Fantasy and Science Fiction

Sociological vs Psychological Storytelling Bear Skin Digital by jen bishop

Sociological vs Psychological Storytelling

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Game of Thrones, in its eighth and final season, enjoyed audiences of more than 17 million people per week. However, fan and critic reaction though out the season indicated many of those millions loathed it.

Where did the season go wrong and why exactly did it go downhill? In May 2019, Zeynep Tufekci published an article in the Scientific American entitled, ‘The Real Reason Fans Hate the Last Season of Game of Thrones.’

Her thesis was simple; the original narrative created by George R. R. Martin struck a cord with audiences because of its unique subtlety as a sociological story which stood out among Hollywood narratives characterised by being psychological and individually motivated.

It’s not just bad storytelling—it’s because the storytelling style changed from sociological to psychological .

She explains that in sociological narratives, characters evolve in response to the broader social, political, economic and cultural incentives and norms that surround them. Author George R. R. Martin drew from medieval and renaissance history for his characters and plot devices, as well as from European myth and legend. In doing so, he specialized in having characters evolve in response to the broader social fabric and beliefs within which they were placed.

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On the other hand, psychological narratives features characters driven by much more individual quests and motives. The preference for this narrative style in Hollywood is understandable: the story is easier to tell and we gravitate toward identifying with the hero or hating the antihero, at the personal level. The hallmark of sociological storytelling however, is it can encourage us to put ourselves in the place of any character, not just the main hero/heroine, and imagine ourselves making similar choices. The complexity made it much richer than a simplistic morality tale, where unadulterated good fights with evil.

An example of the power of Martin’s sociological storytelling was his willingness to kill off major characters frequently without losing the thread of the story. Narratives driven by psychological and individual motives rarely do that because the main characters are the key tools with which the story is built. Given the dearth of such narratives in fiction and in TV, this approach clearly resonated with a large fan base that latched on to the show.

Showrunners, D. B. Weiss and David Benioff, took the narrative beyond Martin’s books, and turned the later seasons into Hollywood psychological narratives. In the final season, none of the main characters are killed early or unexpectedly and the motives and movements of the protagonists and antagonists became ever more internally wrought. What resulted in season 8 was ‘deus ex-machina’ styled defeat of the forces of the dead, and simplistic dissolution to good vs. evil interplay between main characters.

And it was the story’s richness which was lost in season 8, moving fans and critics to openly pan the final episodes online. Meme’s abound like the image below featuring a young woman’s Halloween costume literally ‘trashing’ season 8.

You can read Zeynep Tufekci’s full article on Scientific American, HERE.

Sociological vs Psychological Storytelling Bear Skin Digital by jen bishop

The Stranger Things of Story

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There is perhaps no more striking representation of the battle between good and evil than in Stranger Things, the Netflix series which released its second season in late October 2017. This battle is seen through the eyes of children in a normal town of Hawkins Indiana.

Set one year after the events of Season 1, it is Halloween October 1984, and we are treated once again to pop culture references of ’80s movies including Aliens, Ghost Busters, Strange Encounters of the Third Kind, Dungeons and Dragons and arcade games such as pac-man and space invaders.

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In the first season of ‘Stranger Things’, we met Eleven, a girl with telekinetic powers who has been caged and tormented in a research lab, and who opens the door way to ‘the upside down‘. This nightmarish world is a dark shadow of our own, a literal ‘upside down’ version of reality where dark things lurk and various innocents such as Will and Barb are drawn and even lost.

In Season 2, we see the characters each dealing with the after effects of their adventures in season 1. Will, still connected to the upside down, is seeing visions of the evil menace over Hawkins and he warns his friends. They believe he is simply experiencing post traumatic stress flashbacks however soon he becomes affected by the “shadow monster” as though possessed by a demonic power.

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Can Eleven and the gang stop the forces of evil again before it consumes their friend Will, their town Hawkins and maybe their entire world?

As mentioned in earlier Bear Skin posts, many stories have a doorway metaphor allowing protagonists to pass into a magical or mythical world of adventure.  Indeed, classics such as “Alice in Wonderland” or ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’, contain a literal door through which children pass into a magical land. Here a a battle of good and evil occurs, or at least a discovery of true self and courage. Other classics such as “Harry Potter” tell of parallel worlds [the worlds of muggles and of Witchcraft and Wizardry] which live in close relationship. Only the few special characters are able to navigate both and it is there the true battles of life and death are fought and won.

This metaphor duality of our world, of scientific objectivity on the one hand and the world of narrative and myth on the other, represents the division between the conscious and the subconscious, the natural and the supernatural. These stories and the journey of protagonists between worlds, through the doorway or portal, takes the reader or viewer on a journey into their own dream-state, to do battle with the evil which lurks there.

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‘Stranger Things’ and other doorway stories, shows how unexamined rationalism, or worlds without myth and legend, impoverish the mind and spirit. The ordinary world that denies the magical or mythical world does so to its own detriment. It seems that those who deny the chaos and disorder of the subconscious will eventually be ruled by it; 19th century humanist rationalism, ever optimistic about the greater and greater advancements of human knowledge, gave rise to the cruelty and chaotic destruction of the early 20th century regimes of Stalin, Hitler and Lenin.

And so what is the solution to our dilemma?

It is the hero who must bridge the two worlds, crossing between and doing battle with the forces or chaos within the subconscious. The hero-journey, so prevalent in narrative, myth and legend is the descent into the psyche as though into another world to encounter the monsters of chaos therein. The hero will face the beast he or she fears the most and there through acts of courage and often great sacrifice, vanquish them or contain them.

In returning, the hero can then seal up the fractured psyche, restoring the integrity of the soul. What magical force does this hero use? Well, the most powerful a mystical force available to humans – the force of love.

Blade Runner 2049

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The 1982 film classic Blade Runner, turns 35 this year. Set in 2019, its dystopian future paints a world destroyed by nuclear fallout, most animals and plantlife eliminated and many humans living in off-world colonies. This foreboding view of planet earth that has not yet eventuated…..Not yet.

While initially met with mixed reviews and a rather underwhelming box office performance, the film has subsequently become a cult classic and is now regarded by many critics as one of the best science fiction movies of all time.

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Why so?

This film noir/ femme fatale movie pays homage to the detective thrillers of the 1930s. Set in Los Angeles the film creates a kind of retrofitted futurism, in which old world charm, now decaying is mixed with neon-cyberpunk-holographic and artificially intelligent future. At the same time, the story plumbs the depths of Greek drama and Biblical epics in its exploration of themes of human hubris, mortality, memory and being.

Frankensteinian in its quest, the story asks “what makes us truly human?”

Originally titled, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the film now has a sequel, written by the same screenwriter Hampton Fancher, entitled Blade Runner 2049. Released in October 2017, the sequel staring Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling, has quickly chalked up $165 million in global revenue.

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Set 30 years after the original, little has changed thematically between the two films, however the quest for meaning deepens. Gosling plays K, a Nexus-9 model replicant of the Wallace corporation, engineered to be obedient. He works for the LAPD, and much like his predecessor Deckard [Ford], is a Blade Runner, responsible for hunting down and retiring old model replicants.

In his quest he finds the bones of a deceased female Nexus-7 replicant, who mysteriously, died during childbirth. This surprising discovery threatens to upset the tender balance between obedient replicants and their human creators. Consequently he is ordered to destroy the evidence by his superior, Lieutenant Joshi and to find the child and retire it.

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Troubled by the discovery and a burgeoning consciousness that “being born means having a soul,” K sets out on a journey to discover the child. He traces the child to an orphanage where his own memories alert him, memories he is convinced are implants, to a hidden toy with a date on it matching the birthdate of the missing child. Troubled by his memories he then tracks down Deckard, in hiding for nearly 30 years.

Challenged by the replicant freedom movement to kill Deckard, lest the identity of the missing child be revealed, K is left with the painful choice. K, who has fantasised about being a “real person” is left with a choice, which ultimately makes him a person with a soul or not.

Does he free Deckard or retire him as is his duty?

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Are we human because we have emotional responses? Are we human because we have memories ? Are we human because we can give birth ? or be born ? Are we human because we have a conscience and free will? Ultimately are we human because we desire life, we sense beauty, we feel sorrow, loss and wonder?

Or are we human because we sacrifice for others? This is almost the secret to all of life’s questions and so marvellously captured in this story.

Tuck Everlasting

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When Winnie Foster decides to run away, a rather curious set of adventures unfolds. The 10 year old is the rather lonely only child of the wealthiest family in Treegap, a small village on the edge of a rather mysterious wood.

One afternoon around twilight, Winnie and her grandmother hear mysterious music wafting from the wood and Grandma reports it is “fairy music” which she has heard throughout her life. Winnie’s curiosity is piqued as no one ventures into the private woods owned by her family; even the cows circle around the forest rather than passing through.

Winnie’s family are visited by a “man in a yellow suit” who is asking questions about families in the area. When Winnie shares about the fairy music from the wood the man questions her more closely, almost greedily.

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Despite her every move being monitored and scrutinsed by overbearing grandmother and mother, Winnie manages to escape her iron fenced yard one morning, to run away. She ventures into the forbidding wood only to discover a delightful grove and clearing with a giant tree and spring.

Here in the wood she meets 17 year old Jesse Tuck. What unfolds next is an adventure in which Winnie is “kidnapped” by the Tuck family for discovering their secret – a spring granting immortality.

The family share their story with Winnie of how they came across the the spring by mistake and have been frozen in time ever since, never ageing a day. They have kidnapped Winnie to protect the secret and intend to return her home once she agrees to protect their secret also.

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Little do they know that “man in a yellow suit” is following them and eavesdropping on their conversations. His intentions for the forest and the magical spring are less than pure and so Winnie, Jesse and the Tuck family must work together to thwart his plans to sell the spring water for profit.

Written in 1975 by Natalie Babbitt,  Tuck Everlasting has sold over 5 million copies and is listed as one of the “Teacher’s Top 100 Books for Children”. The story wrestles with some big questions about life including mortality, morality, land ownership, and love.

The Tucks attain what is so enviable, eternal life. And yet in the words of Angus Tuck, to stop ageing naturally is to become like a rock on the stream of life, unmoving along with all the other elements in dynamic relationship with each other. It is a constant grief to the Tucks to see life pass on without them and to live forever. At any cost they must stop the “man in the yellow suit” from selling to the public what seems so desirable and yet what would wreak havoc on space and time.

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Winnie too faces the decision to run away with the Tuck’s or to live on, a mortal life, and take with that the joys and sorrows of ageing and finally death. Natalie Babbitt’s story is a bitter-sweet meditation on the gift of life, the decisions of love and the mystery of nature including ageing and death.

The Neverending Story: Part II

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When Bastian hides in an attic to read a mysterious book, he discovers that this is no ordinary story……..the Neverending Story is a living book.

It tells of Fantasia, a land of magical creatures threatened by the Nothing. The Childlike Empress needs a new name and only a human child can grant it. Hardly believing what is going on and shivering in his damp attic, Bastian calls out the Childlike Empress’ new name and in doing so, he enters the Neverending Story.

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He finds himself a character within the story he was reading, Here, Bastian is handsome and bold, a boy equal in strength and courage to Atrayu. As saviour of Fantasia, he is granted AURYN, the gem of the Childlike Empress, inscribed with the words “Do As You Wish.”

Here, his imagination can create worlds. Everything he wishes, comes to pass.

Bastian is cautioned by the Childlike Empress to be aware that his wishes become realities, and these realities affect the fates of other Fantasians. Bastian can only govern Fantasia well when he considers deeply his desires and wishes only for what he truly wants.

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However, as Bastian grows in confidence, he becomes less and less aware of the deep desires that motivate him, and less careful of the consequences of his wishes. With every wish Bastian loses a memory of his former life. Atrayu points out, that without memory, Bastian cannot have a true will and without a will, he will lose himself.

Without a will, he cannot wish himself home again.

Can Atrayu save Bastian from his descent into madness? Will Bastian become trapped in Fantasia forever?

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Ende achieves in the second part of the Neverending Story, new insights of the significance of dream and myth to human health and happiness. Just as travelling into our dreams and subconscious is necessary for human health, a journey required to understand our deep complexes and to do battle with our subconscious fears, so too the converse journey is critical – the return to conscious life.

It is in the conscious world, our external world, where human relationships occur that the deep desires of the human heart are realised. Here we love, are loved, face external challenges and grow.

A person lost in dream or myth, or a person at the mercy of their fantasies and desires, without touch with the real world, is someone who eventually loses touch with their core identity, their memory, their will, even their own name.

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The maddened Bastian becomes so lost in his own fantasy that he needs a saviour, someone who can give him a name and restore enough will for him to remember his father and so desire to return home. Moreover, Bastian needs someone to remain in Fantasia to take responsibility for all the stories that his wishes have given life to.

Atrayu, despite being betrayed and wounded by Bastian steps in, reminds Bastian of his true name and in doing so restores him with enough will and memory to send him back to his conscious life.

It is Atrayu who remains in Fantasia to finish the story. And so Ende delivers the final note to his story. The true hero sacrifices himself so Bastian might have life.

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Atrayu is not a product of Bastian’s imagination. He is the character who drew Bastian into Fantasia, he was betrayed and wounded by Bastian his friend, and now as Bastian surrenders AURYN, at his wits end, Atrayu restores Bastian’s ‘self’ and ability to return to a life of relationship and being.

We need more heroes like Atrayu.

 

The Neverending Story: Part I ….

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When Bastian Balthazar Bux, a shy, fat and lonely school boy, steals a mysterious book from a mysterious book shop one rainy morning, and hides in an attic to read it – little does he know of the adventurous journey on which it would take him.
Lost in the world of Fantasia, Bastian reads of the adventures of Atrayu, a boy his own age and his friend Falkor the Luckdragon, as they seek a cure for the Childlike Empress. The Empress is dying and with her, the land of Fantasia, a place where every imaginary character of dream and story lives.
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What is the cause of the Nothing which threatens to consume all of Fantasia? Can Atrayu find the cure for the Empress and turn back the destruction it brings?
Michael Ende’s classic children’s tale, The Neverending Story was first published in 1979 and has been since made into several films. Originally a playwright, Ende is best known for his children’s stories which have sold over $35 million of copies worldwide and translated into over 40 languages.
The story is a rich tapestry of mythology and legend and like all good works of fantasy plumbs the depths of human identity and purpose via our dreams.
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Moreover, like the works of many fantasy writers of the 19th and 20th centuries, including JK Rowling, CS Lewis and JRR Tolkein, Michael Ende’s fantasy functions as a polemic against modernity, rationalism, pragmatism, and progress and calls readers back to values of the romantic era, values such as the the imagination, intuition, and the transcendent.
One such key message emerges in dialogue between Atrayu, our hero, and the wolf, Gmork, a servant of the Nothing. Gmork explains the relationship between the death of Fantasia and the world of humans.
Humans have stopped believing in Fantasia, Gmork explains, and because they have stopped believing, they have stopped visiting. It is human imagination which gives Fantasia its life and without their presence, Fantasians are perishing, consumed by the Nothing.
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When humans did visit, they were able to return to their own world and see it through a more magical lens. In this way, Fantasia and the human world are necessary sides of a coin, each needing the other.
The creatures of Fantasia are not only dying, but as they are consumed by the Nothing, they end up in the human world but not in their fantastical form, but in the form of the lies. They become the vain hopes and delusions of the human world such as ambition, greed and vice.
With this brief parable, Ende manages to sum up the modern malaise. Enlightenment and post-enlightenment rhetoric of the 1700s and 1800s, emphasised the rational and scientific, marginalising the role of religion, myth and legend to the realm of childhood or the primitive man.
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The result however was the impoverishment of the subconscious, the dreamscape and the deep psyche which when left unexamined, plagued modern man with unresolved issues such as depression, malaise, unacknowledged vices, greed, self obsession and nihilism.
The Neverending Story is “preaching” the value of dreams, imagination, and story as portals to the depths of the human heart.
Through stories and dreams we can come to know ourselves and we learn to restore our connectedness, a sense of something larger than ourselves,  trust in one another and a hope for our world.

Beauty and the Beast

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In 2017, a live action remake of Disney’s 1991 animation, Beauty and the Beast was released staring Emma Watson as Belle, Dan Stevens as the Beast and Emma Thompson, Ewan McGregor, Luke Evans, Ian McKellen, Kevin Kline [and more] in supporting roles.

Since its release [March ’17] the film has grossed over one billion dollars, making it the top earning  film of the year and the 28th top grossing film of all time.

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The story is taken from Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s eighteenth-century French fairy tale La Belle et La Bete, and has similarities to the Grimms Brothers’ tale Bear Skin [1812], with variants from Italy in Don Giovanni de la Fortuna and Italo Calvino’s The Devil’s Breeches [1956]. As I outline below there are resonating themes in Goethe’s Faust as well.

Of course, the moniker of this blog being Bear Skin, I cannot refuse an opportunity to examine the subtle layers of this story, its variants and its influences.

What causes this story to be so timeless and resonant? What themes and motifs strike a chord with generation after generation of viewers and readers?

The plot:

A wealthy Prince is punished for his hubris one night when a sorceress comes to him disguised as a beggar. He rejects her request for hospitality and is cursed to bear the form of a hideous beast, his whole household to become inanimate objects, his lands to descend into an eternal winter and the outside world to forget all about them.

The curse is irreversible unless the Beast find someone to truly love him despite his beastly appearance. The time limit is set by a single rose, which sheds a petal every year giving the Beast only a handful of years to restore his true form.

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Time passes until by some glitch of destiny, Belle’s elderly father stumbles through a lost forest pathway into the Beast’s territory. Caught by the Beast for trespassing and daring to steal a single rose for his daughter Belle, the old man is locked up in the tower dungeons.

The lone horse returns to Belle, alerting her of her father’s troubles. She urges the horse to take her to her father, and so Belle finds herself too, face to face with the fearsome Beast in his strange wintery kingdom. Bargaining the release of her father, Belle offers herself as single prisoner for her father’s crimes. The Beast agrees and Belle becomes his prisoner.

Here she discovers the house is alive with staff turned into inanimate items – clocks, dressers, tea pots and tea cups, candelabra, pianoforte, stools, hat-stands and more. The staff love and care for Belle and begin to pin their hopes upon the sweet girl for their redemption.

Indeed the gruff beast soon softens to the girl in his house, wondering if she could truly love him. Caring for his wounds after a wolf attack and sharing his love for his vast library, the two become friends and indeed for a while it seems they might truly fall in love.

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Back in the village, Belle’s father tells the locals of the Beast and with pompous Gaston, stirs them up to rescue Belle. However, selfish Gaston uses the old man’s ramblings about talking chairs and tables to lock up the old man in order that the glory of slaying the Beast might be his own.

With the help of a magic mirror, Belle sees her father’s trouble and begs the Beast to let her go. Because his love for her has grown so deep, the Beast releases her and in doing so, relinquishes any hope that he and his household can ever be freed of the curse.

The villagers storm the castle to kill the Beast and are gamely held off by the army of household items defending their master.

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Meanwhile, Belle arrives in the village to find and release her father. Having released him she immediately returns to the castle to defend the Beast. There she finds a showdown between Gaston and the Beast, who is mortally wounded.

Is she too late to tell the beast she loves him? Can the curse be lifted and all the land restored?

Other stories which resonate: 

The Brother’s Grimm fairy tale Bear Skin, tells of a man wandering alone and lost in the woods, who is offered untold wealth by the devil in exchange for the form of a beast. At the end of an allotted time the devil would return and claim the man’s soul unless within that time, he could, even with his beastly appearance, gain the true love of someone. The man is given bottomless pockets of money, but his beastly appearance prevents people from getting close.

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Can he find love? Can the curse be reversed?

An ancient German legend of Faust, later immortalised by Christopher Marlowe in The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus [1588] and by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Faust [1806] shows some similarities to these tales.

In this tale, an ambitious and successful scholar, Johann Faust, makes a pact with the devil to exchange unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures for his soul. He enjoys 24 years of limitless power, privilege, knowledge and influence before the devil returns to claim his soul.

In Marlowe’s version, Faustus is granted no grace and indeed refuses all opportunities to repent of his wager, due to his own understanding of the Calvinist doctrines of total depravity and of limited atonement. He simply acknowledges that all men are born to sin and the destiny of his soul is set and is dragged off to eternal suffering by the devils.

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Goethe’s later version had Faust saved from eternal damnation, not only by the grace of God but by the pleading intercessory prayers of Faust’s beloved Gretchen.

The Message:

In each story, the plight of the Prince/ Beast is the human predicament.  For all characters – the Beast, Faust and Bear Skin –  all live the consequences of their selfish and foolish actions, requiring “redemption” from the wickedness they sowed.

In Bear Skin and Faust, an arrogant or lost man is seduced by the devil to engage in a wager for his soul, for a time period during which power and privilege is offset with a beastly appearance and loss of true relationships.

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In Beauty and the Beast, The Prince’s hubris leads to a living “hell” – he retains his majesty but becomes an unlovable creature. He finds his actions not only ensnare him, but affect those around him, poisoning those he was in a close relationship with [household] and even the nature and the land in which he lived.

Each major religion or faith system seeks to address this challenge facing humanity – what is wrong with us, what ails our relationship with each other and with the environment and what is the solution?

According to Hindu teaching, humans are reborn endlessly, living the consequences of the sins of each of our lives finding no release unless we purify ourselves of attachment and hubris. According to Buddhist teaching, karma for our deeds follows us within this life time and into the next. Nirvana is found through renunciation and meditation.

In most wisdom teachings of the ancient world, human hubris affects our community and the natural world in which we live, immutably harming relationships and the environement.

According to the Hebrew faith, humans were created in perfect harmony, beautiful and noble but because of hubris, lost their innocence and became wanderers in the earth, wearing the skins of animals and becoming more and more depraved. Not unlike the story of Bear Skin or of Beauty and Beast, humanity is cursed to live out the consequences of their vice and greed, until something or someone shows them true love and redemption.

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As is often outlined in this blog, the “hero journey” is one in which a “hero” experiences a death trial  which they are reborn from, providing salvation for their community.

Here too we have Belle, a girl willing to sacrificially take the place of her father and become imprisoned to the fearsome beast in his wintry castle. There the Beast learns to love her to hope that one day she could love him too.

His test comes closest to his own point of redemption when he is challenged to let Belle go, essentially surrendering any chance of being restored. This act of surrender shows greater love than any show of power could.  He allows her to go and return to him, freely expressing her own love in return to him in his dying hour and turning back the curse.

So too, the Hebrew account of the Fall of man, is countered by the appearance of a “second Adam”, one who surrenders his own freedoms and life to reverse the curse that befalls all humans wearing “skins of animals” and cursed by broken relationships with each other and the environment.

This love story restores humans into their former glory, Princes and Princesses, and restores the eternal winter to spring and brings joy where there was mourning.

Doctor Strange [spoilers within]…

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The latest installment from Marvel Comics and Disney Studios is 2016’s Doctor Strange.

It tells of Doctor Stephen Strange, who is a brilliant but egotistical neurosurgeon who through a twist of misfortune ends up crippled and unable to perform surgeries.

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Much like Bruce Wayne’s genesis as Batman, Dr Strange journeys into the Himalayas to search out the Ancient One and learn the mystical arts of healing. 

Also, like many comic book and hero stories, Strange learns of unique giftings hidden within him and an uncanny aptitude to learn magic and sorcery. With the aide of a side kick and several magical items such as a levitating cloak and necklace which can bend time, Strange becomes a serious force to contend with in the magical realm.

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The story is classic hero journey.  A skeptical scientist carries the audience with him on a journey into mystery, thrown from his comfortable reality into the depths of dream and deep psyche. 

On this journey, he discovers mentors, allies, enemies and magical weapons and touchstones.

Strange’s story reaches denoument when he faces a choice – he can channel healing into his hands and return to love and career – or he can stay and battle forces of evil, a broken man the rest of his days. 

His choice to remain, carries him to the very nexus of evil, to face the Dormammu or the Dark Dimension.

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Herein lies on the most startling hero motifs of any sci-fi or fantasy I have seen for a long time. 

Doctor Strange with the aid of his time bending amulet, creates a loop of time in which he and Dormammu are trapped without end. In doing so, he willingly condemns himself to infinite death so that humanity may live.

Our hero takes infinite death that humanity might live……..

This saviour motif resonates time and time again, throughout stories, myths and legends of many cultures. Too many to recount. 

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All in all, the film relies too heavily on computer generated effects and the at times the plot is clumsily narrated through longwinded dialogue. Nevertheless the cast are brilliant and some genuinely witty interchanges brighten the story.

I give it – three out of five stars.

 

Where Are The Female Superheros

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A strong theme of Bear Skin is how narrative both reflects the world and shapes it. Story is educative, story asserts a view, story informs and we viewers and readers engage, and re-tell and become.

Deeply truthful stories are vital to good and strong society. This wonderful TED talk by Christopher Bell sums up the importance of this fact by addressing the place of strong female role models in narrative, not only for little girls, but also for little boys.

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But here’s the question that I have to ask. Why is it that when my daughter dresses up, whether it’s Groot or The Incredible Hulk, whether it’s Obi-Wan Kenobi or Darth Maul, why is every character she dresses up as a boy? And where are all the female superheroes? And that is not actually the question, because there’s plenty of female superheroes. My question really is, where is all the female superhero stuff?Where are the costumes? Where are the toys?

Because every day when my daughter plays when she dresses up, she’s learning stuff through a process that, in my own line of work, as a professor of media studies, we refer to as public pedagogy. That is, it is how societies are taught ideologies. It’s how you learned what it meant to be a man or a woman, what it meant to behave yourself in public, what it meant to be a patriot and have good manners. It’s all the constituent social relations that make us up as a people. It’s, in short, how we learn what we know about other people and about the world.

Momo

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Michael Ende is best known for his novel “The Never Ending Story” [1979] however, the German author was a prolific writer of fantasy and children’s fiction, selling more than 35 million copies of his works in his lifetime and having them adapted into  films, plays, operas and audio-books .

His fantasy novel Momo [1973], also known as The Grey Gentleman explores themes of modernism and materialism and the power of a young girl to simply give people a most valuable asset, her attention and time.

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Set on the outskirts of an unknown Mediterranean city, perhaps in Italy, the story centres around a neighbourhood of simple folk and an orphan, Momo.

Living in the ruins of an amphitheatre, Momo does not know how to read or write, nor does she know her own age. She however has a unique gift for truly listening to people. Momo is considered to be somewhat of an advisor to all the people of the neighbourhood for helping them solve their petty problems by simply listening.

Momo does not say much but her gentle ability to listen to people helps them untangle their problems themselves. Momo’s closest friends are Beppo, the street sweeper and Guido, a tour guide.

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Into the tranquil world of this community come the Men in Grey, bald men with greyish skin and grey suits who represent the Time Savings Bank. These men indoctrinate the people of this town to the value of ‘saving time’ which requires depositing time in accounts in order to gain interest on it.

Gradually, activities perceived to be time wasting such as socialising, art creation, imaginative playing or even sleeping begin to be replaced by hectic work and stress.

Momo remains immune to the powers of the Men in Grey. As her friends no longer come to her for counsel, she perceives the irony that the more time people save, the less time they have.

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Momo is assisted by curious creature called Cassiopeia, a tortoise who communicates with words illuminated on her shell and who has the gift of future-sightedness.  Cassiopeia introduces her to the Administrator of Time,  Professor Secundus Minutus Hora, who grants her one “hour lily”, freezing time for one hour, long enough for Momo to infiltrate the lair of the Men in Grey.

Momo discovers the the Men in Grey are not real humans but are in fact parasites living off the time deposited in their bank by people. The cigars they smoke are made from dried “hour lilies” deposited in the bank for saving and without these cigars, the Men in Grey perish.

It is Momo’s challenge to deprive the Men in Grey of their cigars while simultaneously releasing the trapped “hour lilies” kept in the bank for safe keeping, and return them to the people who have lost them.

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Written at the end of modernsim and at the cusp of post-modernism and the flowering of neo-spiritualism, Ende like the Romantics before him, lamented the gradual erasure of the mystical, spiritual or esoteric from human life in favour of utilitarianism, materialism and economic rationalism.

To Michael Ende, children such as Momo are unique symbols of resistance to adult preoccupations such as materialism, work, stress and time saving.

His story is an essay to the magic of friendship, the importance of time, the power of stories, the significance of compassion and the value of the small but pleasant things that make life more worth living.

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Our unlikely hero is Momo, whose invincibility lies in the fact that her childish imagination can see through the Men in Grey, and her love for her friends leads her to courageously challenge the establishment which would rob them of their most precious asset -time.