Stories have a shape. It starts with good fortune at the top and ill fortune at the bottom. It can start with good fortune, drop to ill fortune when they run into trouble, and then peak back up again to good fortune when the problem is solved. Another shape of a story could be what is known as the 'boy meets girl' story. It starts in between ill and good fortune. Then something great happens to rocket him or her to good fortune. Then something bad happens and it is then solved. Back to good fortune. Another story is the Cinderella story. This starts at the bottom, in ill fortune. The character then rises up towards good fortune, before dropping to the middle, in between the ill and good fortune. Next they go up to the highest good fortune. These are all familiar story shapes to most people. Todorov's theory of narrative can come into play here. Todorov said that there are three stages of narrative. The first is equilibrium. This is a state where everything is okay, the main characters are fine and everything seems to be going well. Next enters disequilibrium. This is where the problem occurs and everything gets shaken up. The characters fight against this disequilibrium, with a climax, before arriving at the new equilibrium. This is state where everything has returned, not quite, back to normal. Someone may have died, relationships changed or other unforgettable things may have happened to the character during the stage of disequilibrium, making it impossible to get back to the original equilibrium. This is something I learnt during my time at college studying an A-Level in Film Studies and have been able to apply it to almost all stories with linear structure that I have come across. There are lots of other theories about narrative, as explained by Dan in this lecture, but I feel this is one of the easiest to understand.
We then watched a film called Whopper Virgins. This was a film created by Burger King. In the "documentary", researchers from Burger King went to places where the people apparently had never heard of McDonald's or Burger King or experienced them and asked them to do a taste test on a Big Mac and a Whopper to see which they thought was better. They claim they could not do this in a westernised country, such as the US because the people there have been exposed to way too much advertising from each of the rival companies.They then claimed that the Whopper won the taste test and got a Burger King broiler shipped out to be able to give burgers to the masses. There were a lot of questions after this viewing. One of the first things the majority agreed on is that we felt uncomfortable watching it. Somebody made a point of saying that it was like watching a culture becoming eroded as it is introduced to western food. I agree with this statement and also believe it is unfair as they are more underdeveloped than the western world, making it highly unlikely that they will receive food like this again.
The story is about finding out which burger is better. The Whopper won, which makes this look like more of a marketing campaign than a documentary. However, due to editing, we never see any of the results. This means the public just have to take it as gospel from these people that the Whopper is better. This scheme cost millions of dollars so of course Burger King's Whopper is going to at least look like it won. Another problem arose in the form of the regulations of the taste test. These people are meant to have never come into contact with these franchises before, however, Burger King claimed that the burgers had to be eaten within 15 minutes of the purchase. How would this be possible, it doesn't seem to add up. The people on the video use mitigated language. They say perhaps and maybe. This shows they could be wrong.
The next thing we discussed is how they gave the people in the test cutlery but then told them to use their hands. We see people looking uncomfortable and like they don't know how to eat a burger. This also makes them feel incompetent. I think this is ethically wrong. I myself would not like to be seen looking that way on film. I felt like the people where almost victimised. Also, it is unclear as to why they kept focussing on the feelings of the people after the burgers and their reactions. This moves us more away from the main point. It seems like they are trying to prove that a burger is a luxury item in the west.
The 'dramatic' climax come in the form of them not having the right adapter for the gas for the broiler. The dramatic peak should be the results of the test but instead it mitigates the truth to create the structure of the story.
Ben Harmans wheel is the narrative theory we used to breakdown this story. We start with the main point - the whopper is a culinary delight in the US. The problem is, is it better than the Big Mac? Then they do the taste test and get the results. They then say there was a valuable cultural exchange but the native people still like their own food, nobody was converted to westernised ways. However, the rules of the story are broken. The climax should have been that the Big Mac was going to win. They obviously had to manufacture their own narrative curve in the form of the propane gas adapter because they could not put in a section where the Big Mac could have looked better. If they did this, it would not work as effective advertising.
It was a viral marketing campaign, which means it was all used online. It was meant to have been shared online through social networking, not targeted to one specific person. I believe this was definitely not an exchange like they said. I, as a viewer, have not got anything from the film. I just think that the people were exploited.
From this lecture, I learnt a bit more about narrative structure. I can definitely apply some of this to my own work, especially with fictional film.
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