Joss Whedon said that one reason he wanted to create Buffy was that he had seen so many horror movies where a blond girl goes into an alley and gets killed by a monster, and he wanted to create a story where the blond girl goes into the alley and kicks the monster's ass.
But: "a blond girl goes into an alley and kicks a monster's ass" is not a fact, it's a narrative. And to narrate is to interpret.
Reality is too complex for the human mind to grasp, and narrative is how we make meaning out of it. The stories we tell ARE our interpretation of reality.
No human story is unbiased; telling a story means choosing what to include, what to focus on, what words or images to use, how to frame it. Every choice excludes another choice.
Good stories are nuanced. Good stories can be interpreted in many different ways. Good stories are complex. Good stories are ambiguous. Good stories are layered.
But nuance and complexity and ambiguity and layers don't mean that the meaning is entirely in the eye of the beholder, because all that nuance and complexity and ambiguity and layers are not Reality but reality-as-narrated-by-a-limited-human-mind.
The meaning is in the eye of the beholder AND in the eye of the storyteller - and neither eye can see it all.
No story lacks inherent meaning, because a human made it, and human beings can't make anything without putting meaning into it.
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Date: 2009-09-29 08:53 pm (UTC)But: "a blond girl goes into an alley and kicks a monster's ass" is not a fact, it's a narrative. And to narrate is to interpret.
Reality is too complex for the human mind to grasp, and narrative is how we make meaning out of it. The stories we tell ARE our interpretation of reality.
No human story is unbiased; telling a story means choosing what to include, what to focus on, what words or images to use, how to frame it. Every choice excludes another choice.
Good stories are nuanced. Good stories can be interpreted in many different ways. Good stories are complex. Good stories are ambiguous. Good stories are layered.
But nuance and complexity and ambiguity and layers don't mean that the meaning is entirely in the eye of the beholder, because all that nuance and complexity and ambiguity and layers are not Reality but
reality-as-narrated-by-a-limited-human-mind.
The meaning is in the eye of the beholder AND in the eye of the storyteller - and neither eye can see it all.
No story lacks inherent meaning, because a human made it, and human beings can't make anything without putting meaning into it.