It’s a humid afternoon as I write this post and things still suck in my country but then again, everyone’s country kind of sucks in one way or another. Those who are citizens of first world countries still lament that they aren’t yet millionaires, so who am I to complain? This post was supposed to be my participation in the @ocd challenge but then again I realized that I wasn’t cut out for writing SEO content. I guess I’m not just that type of writer yet, maybe soon, hopefully. So I decided to do this instead, to stick with what I know how to do and what I enjoy writing about, if you can even call this writing; that is ranting about all the terrible things I watched in movies aka critiquing films and praising all the things I assumed to be great about them.
So instead of focusing on a bad movie, today I will be focusing on a great movie, (well TV show is a more apt description) and with it I’m going to attempt (emphasis on attempt) to show how to write a compelling story that tackles complex themes without crumbling the story on its head.. It’s not going to be easy but just hear me out; I’m probably going to mess this up but still just hear me out and forgive me ahead of time. Also I want to send a special shout out to @notacinephile, your posts and our conversations made me realize the need to put this out there, even though to be quite honest the likely hood of a big Hollywood executive seeing this and implementing it into his/her film is infinitesimal… But hey, cheers to the universe I guess.
DISCLAIMER: THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU DON’T WANT ANY SPOILERS FOR THE CINEMAX SHOW WARRIORS DO NOT READ PAST THIS POINT
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So Warriors; a TV show directed by Justin Lin in its first season and Jonathan Tropper in the second, stars Andrew Koji as our boy Ah Sahm, Dianne Doan as Mia Liang and Joe Taslim as Sub-zero (wait sorry wrong franchise) Joe Taslim as Li Yong. It’s based of the writings of Bruce Lee (the goat) and has his daughter Shannon Lee (yes his biological daughter) as its executive producer. It’s a story centered on the adventures of a young Chinese martial art immigrant who moves into San Francisco in the 1870s and finds himself sold to a tong (a chinese drug cartel) for his fighting skills (my boy if you haven’t guessed it by now is one mean scrapper).
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He also sadly discovers that his long lost sister is not only a member of the opposing tong, but also the wife of the leader and subsequently the leader of the opposing tong. Our boy is forced to choose either his sister or the new life he has made for himself in Chinatown. Beyond the story of Ah Sahm however, we also follows the lives of other characters, like Bill O’Hara the corrupt police lieutenant struggling to feed his family, Henry Lee the murderer slave liberator who seeks a new life policing in San Francisco and other interesting characters whose stories all interconnect to give us the story of the show or as a like to call it, the story of Chinatown. You see in telling not just the story of our main character but the story of Chinatown this show I believe provides us a template on how to write a story depicting a social issue. So let’s look at the story of Chinatown, let’s see how to realistically depict social issues in your stories without messing up the story. Let’s look at how to write Racism
Complex themes are complex for a reason they aren’t as simple as white and black: Interpretation
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One major mistake many script writers make when attempting to add social commentary to a story is shaping the story to suite their interpretation of social issues or complex themes instead of studying and understanding the true nature of said social issues and correctly interpreting them. In other words, they have a wrong interpretation of these issues. Let’s look at the story of Chinatown in Warriors for an example and see how they got this right.
In the story of Chinatown, racism is a theme that is examined; but instead of depicting racism as other shows usually would i.e. creating a character and having other characters hate him for no other apparent reason that he is of a different race, this show examines more deeply the reasons why racism exists in San Francisco precisely, specifically, the racism the Irish show towards the Chinese. It establishes that the animosity the Irish feel towards the Chinese is not one founded on the simple reason that they are a people of a different race or tribe but rather on the fact that the coming of the Chinese immigrants directly affects the job security and the livelihood of poor Irish families who are dependent on daily jobs for survival.
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The Chinese on the other hand who emigrate into America from China do so because of the poverty, famine, wars and woes of living in China in 1870 and their hopes of finding a better life America; the same reasons why the Irish initially immigrated to America, the land of opportunity. The arriving Chinese immigrants are beginning to take the jobs of these immigrant Irish folk who not only feel dissatisfied by also betrayed because their belief that their participation in the American Civil war qualifies them, to be seen as citizens of this “new found” country. This is the core reason for their hatred of the Chinese; this is the foundation of their racism and prejudice against the Chinese and other races as well. They aren’t racist towards Chinese simply because China is bad and Ireland is good no, not that; instead it is because Chinese immigrants provide cheaper labour for hire by rich business men and this inadvertently means lesser employment and no work and pay for the Irish and their families.
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The moral of this story; when writing about complex themes such as identity, culture, race and racism, community and the likes, film makers must properly represent and interpret ideas as what they truly are and not what they presume they are. People don’t hate people because people because people are different, they hate people because they misunderstand and misinterpret people.
Characters actions direct the plot; the plot tells the story; the story conveys the complex themes: Interrelationship and Interaction
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What am I saying? Another thing warriors get right is the relationship and interaction between the characters, the plot and the story of the show. In the series the plot is defined by the actions of each character. The plot is not exclusive from the characters; everything that happens on the show which constitutes the plot is as a result of characters actions. The show has this unique way of linking character traits with the plot in the sense that characters weren’t necessarily dickheads because the story needed a dickheads (well with the exception of Mayor Samuel Blake he was just an asshole for no clear reason, the show did give him his comeuppance in the end though and it was beautifully done).They were what they were because their traits influenced by their actions as well as the actions of others in the show, which in all shapes and crafts the plot.
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For example Ah Sahm is tricked by the Chao and is trapped into working for the Hop Wei (the tong I told you about) thereby inadvertently becoming his long lost sister enemy, his sister is forced to marry a ruthless warlord to save his (Ah Sahm’s life), she escapes and ends up as wife of a tong leader and finally as a tong leader herself unfortunately it is the rival tong of her brother making the two siblings enemies. Ah Toy is a brothel manager by day and a killer by night because of the cruel treatment of the irish toward the chinese leaving in San Francisco, Leary and the irish hate the chinese because they threaten their jobs, the chinese hate the irish because the irish are hostile to them, so and so forth, you get the point. I’m pointing out how the show lets us see how characters actions influence the plot which in turn influences the story which in turn conveys the complex themes; in this case that of racism and social injustices.
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This way all the characters we follow have a depth to them, they aren’t shallow and meaningless as in following the story we realize what each of their motivations thereby making them more understandable and relatable. This is one way you can properly write about complex themes in a movie, by focusing on the characters, whose actions direct the plot. This is a far better approach I believe that focusing on the plot and the story exclusively while completely detaching character choices from the story like we see in 2019s Charlie’s Angel. I hope that makes some sense.
Character motives and motivations reflect a deeper understanding of political ideologies: Intentions
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The third and finally thing I will be touching on is how the show establishes the motives, motivations and intentions of each major character and uses them as tools to portray the complex theme.
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For example let’s look at one of my favorite characters of the show, Penelope Blake, the wife of the asshole mayor. She gets married to him not because women in 1870 San Francisco are meant for nothing but marriage but because she wants to save her father’s struggling company by being the wife of the serving mayor, thereby making her father favorable for more contracts issued by the government. Because of this decision she suffers greatly as she is not taken seriously by her husband who only sees her as nothing more than a status symbol and whom she deeply resents all for her love for her father and his well-being though one might argue that it is a selfish decision, it is not one she makes for herself but for her father as she seriously hates the mayor. Which is why when her father eventually dies and she takes up the company we are relieve and happy to see her finally leave the shackles of a sham marriage albeit to face greater enemies. Her story is made more meaningful to use because we are made to see and understand her intentions and this intention directly ties to the complex themes of the story.
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Another instance of this is the final fight between Leary and Ah Sahm. When this fight finally happens we are so invested in it because it represents the motivations of these two groups of people (Irish and Chinese) finally facing each other head on after all the multiple squabbles that have happened between them in the past two seasons; and that, that is how you tell a compelling story that addresses a complex theme. You do it, by establishing character motives and motivations which you use to represent the complex theme you want to talk about. Don’t just create a villain or a hero with no clear intentions, instead show us a villain who wants to take down our hero because his wife and child’s life depends on it and show him have his wife and child taken away from him so that we can see and know his intentions. Establish characters as more than just good and evil by making their motives compelling. Make their motives define their actions; their actions define the plot, the plot tell the story and the story convey the theme. Like they did in Warriors
Alright that’s enough. We are way past the one thousand five hundred words mark (by over 500 words). I should shut up now. Thank you so much for reading and please don’t forget to air your thoughts in the comment section and leave an upvote. Excelsior
