

exploring what a higher purpose feels like. When you wear a superman costume you

don’t act the same as when you wear a batman costume, you’re trying things on,

both literally and figuratively.” The manifestations of our response to Campbells

‘mythological mirror’ begin at a very young age, our imaginations are at their peak
during childhood and so we explore the types of heroes that we want to become. In a

way we understand and resonate with archetypes at young age better than we ever

will again, this is why disney movies are some of the most archetypal of all.

An experiment done in 1944 by psychologists Fritz Heider and Marianne

Simmel​ ​played a short cartoon of two triangles and a circle interacting with each

other with and around a large box. When shown to over 100 students, only 3 saw the

animation as strictly that. The vast majority of individuals saw some kind of

romance/adventure; one resembling the traditional damsel in distress being saved

from the entrapment of a triangle tyrant. The students were asked to write down how

they interpreted the story, what follows is one​ excerpt that Heider described as

showing “unusual elaboration,” however it illustrates the personification of the

shapes perfectly. The student wrote: ​“...​Triangle number-one shuts his door (or

should we say line) and the two innocent young things walk in. Lovers in the

two-dimensional world, no doubt; little triangle number-two and sweet circle.

Triangle-one (hereafter known as the villain) spies the young love. Ah! ... He opens

his door, walks out to see our hero and his sweet...” (​The American Journal of

Psychology).​ ​So it is natural for us to project meaning and narrative onto that which

we see, whether it’s a few shapes or singing tableware, we rationalize it to the extent

that is possible, and we infuse what we are seeing with story. Once again, the

classic stories of old are intertwining themselves with that which we see. The

archetypal “save the princess” story is so ingrained in us that we personify

expressionless, emotionless, faceless, shapes with complex motivations and heroic

deeds.
 The 20th and 21st century are the new age of storytelling, these archetypes

have become tired in a way and are often seen as “cliches,” so the new challenge

becomes turning these conventions on their heads. This new approach to story was

arguably popularized with the film noir genre of the 30’s and 40’s. Writers and

directors tried to craft new narratives that seemed fresh and unique. Things began to

happen for no real reason, villains started to get away with it and in a way, new

archetypes were introduced into the cultural landscape such as the ‘Femme Fatale.’

Films like ‘Memento’ by Christopher Nolan, ‘Pulp Fiction’ by Quentin Tarantino, and

‘Dazed and Confused’ by Richard Linklater begin to pick apart, rearrange, and

abolish of traditional plot structure all together. However, though it may seem that

film has found a way to move past traditional story and archetypal characters or

things, a closer analysis reveals that even in some of the most specific attempts to

rethink classic story, the archetypes of old are merely camouflaged. I brought this

phenomenon up in my conversation with Boucher who expressed it in terms of

playing cards, he stated: “people play around with structure, with expectations, and

mediums, but at the heart of it, they’re shuffling the deck differently but the cards are

the same. Drama remains at the center of it.”

(Spoiler Alert) Let’s take ‘Pulp Fiction,’ the 1994 film by Quentin Tarantino- a

director mentioned a few times throughout this paper and one famous for his ability

to turn common story conventions inside out and upside down. Try to find a similar

story to Pulp Fiction, I dare you, I double dare you. It’s told out of order with random

deaths and unpredictable characters, there is no real protagonist in the piece and

characters are often set up for absolutely no reason. It is this film’s lack of tradition

that has brought it the success it has achieved among mainstream audiences and
critics alike (along with great direction, editing, music and performances of course).

However, if you look closer it becomes clear that even in this film that is widely

accepted as the opposite of stereotypical, there are still archetypal realities sprinkled

throughout. To start with, the glowing case in Pulp Fiction is a macguffin, which is an

object that Alfred Hitchcock once described as “a thing that the characters on the

screen worry about but the audience don’t care,” examples of macguffins exist

throughout narrative history (The one ring, the golden fleece, the ark of the covenant,

the maltese falcon). Additionally, the character Mila, played by Uma Thurman, fits

quite nicely into the role of the ‘Femme Fatale.’ Although culturally this breed of

character was popularized with crime novels and the previously mentioned film noir

genre, the seductive yet dangerous female is seen as far back as Ancient Greece in

the form of the sirens. In fact the sheer randomness of Pulp Fiction resembles

something of a Greek myth in which Zeus’ plan is being constantly meddled with by

his wife, Hera. Zeus would often come down to earth in the form of a human or

animal to clean things up, and ‘The Wolf’ in Pulp Fiction appears for a short time to

right the wrongs of a plan gone awry. Butch could also be seen through the lens of

Greek Myth, in a way his experience in the basement reflects Odysseus’ trial with the

cyclops; and much like the traditional hero story he gets the girl and “the gold” in the

form of Zed’s bike. Finally, Samuel Jackson’s bible quoting, soon to be earth walking

‘Jules’ could be seen as the avenger archetype often seen in westerns and gangster

movies. It is Jules who gets the case in the end with the help of his jester sidekick

Vince. Pulp Fiction resembling archetypal structures doesn’t make the film any less

original, it simply proves that these timeless motifs are virtually impossible to escape.
These archetypal entities could be akin to the paint required to formulate a painting;

without them you just have a blank canvas.

So if archetypes are the paint of story, how do artists know what to brush onto

the canvas, or what color to paint in? In other words, even though Star Wars and

Harry Potter both tell the story of the hero and his trials, what inspires the setting, the

characters, and the way in which the story is told? To answer this question, I went to

the Pixar headquarters in Emeryville and was surrounded by a rich creative

environment. This is a place where whatever can be thought up, can be put to

screen, and it truly made me realize that the limits of animation correlate with our

imaginations. There were paintings, drawings and models of landscapes and

characters everywhere to be seen and the most fascinating part of it was the

emphasis on the process. It seemed that Pixar was equally proud of their creations

and​ how such creations came to be. With the first drafts of characters and settings

hung up on the walls, it was obvious that Pixar wanted to demonstrate that what we

see in the theater was a long, long process that didn’t just magically spring into

fruition. It was almost as if I was at an imagination mining facility, one that dug,

picked and scraped for untold stories and ideas-not-yet-realized.

It was the perfect inspiration before my talk with Paul Oakley, a lead lighting

technical director at Pixar who has seen how some of the most imaginative films

have come to end up the way they do. Paul has had a long and impressive career,

he’s had a part in putting together the fantastic worlds of ‘Children of Men,’ ‘Harry

Potter,’ and ‘Avatar.’ This is what he had to say about the creative process: “With

most artists and storytellers, it’s all about observation, the whole of your life is about

observing what is going on around you and taking away the things that interest you
from your moments of your life and your interactions with others and the world. Then

you filter that through your imagination and then out of the other end will come a

story that you feel passionate about that is worth your effort and your time to be told.”

This was said after discussing how the film ‘Inside Out’ came to be, which is based

on observations that the writer and director of the project, Pete Docter saw in his

daughter. I asked if the film was ​all​ the vision of P. Docter, brought into actualization

with the help of his co-workers. Paul responded with a true and bizarre observation

about how art can take on a life of its own: “It starts with one person, and then you

get into the storyboard room and other people start injecting other little ideas that

work beautifully with your main thread and it starts taking on a life of its own. Then

there’s a point when a story or even a piece of art starts defining itself, there was a

point where Inside Out almost became its own thing.” It is at this point where the

story writing and art production process becomes almost unexplainable, it was what I

was touching on at the beginning of my paper in reference to art happening through

you. It’s a process most creative people are familiar with, the moment when the

miners of your mind strike golden oil, and out it floods with characters, motivations,

plot twists, settings and even lines of dialogue. Whether this is the archetypal

landscape taking over and infusing the story with eternal truths, or the artists version

of the light bulb/eureka moment, I don’t believe anyone has discovered the reason

for this phenomena thus far; so until we know, provided we ever could know such a

thing, let that be the magic of story.

This paper has been a real journey for me, through the minds of artists and

storytellers and unexpectedly myself. As I’ve written what I have, I’ve come upon

territory that I didn’t expect to discover, and found questions I didn’t realize I had. I
started with a question into why individuals make the stories they do, it seemed so

odd to me that an entire world could spawn from a single mind. It was only after

researching and thinking, and writing and rewriting that I realized that stories don’t

come from individuals, they come from all of us. Without lived experience and

interaction with others, the world, history, and with the tales of old, there would be no

stories to tell. So the gold I hope to bring back from slaying this dragon, is a deeper

understanding of the roles that others play in creating new stories that ​we- ​not I, will

go on to make.

Works Cited

“Jordan Peterson - The Best Disney Movies.” ​The Rubin Report​, performance

by Dave Rubin & Jordan B. Peterson, Season 2, 1 Nov. 2017,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUkiFxBVpZM​.

Campbell, Joseph, and Bill D. Moyers. ​The Power of Myth​. Edited by Betty S.

Flowers, Anchor Books, 2012.

Tarantino, Quentin, and Andrew Walker. BBC News

Goodridge, Mike. ​Directing​. Ilex, 2012.

McCormack-Sharp, Lorcan W.D, and Geoff Boucher. “Interview with Geoff

Boucher.” 11 Mar. 2018.

 McCormack-Sharp, Lorcan W.D, “Conversation with Paul Oakley & Liam

Sharp.” 9 Mar. 2018.

Heider F. & Simmel M. (1944). An Experimental Study of Apparent Behavior,

The American Journal of Psychology, 57​(2) 243.

JordanPetersonVideos. “Slaying the Dragon Within Us.” ​YouTube​, YouTube,

26 Jan. 2016, ​www.youtube.com/watch?v=REjUkEj1O_0​.

Bigthink, and Margaret Atwood. “Why We Tell Stories.” ​YouTube​, YouTube,

14 June 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2FsnPzgZJw&t=85s.