Joseph Campbell: Useful for writers or not?

[nolan]

Throw your opinions out there (although on any board vaguely related to comics, I doubt this is a problem).

Is Joseph Campbell (and, by extension, Northup Frye and all the other people in that line of criticism) actually someone who presents things useful for writers?

And if you don't think Campbell is useful for writers, what sort of criticism do you think they should read instead?

And I do get the feeling that this will come down to almost all the screenwriters being pro-Campbel.

Honestly, I don't think its particularly useful for writers. Its the kind of things that is so clear cut and simplistic in how it sees things that it seems like it is only useful to writers by way of knowing what studio executives want to see.

I'd probbaly recommedn that people read Baudrillard instead of Campbell. I found his notions of hyperreality much more useful for constructing narratives. Definatley some Althusser and Marxist criticism. And Foucault probably says at least one useful thing about any topic.

[jayvee]

THIS Joseph Campbell: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell ?

[nolan]

Yes that one.

Although the soup founder might actually be more useful

[jstevenson]

nolan said:

Is Joseph Campbell (and, by extension, Northup Frye and all the other people in that line of criticism) actually someone who presents things useful for writers?

If you're writing about early cultures and want to get a good feel for those people and their development of and connection to mythology, then yes, his "The Masks of Gods" series can be very insightful from the sociological, anthropological, and psychological standpoints. If you mean, "The Hero With a Thousand Faces," then see below...

And I do get the feeling that this will come down to almost all the screenwriters being pro-Campbel.

Honestly, I don't think its particularly useful for writers. Its the kind of things that is so clear cut and simplistic in how it sees things that it seems like it is only useful to writers by way of knowing what studio executives want to see.

Exactly... what studio execs want to see. Every writer's going to have their own way of writing. Writers love the freedom to express themselves and indulge their creativity in their own way (without having to subject themselves to a specific structure), but there's a reason why most of the screenwriters will know about Campbell (or at least be familiar with his book along with the likes of McKee and Vogler)... they want to sell their stories. It's as simple as that. Campbell's structure and terminology gives the execs something to gauge a work and a writer by. If they ask about where some element of Campbell's mythology occurs in your story and get a blank stare in response, they'll start doubting the level of professionalism in your work and your seriousness to your craft.

I know it's silly, but that's how things happen out there. Someone breaks down the structure of blockbusters/bestsellers to show that they have these elements, and the studio execs want blockbusters... so some will use that structure/methodology as their divining rod for finding blockbuster movies (or just writers that can create blockbuster movies). And you don't have to follow the guidelines of those concepts and structures. Just be familiar enough with them to be able to map your story into the structure afterwards... to be able to talk the talk. Knowledge is power.

[nolan]

Jeffrey,

I was talking more about that side of Campbell.

See, it always struck me as something more useful for studio executives then actual writers. And, frankly, with more and more non-Western works being translated in to English, the less "universal" it really actually is.

[jstevenson]

nolan said:

And, frankly, with more and more non-Western works being translated in to English, the less "universal" it really actually is.

Well, Campbell's concepts are based on common structures and elements seen in mythological stories and legends around the world. Since it can link back to myths from most cultures, it gives the studio execs something common between different cultures to map into (so they can better understand it).

[nolan]

jstevenson said:

nolan said:

And, frankly, with more and more non-Western works being translated in to English, the less "universal" it really actually is.

Well, Campbell's concepts are based on common structures and elements seen in mythological stories and legends around the world. Since it can link back to myths from most cultures, it gives the studio execs something common between different cultures to map into (so they can better understand it).

But the trouble is that there's not a lot in Campbell that makes sense without appealing to either a Jungian collective unconscious or some sort of a universal concept (and, well, I'm skeptical of anything that claims to be universal because its mostly the people in power who define what things are universal).

I think that it becomes much more quesitonable if you start to look at the fact that, while there are certain similarities, they more likely came from a paralell evolution rather then an appeal to a Jungian unconsciousness. And any attempt to try to define them in to what are essentially Western created categories neglects the basic social structures that led to that paralell evolution.

I'll give you this analogy. If I wanted to look at zoology the way Campbell looks at mythic structures, I'll take a look at the superpredators. I'd be grouping together bears, lions, tigers, sharks, crocodiles and uh...whatever else might occupy that portion of the food chain in any given area. But I'd be neglecting the evolutionary reasons why those creatures came to occupy a similar niche in different ecosystems and failing to look at the different ways in which they adapted to hunt.

[jstevenson]

nolan said:

I'll give you this analogy. If I wanted to look at zoology the way Campbell looks at mythic structures, I'll take a look at the superpredators. I'd be grouping together bears, lions, tigers, sharks, crocodiles and uh...whatever else might occupy that portion of the food chain in any given area. But I'd be neglecting the evolutionary reasons why those creatures came to occupy a similar niche in different ecosystems and failing to look at the different ways in which they adapted to hunt.

And that's the kind of things Campbell builds up in "The Masks of Gods," which is probably why I look at his other book from a slightly different perspective. And yeah, without that background, I can see how it'd probably feel like it's abstracted at too high of a level for a common globe-spanning structure.

I'm one of those Jungian collective unconsciousness types. When you're working on getting more writing out there, you just see all that synchronicity happen far too often to turn a blind eye to it... or you get paranoid thinking other writers having your house bugged. ^_^

[nolan]

jstevenson said:

nolan said:

I'll give you this analogy. If I wanted to look at zoology the way Campbell looks at mythic structures, I'll take a look at the superpredators. I'd be grouping together bears, lions, tigers, sharks, crocodiles and uh...whatever else might occupy that portion of the food chain in any given area. But I'd be neglecting the evolutionary reasons why those creatures came to occupy a similar niche in different ecosystems and failing to look at the different ways in which they adapted to hunt.

And that's the kind of things Campbell builds up in "The Masks of Gods," which is probably why I look at his other book from a slightly different perspective. And yeah, without that background, I can see how it'd probably feel like it's abstracted at too high of a level for a common globe-spanning structure.

I'm one of those Jungian collective unconsciousness types. When you're working on getting more writing out there, you just see all that synchronicity happen far too often to turn a blind eye to it... or you get paranoid thinking other writers having your house bugged. ^_^

I chalk it up to coincidence really.

Or the fact that I would be drawing from the same influences as someone else without knowing it.

According to Ockham's Razor, both of those make a lot more sense.