No antagonist - no stakes - Two Famous Films - Story Structure

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  • No antagonist - no stakes - Two Famous Films - Story Structure

    Apologies if this should be in the "film" section, I've placed the thread here because it's to do with the story structure rather than reviewing the films.

    I recently watched two American modern classics: Legally Blonde and Clueless and apart from being underwhelmed I was surprised by their lack of the vital ingredients for a compelling story. Before I continue, please note that I'm not advocating a cynical paint-by-numbers approach.

    Clueless
    An intelligent but vacuous rich girl, very popular, takes a new girl under her wing. New girl becomes popular and there's one scene where Alicia Silverstone seems annoyed. I thought the film would show her losing her elite status - that the new girl would outshine her or even take her place - and that would be the obstacles and antagonist that she'd need to overcome whilst overcoming internal obstacles and undergoing a character arc. So I expected she'd either win out, reclaim her crown, but developing as a person along the way (as per Dan Aykroyd in Trading Places) or she'd realise that being a popular high school girl isn't cool anymore and be a better person for it. In both scenarios I expected her to end up with the Paul Rudd character.

    However nothing of the sort happens. Apart from a bit of an argument between the two over Paul Rudd, the new girl stays as her friend and protege and Alicia gets Paul Rudd all to herself. No major drams, no fall from grace/fish out of water/mountain to climb situations, no antagonist, and no stakes. It's a very tepid tale with very mild conflict (if you can even call it that) and very mild character development where Alicia realises she fancies Paul. And I am completely flabbergasted how this film was greenlit let alone such a hit.

    Legally Blonde
    Vacuous, popular rich girl enrols in college to win back her ex by showing him she's smart and serious. So far so good. I expect she'll find it tough and she does - specifically with one lecturer who seemingly takes a dislike to her and her charm offensives that worked so well in her former life. I expected her to begin to knuckle down and make headway - which she does by being invited to join in on a murder trial - whilst seeing her old vapid lifestyle help out, as it did when she talks liposuction to make a killer point for the defence but I expected more conflict, more obstacles and more of a need to dig deep. I thought this was going to come when her love rival for her ex tries to sabotage her. This was her arch nemesis, right? Err, no. Very quickly, the love rival discovers the protag is a sweet, helpful person.

    She isn't discredited, thrown off the team, or thrown out of college, dreams in tatters and with seemingly no hope. The chief prosecutor didn't fall ill, requiting blondie to step up to lead the charge and not only win the case but prove to herself that she's the real deal. So again, no major drama, obstacles, antagonists or change and I'm surprised that none of these things were mentioned in the development stage. It's not a case of "it defied your expectations because you expected cookie cutter formulae", it's just that you expect inner and outer conflict, decent stakes, that sudden point of imminent defeat just before the finale and the inner struggle to overcome the outer struggle as per Rocky, Home Alone, Raiders of the Lost Ark etc.
    M.A.G.A.

  • #2
    I don't know what the overall point is -- I assume you have a similar spec and getting feedback like "no stakes" -- but then you say but these famous movies didn't have them either? I've been there. But comparing yourself to finished movies is tough when we are on the unsold spec writer side of the aisle. We have to be better than they are!

    However, I will say, LEGALLY BLONDE is one of my all time favorites and I think has plenty of conflict/stakes. He boyfriend dumps her, so she has to get into Harvard, then no one believes in her because she's just a dumb blonde with an orange ibook that doesn't fit in, but of course she proves them wrong -- the new girlfriend is an antagonist for most of the movie until the end, the bad professor literally sexual harasses her and confirms all her fears that he was only letting her on the team to sleep with her, but what happens, she takes over the case and wins it using smarts and her knowledge about hair -- combining both her talents!

    So she had her ex-boyfriend, his new girlfriend and the jerk professor, not to mention the court case itself to win in her way... for a comedy, it was pretty loaded I'd say.



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    • #3
      I think you're looking at both of these through the wrong lens. They're both coming of age stories with internal struggles. In Clueless, it's about her arrogance and lack of awareness; in Legally Blonde, it's about someone who doesn't value herself and thinks she needs to define herself through her relationship with a man.

      Clueless is the story about someone who thinks her life is perfect and she can judge and fix other people's lives, because she's such a great judge of character. She's vain and self absorbed. Her arrogance is upended - she thinks she's a matchmaker, but she can't even tell the guy she's expertly maneuvering to be her boyfriend is gay. She ends up making an unpopular girl popular - and that girl goes after the man she realizes she loves. She knows she can't get him because he likes women of substance, so she recreates herself into someone worthy.

      Legally Blonde is about an intelligent woman who thinks the ultimate prize is to be a wife of a powerful man, not to accomplish anything herself. She changes her whole future to chase him and impress him. She comes to realize that she should be successful in her own right, and not just a prize for a man, and lands a man who values her because of what she accomplishes, not how she looks.

      In both cases, the women are both the protagonist and the antagonist. They "defeat themselves" and become different, better people than they were at the start of the movie. They both chase the wrong man when they're broken; when they "fix" themselves, they get the right man.

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      • #4
        Listen to Bono and Jeff. I've watched Legally Blonde over and over again, and I think it has a lot of stakes. The fact that you got the details of the climax scene wrong leads me to wonder if you didn't watch the movie closely enough? The climax court scene is not about liposuction...

        Because isn't it the first cardinal rule of perm maintenance that you're forbidden to wet your hair for at least 24-hours after getting a perm at the risk of deactivating the ammonium thiogylcate?

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        • #5
          What Jeff said. I'd only add: comparing two coming of age stories to Rocky and Raiders? Huh? The Home Alone kid had a deep inner struggle? Huh?

          I'm getting cranky so I'll stop here. Maybe my sugar is low.
          Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

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          • #6
            In Legally Blonde the stakes are high for the protagonist-- the very idea that she is not the wife of a prominent man would be the greatest humiliation in her entire life; her greatest failure. The stakes are incredible from her point of view, and that's what I think you may be missing, it's now about our stakes the story is about her distorted view of what is important.

            She wants the prestigious husband because that's all she's been taught to want. As she struggles to obtain that physical goal, the husband she desires, she becomes self-aware and learns to value herself. Once she does that, she understands that she doesn't need him to BE someone valuable; she IS valuable.

            I'm not often drawn to this kind of film, but I have to say, I've always enjoyed LB.
            "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy b/c you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." -- Edward Snowden

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            • #7
              Originally posted by finalact4 View Post
              In Legally Blonde the stakes are high for the protagonist-- the very idea that she is not the wife of a prominent man would be the greatest humiliation in her entire life; her greatest failure. The stakes are incredible from her point of view, and that's what I think you may be missing, it's now about our stakes the story is about her distorted view of what is important.

              She wants the prestigious husband because that's all she's been taught to want. As she struggles to obtain that physical goal, the husband she desires, she becomes self-aware and learns to value herself. Once she does that, she understands that she doesn't need him to BE someone valuable; she IS valuable.

              I'm not often drawn to this kind of film, but I have to say, I've always enjoyed LB.
              This.100%. I got pulled into a real life tragedy version of this issue. I worked with a guy who upended his fiance's life to relocate for his job at our agency. Like him she was an art director (more talented than he was IMO).

              I met her at one of the office parties and occasionally (since she was new in town and didn't know anyone), she asked me to lunch. Then he broke up with her. He wanted his mother's ring back. And he gave her a month to figure out her next step. I had lunch with her only once after this happened. Sure she was depressed -- they'd been together for years but I didn't see it coming.

              She moved out of state and we occasionally talked on the phone. She landed a great job making more than him. But she still seemed down. And she made one comment that only clicked in hindsight: "I can't imagine my life without him."

              She took her own life. And the only reason he was contacted was because she still used him as her emergency contact.

              I still feel bad about it. At the core of Legally Blonde is common self-value issue for women.
              Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

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              • #8
                Small world! Clueless is Emma!

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                • #9

                  Originally posted by JeffLowell View Post
                  I think you're looking at both of these through the wrong lens. They're both coming of age stories with internal struggles. In Clueless, it's about her arrogance and lack of awareness; in Legally Blonde, it's about someone who doesn't value herself and thinks she needs to define herself through her relationship with a man.
                  I get that they're coming of age stories, I just didn't think they had enough 'oomph' to them. I enjoyed your explanation of Clueless and I missed the 'she thinks she's so great but can't see that her crush is gay' angle. I think it did a better job of it's material than Legally Blonde, too. I still think Legally Blonde missed an opportunity in not having the love rival be more of a threat, putting her dream of graduating at risk, where she saves herself by heroically powering through. The best I can say about them is that they're 'gentle' fun. My Cousin Vinny did it so much better and had the elements I felt were missing from LB, making Vinny's ultimate triumph much more emphatic and rousing.


                  Originally posted by Bono View Post
                  I don't know what the overall point is -- I assume you have a similar spec and getting feedback like "no stakes"
                  Nope. Just a discussion based on two films I watched and was confused by.

                  M.A.G.A.

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                  • #10
                    I think the romantic rival in LB would only work as a bigger threat if the movie was about her defeating the rival and getting the guy. It was a movie about discovering that the guy she'd build her life around was wrong for her.

                    That said, I know I'm never going to talk anyone into liking a movie. It certainly is aimed at a specific demo.

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                    • #11
                      If you want to procrastinate from your writing, go to ScriptShadow's site and search for no stakes, no goal, no urgency (his GSU) discussions. He has some interesting thoughts on those elements -- or lack thereof.

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