Gladiator and the Monomyth

Before watching Gladiator I was a little skeptical on how closely it would follow the monomyth considering that Gladiator is based on real historical events and people. I was pleasantly surprised when trying to piece together the monomyth for this movie. It follows the monomyth even more closely than "Batman; The Dark Knight," which is a work of fiction. In Batman there is no refusal of the call. Bruce Wayne needs Batman just as much as Gotham does. Maximus however is your stereotypical hero. He was not born a Hero. Heroism was thrust upon him. He was unwilling to become mixed up in the political squabbles of Rome and wished most dearly to return to his house and farm. The monomyth becomes very predictable in gladiator such as the Initiation, which is when Maximus becomes a Gladiaor and fights in North Africa. Batman is a little less obvious. Joker puts Batman through emotional trials. My groups interpretation of Gladiator I believe is pretty spot on because it's pretty simple movie. The "Dark Knight Rises" is probably pretty difficult to do since its the second movie in a trilogy. For example I believe the freedom to live is not for Batman, he is chained to that identity. The freedom to live is for the people of Gotham. I also disagree with Batman's apotheosis being when he gives up his title of Hero. That doesn't make him godlike just incredibly selfless.

Overall I believe the monomyth is a good structure for defining stories with Hero's, but not all stories have Heroes. A Hero must have a story, but a story must not always have a hero.

My thought about the Monomyth

After looking at many comics and superhero stories throughout the last few decades I've come to realize that most of the extremely well known comics seem to follow the monomyth a lot better than the comics and stories that are a little more under the radar. Most of the most popular superhero stories of all time seem to also follow the monomyth fairly well as well while some deviate a little bit. Movies are in the same category as these comics including some of the most classic movies like Shawshank Redemption and Rocky. After finishing Beowulf and discussing it with many different people with different perspectives I have decided that while Beowulf is considered one of the first superhero stories I believe that it follows the monomyth extremely well. As a community it seems as if we are more interested in stories that follow the monomyth opposed to stories that deviate from the path that is the monomyth. Do you agree that we like stories that follow the monomyth more?

Lego Movie and the Monomyth

 I feel as though the Lego movie fit very well with the mono myth. The main character, Emmit is the hero and he started out as a construction worker. This mono myth fits Emmit's story because there is an evident threshold between the real and the special world. He falls down a hole in his construction site to show this.

Later, when Emmit becomes the special, he sacrificed himself to stop Mr. Business. At this point Emmit's actions make him a hero. It fits the mono myth because of the fight with the bad cop forces being the road of trials and the sacrifice is his atonement, becoming god like. He is even able to see the human who created his world. This gave him the strength to melt Mr. Business's icy heart.

Monomyth blogger post

My group and I approached this spread sheet in about the same way as other groups. We took the different aspects quite literally, as lots of other groups did. The only thing that I saw that was rather different from what other groups did was the "road of trials" aspect of the Monmouth. In my movie (The Interview), the training with the poison strip is rather obvious. I took this aspect literally, but I saw some approaches that didn't do the same as me. With American Sniper, for example, the group said that the road of trials was killing the first two people and not the actual training that Chris Kyle did. I thought that this was rather interesting, as the first exposure to action was the road of trials. I think that this has more to do with the approach of understanding the different aspects of the monomyth.

The Dark Knight and the Monomyth

I think overall, Joseph Campbell’s “Monomyth” applies to every story in a different way. Of course not every story is going to be able to fit one element into each one of the categories of the monomyth chart. I think Joseph Campbell created it as a sort of general outline for all stories involving a hero. Originally when choosing “Batman: The Dark Knight”, our group thought it would be fairly easy to fill out the chart. Batman, being the typical “superhero” story, we thought it would fit the monomyth perfectly. However, it was actually a pretty hard task to fill out each section of the chart. 

I think one of the most difficult parts of the project for our group was that the film is part of a trilogy and we chose the second movie, thinking it would be the easiest to fill the monomyth. However looking back, I think we should have chosen an entirely different movie that wasn’t part of a series. Looking at the movies other groups chose, I realize that choosing a movie that’s part of a series was not the best idea. 

This is probably because there are elements of the monomyth that can be filled out with information from the other movies in the series. At that point it becomes confusing as to which movie you’re talking about. 

Overall, I think everyone did a pretty good job applying their movies to the monomyth. I also noticed that there are some sections in the chart that people didn’t fill out or didn’t think applied to their movie. I thought this was interesting since not every movie has aspects that fit perfectly into these exact categories. I think I learned from this project that Joseph Campbell’s monomyth probably applies to individual stories, not based in a series. 

Another blog post about the monomyth

This exercise disrupted my perception of the monomyth's universality. As other members of my group have mentioned, we concluded that the Dark Knight was intended to not encompass the myth in whole, but a specific section of the three-part structure. A debate in class over whether our approach synchronized with the monomyth's intentions-- because it did not embody the myth in full-- brought up points about the validity of the generalizations that occurred when attempting to apply the myth. I believe that Chris Nolan's Batman trilogy as a complete volume does perfectly adhere to the monomyth structure. However, the Dark Knight does not. When I tried to force the skeleton of the myth into the body of the plot, it came to my attention that the monomyth in full demands a sense of completion. To "return" is to both achieve reconciliation with and departure from the world of adventure. Some enlightenment has been attained in the other world that transforms and betters the hero's existence in the ordinary, hence "master of two worlds." The Dark Knight ends with the death and moral demise of Harvey Dent, along with Batman's hopes for a peaceful return to the ordinary world. Order has not been restored to Gotham, and the hero's internal discord has not been resolved.

But the structure itself deserves scrutiny. Is it a storyline or a collection of motifs? By using a "universal" standard of comparison, are we finding what we expect to find or what is actually there? By insisting upon generalization, whatever cultural context and specific meaning a myth has is subordinated to a structure that was forged from a unilateral Western perspective. Furthermore, by assuming that the monomyth must be found in every modern or classical narrative, we risk forcibly reinterpreting the architecture of a story and imposing a specific meaning on perceived "similarities" that may have a markedly different cultural designation.

On another note, the only movie examined by another group whose plot I recall well enough to have input is Spirited Away. The two disagreements I had with that group's analysis were "crossing the first threshold" and "belly of the whale." I identify the first threshold as applicable to either one of two physical boundaries: when Sen and her family enter the train station, or when they cross the dried up river that marks the beginning of the amusement park grounds. I tend towards the latter because it has more symmetry with my choice for the belly of the whale. To me, it is the point at which there is no turning back-- in Spirited Away, when evening falls and the spirit world becomes manifest, the transformation of the sterile riverbed into a large body of water prevents return to Sen's old world.

The Monomyth in Modern Film

After learning about the mono-myth I started to look at our modern films in a different light. Almost every one of our "modern" (last 50 years) films can be placed into the mold of the mono myth. However some stories only fit if you look at the whole series of movies instead of and individual film. An example of this would be the Dark Knight trilogy, when looked at through the lens of the whole trilogy it easily fits into the mono myth template but, as we found out,  if you try to make the mono myth fit for a single part of the trilogy you have to resort to stretching meanings of scenes to fit.
I agree with the group who did "The Interview". There analysis was, in my opinion very good although I do disagree with some of their choices. When they say the road of trials is their training with the CIA, I always thought the road of trials was when they need another strip of poison to be airdropped to them by the CIA and they have to retrieve it. I do agree strongly with the idea that when Kim mentions his relationship with his father he is undergoing the atonement.  Similarly to that, in the group that analyzed guardians of the galaxy, I strongly agree with the idea that of the characters not reverting back to the criminals or outcasts they were at the start is the refusal of return. One thought I had was; is could the call to adventure when Peter Quill is abducted by aliens in the early stages of his childhood or when he initially steals the orb as a grown man?

When analyzing James Bond movies and placing them into the mono myth I found that they are all uniform in the sense of sequence of events. If you watch the earlier movie in the James Bond series the format for the plot is always the same you will just have different bad guys. Did Ian Fleming write the James Bond books with the knowledge of the mono myth structure for each story?
As can be seen by our work many if not all films that we see in the modern time can be conformed to the mono myth.  

 

Does Batman: The Dark Knight truly fit the monomyth?

When my group got together a few weeks back and racked our brains to find a movie which would easily fit the monomyth rubric, thus not requiring as much effort, we decided to choose our favorite Batman film from Nolan's trilogy, Batman: The Dark Knight. We assumed that due to the fact that this was a simple action movie(one of the best I've ever seen, but an action movie nonetheless), we thought that it would strictly follow this monomyth. To our surprise, upon completion of the film and meeting together as a group, we realized that the trilogy itself acted as the monomyth while each of the three films acted as one of the steps described in the monomyth. Batman: The Dark Knight, the second of the series acts as the Initiation step. Despite having a rather heated discussion with Mr. Farrenkopf during class as to if it was fair to say that The Dark Knight, while telling a story does not necessarily fit the monomyth, I continue to hold true to my belief that maybe not all hero films necessarily fit this monomyth, at least in its' entirety.
As a result, upon looking at what the other groups put in their doc spreadsheet, it is evident that my group approached the monomyth from a different angle as we tried to fit this movie into one of the STEPS of the monomyth rather than smash it into the entire rubric itself.

With the exception of Casino Royale(which is not really a continuation of the other Bond movies), all of the other groups chose a standalone film, which as a result, made it quite easy for them to fit their film into the broad monomyth format. This is because, unlike The Dark Knight, their stories are from beginning to end meaning that the first time we hear of the character to the last time we will hear of the character all occur within the same film. As a result, it is essential for the film to tell a COMPLETE story, thus nicely fitting the monomyth in most cases.

While my group could have probably smashed our film into the monomyth, I am happy that we looked at it through a different lens and as a result we were able to consider that it was possible that not all hero movies perfectly fit this almighty monomyth.

Whiplash and the Monomyth

As this project was assigned I was very excited about it because I only wanted to do one movie. That movie was Whiplash. I had recently scene Whiplash with my family and thats all I could talk about at the time. I persuaded my group that this was the movie to pick and they loved it. When going over the Monomyth chart in class, we were able to fill out every section without hesitating. It was that easy. Some groups struggled during their discussion of what goes where in these sections and some did not. Some poorly labeled each section with events in their movie. Of course one movie stands out which is Batman the Dark Knight. Since everyone has already stated their opinion on why it is wrong I will not go into detail.

While looking at the spreadsheet most movies did well. But most, I think, could of done a little better. Although this is all opinion based on what events fit the sections, I still have some recommendations.

The Interview: I think the Call to adventure and the Refusal are confusing because one does not flow with the other. I think that in order to keep the refusal the Call to Adventure should be the scheduling of the interview. The original Refusal is confusing because no one new about the top secret mission. Other wise good job.

The Lego Movie: Only a little recommendation here. I think that Emmet's first threshold was after he found the kraggle and he was forced to leave with Wyldstyle when the cops were chasing him.

Otherwise, well done everyone!

Spirited Away and the Monomyth

As we discussed in class, the initial intrigue within Spirited Away was that it was an eastern (Japanese) film while most of the others were usually western films. Despite this, my group faced little trouble in completing the monomyth. This only furthered the notion of how widespread the monomyth is. The one intrigue within Spirited Away is that the film is not centered around the journey, but around how Chihiro grows through the film and shows how responsible she is to both herself. Due to this we had trouble finding an answer to the "return from without" part initially since Chihiro does not rely on anybody in the end. Other than that one part, we did not have much disagreement on any of the other parts.

It seems that many of us followed a similar approach towards the monomyth chart since most of the movies had relatively transferable sources. I feel that the Batman trilogy could have worked chronologically if they had tried to fit the triology first rather than trying to fit the 2nd movie and then taking material from the other two to try and fit the unfilled spaces. I also found in interesting how many of the movies followed the monomyth generically but very few could have a perfect answer for every blank, and I think that it is interesting that people had to change the chronology of the movies to try and fit it properly.

James bonded to regular heroic journey's?

The James Bond series has been one of the most popular sets of heroic movies during all of existence. The difference of production from the old James Bond movies to the new James Bond movies have is vast.  Regardless of the number of films in any given decade, the Mono-myth chart of a heroic journey remains the same. Though the characteristics of a mono-myth remain the same, the evolution of the James Bond movies has developed to reflect the decade in which they were made.  This evolution is similar to a lot of heroes. Characters like Superman have evolved into new heroes because the film writers have gone into deeper details in their descriptions, as their audience demanded more from each successive film. Even though those films follow the same guided monomyth path, the movies still are relevant, successful, and current. Just like the James Bond series, Batman has endured through multiple generations. The film screenwriters for Batman had the same idea of keeping audiences happy by constantly updating their films and characters. From the chart, it seems we all took the same approach evaluating our movies, probably because we were all taught about heroes the same way. If we had analyzed our charts before the class started, then our charts would have most likely looked different than what they do today. I agree with most of the elements on Batman’s chart except in the category of temptation. I think his temptation is to identify himself as Batman when the Joker threatens him. Because he is put into a complex situation, he is tempted to give up his identity as Batman. Seeing the other charts has helped me realize of something I missed in the category of Magic Flight and the Master of Two Worlds. I would add the re-entry into the poker game and the ability to remain undercover as important ingredients to the film. I will now understand the heroic journey that the main character is taking and I will be able to interpret each stage as it happens.

Guardians of the Monomyth

For this monomyth exercise, my group watched Guardians of the Galaxy. As expected, it was a pretty easy movie to fill out on the chart, but I found one thing about it pretty interesting. In case you haven't seen the movie, it follows the journey of a group of heroes consisting of Peter Quill, Rocket, Groot, Gamora, and Drax. I don't believe that the monomyth could fully be applied to just Peter, the main character and hero. There are certain steps of the monomyth that Peter doesn't quite fit into (or that I don't believe he fits into) but other members of their group do. For example, it never seemed to me that Peter "stayed from the path". He makes funny comments about doing something other than what they had planned on but I think that's more for laughs than being crucial to the plot. Drax, on the other hand, calls up the Guardian's enemy, Ronan, to fight and kill him. This was definitely never in the Guardian's plan to face Ronan on their own.

 Also, the apotheosis step I thought was really interesting when applied to this movie. The Guardians don't gain any special powers at the end, instead the apotheosis step happened when they all decided that they'd rather fight together than die alone. All of their abilities and talents make them a force to be reckoned with and they're able to save their planet this way, with everyone working together. This step literally would not have been able to be completed if not all of the Guardians were a part of the story.

I think this is really interesting when applied to the monomyth. Could Peter Quill have been a hero without the Guardians? Could his story have fulfilled the monomyth in a satisfactory way? Or did he need the other heroes in order to be considered a hero? I think the answer to my last question is yes, he needed the other Guardians in order to be a hero. These heroes need each other in order to function as heroes; without each other they're nothing (if they hadn't become heroes, they'd all be criminals, actually). I think this is all really interesting, the fact that the monomyth must be applied to multiple people in this example in order to actually work, rather than each individually, but what do you think? Do you agree or disagree with the Guardians not functioning in the monomyth without each other?

Campbell's Monomyth applied to Spirited Away

Before applying Spirited Away to Joseph Campbell's mono myth, I had already seen the movie before but had never though about it having a similar structure to stories like Star Wars or The Odyssey. When the assignment was described, I thought it might be difficult to apply what seemed to be a western model to an eastern film and though some things were in a slightly different order I actually fit together quite nicely.

Since a Eastern Film was able to fit the mono myth pretty closely, I was surprised at how difficult it seemed for the Batman: The Dark Knight group to apply what could possibly be one of the greatest movies of all time to the mono myth. After looking more deeply into their descriptions it almost seems as if they confused themselves by covering the entire Christian Bale Batman trilogy which caused a lot of the elements within the mono myth to be scattered throughout three movies. This scattering of the mono myth is not like George Lucas' mono myth spread out between IV-VI and I-VI, but instead is just ordering things in an illogical manner. And though it may have been difficult to apply Batman: The Dark Knight to the mono myth, it seems as if Campbell's theory applies to almost all Action/Adventure movies foreign and domestic. Is there any adventure movie that does not have at least part of the mono myth in it?

Mono-myth in the Lego Movie

When I was reading over what had been put into the chart for the Lego Movie I had some different opinions on each of the steps based on the way that I chose each step for Guardians of the Galaxy. The brown are the groups beliefs and the blue are mine. For the most part I agreed, although I thought somethings were out of order. A few major things I had strong issues about were the supernatural force, which I believed was being able to go be on the directions and achieving the status of master builder. Another was the apostasies because that is "When someone dies a physical death or dies to the self to live in spirit, he or she moves beyond the pairs of opposites to a state of divine knowledge, love, compassion and bliss" and that definition does not go along with what the group had and I feel like Vitruvius' death was a better apostasies. Finally, there is a possibility for many options in each of these sections, but some of the ones that were left blank were not necessarily obvious, but were helpful to the story.

Monomyth Spreadsheet

By comparing other films that were analyzed on the monomyth spreadsheet to The Last Samurai, I noticed parts that I agree with and others that I would argue against. Our approach to the monomyth was different from other groups was that it was much more detailed. In our responses we gave the name of the event, and a brief description of it, while other groups sometimes just gave a couple words.

One movie I would've approached differently is Batman: The Dark Knight. The group includes parts of the other batman movies in their report and I think it makes their spreadsheet out of order. I don't think they can say the Call to Adventure is "Batman hears about the Joker from Gordon" when the First Threshold is "Becomes Batman (first movie)." I probably wouldn't have included more than the one movie because it seems like the format is designed for one movie, but even if I did I would've put them in chronological order instead of mixing them up.

Another observation I disagreed with was for The Interview. The group claims that the call to adventure is  "CIA Offering", but I wouldn't have approached this the same way. I think that the call to adventure for this film is when Aaron becomes embarrassed of the content of his show because of the remarks a man he graduated college with makes. The man says the content of the show is a joke and that Aaron's work isn't important or significant. This conversation fires Aaron up, and makes him want to start having real interviews on his show instead of just celebrities. Besides those two, I think the ideas for the rest of the movies were spot-on.

After looking at how other groups interpreted their movies, I wouldn't change any of my thoughts on The Last Samurai. I think my group's points were strong.

Memento Monomyth

I do not think it was possible for other groups to approach the mono myth in the same manner my group did because our movie, Memento, directed by Christopher Nolan, has a storyline which is written backwards. Since the main character had short term memory loss, so he was only able to remember what occurred in the last fifteen minutes. Because of this the movie began at the moment where he killed the man who raped and killed his wife to the night his wife was raped and murdered. The other two movies that I looked at on the Monomyth Chart were The Interview, and The Dark Knight. The chart for The Interview is very accurate, the sequence of events in this movie are parallel with what how Campbell has said a hero's journey should be.

On the other hand the chart for the Dark Knight, I believe is not very clear and does not need to stretch over both the Dark Knight movies. The first one has enough content and a storyline that follows the monomyth. Batman's call to adventure for was long before joker, he always was trying to save people and help because the city's safety was a big issue. His refusal was the uncertainty he had about the situation with the joker and how he would go about taking him down since so little was known about him. I disagree with the fact that they said becoming batman is the first threshold, he is already batman. I believe his first threshold was when he decided to take on Lau and go to China to kidnap him. Then for the belly of the whale it seems that it should be when he realizes that he is not the strongest one in the fight and that the Joker is the one to be scared of and he has to figure out what the Joker is up to and what he wants to do. I do believe that the groups Initiation close to being accurate but in the return stage they went into the second movie but there is so much left in the first movie. Like the Joker blows up the hospital, Aaron becomes two-face and in the end Bruce clears out,  burns and gets rid of all his papers and equipment.

After reading the other monomyths I still do not feel as if my group should reconsider what we have written because our storyline and process of events occur so much from different from the others. But I would like to see what others have to say on Memento if they have seen it before.

Is a Refusal Really Heroic?

When filling out the chart for American Sniper, none of us could really think of anything to put in the "refusal" category. Chris Kyle, the main character, was completely dedicated to becoming a Navy SEAL and going to war. The temptation (his wife) did nothing to stop him from going. We also did not put anything in the "refusal of the return" category. He knew when it was time to come home after his fourth tour and did so. Looking over the other movies, I noticed only one, The Dark Knight, that does not have a refusal. It seems like most myths and films have some sort of a refusal, whether a cowardly one such as Luke Skywalker wanting to get power converters or one where the hero is, at the time, denied the ability to go on the journey, like James Bond. At the same time, most of the movies have some sort of a "refusal of the return", from a romantic relationship to trying to work out a situation in which the hero can stay to even returning reluctantly. Some may say it is heroic to stay where one did their heroic actions. Others may say it is just an egotistic, delusional move in the face of the reality of going home. So...do you think it is more heroic to be committed to one's mission the entire time without any sense of doubt like Chris Kyle, or to overcome doubt like Luke Skywalker wanting to get power converters instead? And do you think refusing to return makes one more heroic or less heroic?

VS

Do Independent films follow the Monomyth?

      My group watched the movie Memento which is an Independent Film directed by Christopher Nolan (also famous for Batman, Inception, Dark Knight Rises, Etc.) The viewer watches the movie chronologically backwards, as well as only seeing the memories, and the short blurbs of the main character Leonard's encounters to find out who raped and killed his wife. Another threshold Leonard encounters is his short term memory loss, which occurs every fifteen minuets. 

      The monomyth was extremely difficult to fill out, due to the movie being extremely confusing, and hard to grasp certain events specifically to put into categories. My group and I struggled so much so, we started from the bottom to the top of the monomyth chart and began to fill that out, which ended up being easier. Likewise to many other films, we were not capable to fill out every part out on the chart, which leads me to the question of independent films. Many other movies were common genres such as action, romance, comedy, etc. All of which seem to follow the monomyth chart pretty easily, and almost perfectly. Independent films on the other hand, have no guidelines usually to where the movie should end up, and how it gets there. Christopher Nolan completely wrecks the monomyth chart in my opinion, and still creates a psychological thriller through a new definition of heroism. 

       

      Compared to other films in the chart, Memento has almost the least possible definitions of sections of the chart. An interesting comparison of Nolan's films, The Dark Knight is a fiction/action film which has a hero, but his view on heroism is very unordinary. Likewise in Memento, the 'hero' is hard to even tell, due to Leonard on search to avenge his wife's murder, but may or may not killed the right guy.  The hero is portrayed differently in Nolan's films, which leaves the viewer to decide whether or not the main character is a hero.Memento was a difficult film to divide into the monomyth sections, but writing backwards just as the movie is, helped a lot. Independent films can carry the monomyth theme just as any other movie, but that wouldn't make them 'independent' in my opinion. 

Memento....A Monomyth?

My group watched the movie Memento. This is a movie in which you only know what the main character Leonard knows. You are given no back story to anything as you get placed right in the middle of everything from the start of the film. I believe that had this movie been similar to a normal one that went in chronological order, it might be able to fit the chart better. While looking at other peoples' charts I could easily follow how their movies went. For Memento this is not easy. We had to leave a few spots blank simply because we didn't know the typical background information about many aspects of the movie due to the setup. Since this movie is created going backwards in time, our group tried to fill in the chart backwards. Unfortunately, this didn't work as easily as we would have liked. It seemed that parts of the movie fit the chart in both directions. I think that a movie like American Sniper has a slightly more clear cut sense of the mono-myth theory, but is similar to Memento in that it is being portrayed from a real life incident where you did not get that much information besides what was shared through Chris Kyle's experiences. In other movies such as The Interview, the mono-myth was definitely present. Simply watching the movie Memento was a confusing experience because I was trying to fill in blanks that were impossible to fill, but filling in the chart was just as hard. Overall, applying the mono-myth ideology to Memento was difficult as I expected, but filling in the chart helped me organize the movie and more sense out of it.

American Sniper, a nonfiction match to the monomyth?

Our group had an unique situation, applying the monomyth to a nonfiction story. Trying to fit the story into the spreadsheet, there were gaps which could not be filled as easily as a fiction story could. In Chris Kyle's story, there were parts of the spreadsheet that did not match up with the film. It either happened out of sequence or it just didn't happen. I feel like our group preformed an accurate analysis of the movie. We were able to give specific details to help fill the gaps left in the spreadsheet. I feel like the addition of a movie based on real events was a good addition to the list as a whole. A diverse group of movies are shown on the spreadsheet.

An out of order Monomyth, or a singular occurrence?

While looking over the document, I noticed a common theme that seems to hold up throughout a substantial number of movies people analyzed. It seems that the “Belly of the Whale” section often details a part of the movie that seems out of order from the rest of the slots. For example, in “The Lego Movie”, the Belly of the Whale section states: Emmet breaks into President Business’ tower. After this, the “Road of Trials” box says: Cops chase Emmet and Wyldstyle as they escape from Bricksburg. The issue with them being in this order is that Cops chase Emmet and Wyldstyle as they escape from Bricksburg way earlier in the film then when Emmet breaks into President Business’ tower.

This may just sound like one fluke with a singular film, but it actually seems to be a common theme with multiple movies. For example, and just concerning the films I have seen, this happens with “The Interview”, “Get Him to the Greek”, and the movie my group analyzed, “Whiplash”.

This common theme presents the idea that the Monomyth could have larger and more common issues than we previously realized. Although this is just a theory that needs further testing, it coaxes in the question: Is the “Belly of the Whale” section an outlier in this sense? Or are there more examples of the Monomyth being out of order that I have simply failed to recognize?

Spirited Away and the monomyth

Although Spirited Away is an eastern film, It was still relatively straight forward to fit into the monomyth archetype. While comparing this film to others, it is surprising to see how closely they are connected in relation to the monomyth. The fact that two films made on opposite sides of the world and in completely different cultural settings could be so closely related is quite surprising. While I can say I strongly agree with most all of my group's chart, while reading other groups observations it led me to reconsider what I thought to be the "goddess" in our story. Our group initially interpreted the role of the goddess as the person who tempts the hero to stray from his or her beliefs or goals. Going on this initial interpretation we selected No-face as our goddess figure in the story. No-face defiantly fulfills this role in tempting Sen to be greedy throughout the story. On the other hand, while reading other peoples charts I noticed that they tended to interpret the goddess as a love interest rather than a temptress. Another thing that was slightly different than some of the other films on the list was the fact that the "rescue from without" was the hero doing the rescuing rather than the hero being rescued. At this point in the story Sen's parents are helpless pigs and Sen must confront Yubaba to save them from slaughter. While we did interpret this as rescue from without, we did have to stretch the formulae a bit due to the fact that rescue from without applies strictly to the hero. Should the hero always be the one to be rescued in the end, or do you think there could be some leeway when it comes to some the of the monomythic rules?

Monomyth Spreadsheet

I was absent the day that my group filled out the spreadsheet for The Last Samurai, but I made notes of my own while I watched the film, and I have several conflicting opinions that I think should be shared. First off, I think the belly of the whale is undoubtedly the Japanese Samurai village. Practically the entire film takes place here, including his road of trials (learning the ways of the samurai) and several other key occurrences. I also believe the great boon is when he rides into battle with the samurai and tells his former comrade that he will kill him on the field (which he does). He decides he would die for the samurai, but he ends of surviving the battle. After the battle, for the return portion of the monomyth, I think it is colossally important that he goes to meet the emperor to present him Katsumoto's sword. This kind of represents his mastery of the two worlds because he is a free American but still wants to help uphold the culture of the samurai in Japan. Then the "freedom to live" part is when he tells the emperor that he will gladly take his own life, but the emperor thanks him for what he has done and tells him not to. If anyone who has seen the film agrees or disagrees with this analysis, I would be interested to here your opinions.

Now onto other films. Looking through the spreadsheet and examining the films that I have seen, I definitely have some strong opinions both in agreement and disagreement with several observations, including my own film, The Last Samurai. No one seems to have any trouble determining the "call to adventure," "refusal," or "mentor." Those are typically the easiest to figure out, and I do not have any disagreements with any of those. What I find interesting is that, with the exception of American Sniper, the Goddess in every film (or at least the ones I have seen) seems to be the main character's love interest. All of us seem to think that the Goddess must be someone that the main character has a deeper connection or relationship with.

I agree with what most of groups said about their films, but I also have some pretty serious disagreements with some of the observations some groups made:

Lego Movie: nailed it.

The Interview: nailed it.

Get Him to the Greek: you also nailed it.

The Dark Knight: Okay. I understand this one was pretty hard without being able to technically cover all three films, but I still disagree some things, mainly in "the return." First off, in The Dark Knight Risis, you have it completely backwards. Once Bane becomes known, Wayne, who has been in hiding and crippled, tries to restore his body and returns to the BatCave for the first time in years. He decides he wants to be Batman again, and Alfred tries to stop him. Alfred literally quits because Bruce won't listen to him. Also, I don't think Bruce is ever really able to balance being Batman and a regular person. Rachel saw that, and that's why she did not want to be with him. At the end of The Dark Knight, he really doesn't have freedom to live as Batman. Everyone thinks he killed Dent and the police are on a manhunt for him. The only real freedom to live he gets is at the end of The Dark Knight Rises, where he fakes his death and moves to another country to live a normal life. Okay I'm done.

Gladiator: This like my favorite movie ever. The only problem I have with this analysis is that there is no mention of his real motive in most of it, which is the murder of his family. I think the story really starts after his family has been murdered, and he wants revenge. Other than that I think you did a pretty good job with the majority of the analysis.

Casino Royale: well done.

Who is the Goddess?

As I was examining the spreadsheet I noticed a similar trend throughout most of the movies: The Goddess was the hero's love interest. In my analysis of Get Him To The Greek, I assigned Aaron's girlfriend Daphne as the Goddess. This seems to make sense, when we saw in class that the Goddess is, at least according to Wikipedia, someone that the hero loves. However, when Wikipedia gives an example of the kind of love to which they are referring, they use a child's love for a mother or father, not a girlfriend or wife. So why do so many movies use a girlfriend or wife instead of another loved one?

I believe that this is due to the overused but still wildly popular "Damsel in Distress" motif. The story of the knight saving the princess is so engrained in our mind that it just seems natural at this point. When writers need something to give our hero the strength to carry on, the love of his life is the go-to answer. However, this is not solely the writers fault, I believe that many of these stories had other characters that could have been "Goddesses", but we have been hard-wired to give this title to the Hero's love interest. That is why I applaud Josh, Mitchell, Jamie, and Mary for thinking outside the box in their analysis of American Sniper. They did not mindlessly fill in the box with Chris Kyle's wife, but instead thought about who he cared about enough to risk his life every day, and that was his fellow soldiers.
Don't get me wrong. I am not saying it is wrong to call the hero's love interest the "Goddess", but I think we should open ourselves up to a broader interpretation. What do you guys think? Should the Hero's love interest always be assigned the role of Goddess? Should Chris Kyle's wife have been the Goddess in American Sniper? Let me know.

Monomyth

For all of the reviews of movies that I have seen before, it seems as though everyone took a very similar to the approach when analyzing them. My group watched Whiplash and we kept our analysis more simple and to the point. Some of the aspects were hard to find however most were very obvious. The elements from The Lego Movie, American Sniper, The Interview, and James Bond: Casino Royale were very similar. It seems that the writers of these movies almost followed Campbell's monomyth as they fit the chart very easily. I strongly agree with the observations made for American Sniper. Whiplash differed to American Sniper because of its topic, jazz. Many of the movies the rest of the class watched focused more on superheroes or people who are directly saving other peoples lives. I believe that some groups went into more detail about explaining the monomyth while others were more obvious so they did not need to explain themselves. I would not really reconsidered my own groups analysis after looking at others since it was pretty straightforward.

Spirited Away and Campbell's Monomyth

       Since I had never seen Spirited Away before, I sat down to watch the movie with the monomyth in mind, and throughout the movie, I filled in the chart.  I think that this affected the way I interpreted the movie, because instead of watching it for fun like I normally would, I watched it so I could analyze it.  This difference in perspective forced me to really think about the plot of the movie on a deeper level than I normally would, but it also distracted me.  Instead of just watching and really appreciating details of the movie, I was thinking about where each scene was supposed to go in the chart.  Because my observations were happening as the movie was progressing, I kept going back and changing or questioning my chart, so the movie would better fit the monomyth's pattern.  This made me question the concept of the monomyth as a tool to fit any story, anywhere, from any time period.  Do all of these stories fit the monomyth because they actually follow the pattern, or do they all fit because we have a pattern and we put all stories into it?
     One thing that I think is really interesting about the movie itself is that the monomyth can be applied to it in many different ways and many spaces on the wheel could be filled by multiple points.  For example, we had several possible options for what the "boon" that Chihiro receives could be, and depending on perspective, they any of them or all of them could be correct.  Not many other groups did their analysis this way, but I think that it can lead to an interesting discussion about the plot of a film.  This also makes me question the monomyth, because if a story can have many different points of threshold or boon or apotheosis, then does it actually fit the pattern, where there is only one?

Where's the Difference?

As we look through the movies and see that they have this very similar pattern, I started to wonder if this theme is too common. Most movies I can think of have this theme of the monomyth, so should we even use this to filter out movies and stories? And if it's so common that everyone is doing it, isn't human nature to try and go against the grain and find something new? Movies all have a similar feel and structure, why hasn't a movie gone against the norm and made a completely new style of film?

The Last Samurai monomyth

I think our group's observations were pretty similar to the other group's observations in most ways. We have have differed from other groups, though, in the detail of our responses at times. That is because The Last Samurai is a nearly-perfect fit for the various steps of the monomyth. While they are not all in the exact same chronological order, they are are clearly present. And not only that, but they are very specific and obvious in what they are. There is a clear and obvious call to adventure because the main character is literally called upon to travel across the Pacific on an adventure to Japan. There is a wise, older Japanese man, Katsumoto, who gives him advice and is clearly the mentor. The complicated love interest that is formed with a young woman in the Samurai village is so conspicuously one with the Goddess that it is almost corny at times. It was pretty entertaining watching the movie and being able to so clearly see the exact fits of the monomyth. Our film was pretty pat in its use of the monomyth, so I don't think any of our interpretations are off. In fact, The Last Samurai is often referred to as the archetypal storyline, along with Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves (which are really pretty similar movies if you think about it. I watched a video where they describes these movies as being in a sub-genre called "white people feel bad about colonialism") of the modern monomyth in cinema.

Monomyth Structure

For the most part, each story is told in a fairly similar fashion. They follow the general mold of the monomyth chart, but not to an exact science. Some stories are not completely in order, and some are missing certain sections of the monomyth. But, despite this, I think the main idea of the monomyth structure is still valid. People have figured out how to get the viewer's attention, and this structure has been followed over and over. Whether it's accidentally followed or followed on purpose, it's still followed mostly perfect. In your opinion, does the story have to contain each of the sections of the monomyth chart as well as be in order, to be considered using the monomyth structure?

Why So Serious?

Why is it that we started taking Star Wars seriously? Star Wars was supposed to be fun, and after 9/11 that all changed. The Prequels became serious, and if you didn't have all your facts straight then you better not post on any forums. What happened in 9/11 that made us become so serious? The old Star Wars were during a time where George Lucas wanted to escape the seriousness of the films of the day, shouldn't we have done the same to counteract the feeling of 9/11? I think the Star Wars series should be fun and exciting with a little lesson for kids along the way, but not the dark, twisted sci-fi film it became.

About..

And Why are We So Critical?

Too broad or Too Famous

"Star Wars" is a film that was intended to be fun and interesting. Only after it became a huge success did people actually question how he came up with such an amazing idea. No one can be sure he didn't use the archetype of hero and hero film, but the outline is so broad that it can be stretched and manipulated to fit practically every movie. Also, there are many different interpretations of each different section which makes it harder to know exactly what is needed for any argument to be valid. Finally, why would Joseph Campbell would agree that his works inspired a multimillion dollar franchise? I mean not only debhe gain lots of fame and recognition, but also a decent amount of money. While it was a stretch for me to believe that this movie fit Campbell's ideas perfectly, as a series though the three older Star Wars' seemed to fit this structure better. Was this because of people questioning Lucas' genius or just because there were more elements to fit into the broad outline?

Why Do We Only Value "Serious" Works?

        The "galactic gasbag" article, while extremely harsh, raised a good point about the way that the Star Wars series began as a fun, un-serious movie even though Lucas later tried to add deeper meaning to it.
However, this article skips over the most important question: why would Lucas feel the need to fabricate an academic-sounding backstory for an action movie?  We know that the partnership was profitable for Campbell because he got a lot of publicity and public awareness of his research out of its association with such a popular movie, but what about Lucas?
He felt the need to justify Star Wars' popularity by turning it into a spiritual, academic work, something it isn't and will never be.  Lucas is not the only person who thinks this way.  We all divide the world up into 'things we can learn from' vs. 'things that are fun and entertaining'.  One of the most obvious places we do it is separating books into "literary" and "popular" or "genre" fiction.
The problem with this way of thinking is that it promotes the idea that only "serious" works have meaning and value.  It makes us look down on amazing, entertaining stories that look at the world in a less serious way.  

Star Wars Is Being Taken Too Seriously

In my personal opinion, Star Wars was a movie that was created for purely entertainment purposes. I agree with the article that we read yesterday but not in such an extreme sense. I think that the writers of Star Wars were searching for a deeper meaning behind the movie when there really wasn't one intended originally. I think that the article may have been a little harsh. That being said, I think that much of what he was saying could be true. There is a desire among many to rationalize why a movie so silly could have such a great effect on the world, which is why there are various "deeper" meanings behind the film that have been created. We may never really know what the true intention behind Star Wars was, but in my opinion it was created as a blockbuster film that just so happened to  be a major hit.

The ideal Journey of a hero

Joseph Campbell seems to be an expert in the analysis of heroes. The system he uses to identify a hero seems foolproof. But why is it people go see these types of movies even though they follow the same plot line. A billion dollar industry is created off the diagram that Joseph Campbell made. It is extremely challenging to create a movie about a hero that doesn't follow this line. But when the story takes a turn from the ideal journey that Campbell created, the plot twist gives viewers a shock and awe.

The darker, more serious Star Wars

There is no doubt that Star Wars became increasingly dark and serious as the series progressed. This may have come as a disappointment to some of the original Star Wars fans, who liked the fun, sillier movies of the 70's. But I think that the progression towards darkness in the series makes sense for two reasons. One, the prequels are really the story of Anakin's life, and his descend into evil. Anakin's personal struggles and the losing of his way and turning into Darth Vader is naturally going to be more serious and dark than the story of Luke, a teenager who is given the quest to save the world and kill the bad guys. That seems obvious to me. Secondly, I think the prequels represent a generational change too. Our culture had, in a way, stagnated in naivety after the end of World War 2. Silly, popcorn movies became big. I think 9/11 did a lot to open up our eyes to the darker realities of the world, and it's reflected in movies like the Star Wars prequels, which revolve around a darker, more serious plot.

Is the new Star Wars too serious?

Has Luca made Star Wars too serious? In the movie that we watched in class, their was a big emphasis on fun, but in the more newer Star Wars movies, the plot is more serious and the characters lose any personality. The pictures on the left sum up this point. The picture on top shows the matrix of connections made between the characters over the entire saga. It looks more serious than the picture on the bottom which is the classic vision of the original Star Wars. So my question to you is: are the new Star Wars too serious, and if they are, is it a bad thing?