Re: The Case Against The Trauma Plot
The New Yorker has a point but then again life really be just trauma sometimes (*trying not to go full tumblr in a newsletter or am i*)
Somehow I now read a lot more than I would like to. I routinely pick up a book from the one and only bookstore I can find on Yelp in this city (although I’m starting to find some second-hand bookstores here and there on my own too). I’m still in the Los Angeles Public Library queue for books I can’t find in a physical store—although I moved 4 months ago. Then I tend to read one or two other articles from my publications every time before I write a feature article myself.
And lastly, it comes down to the few email lists I subscribe to. Just like how I listen to Mando-indie and Brockhampton-esque groups on the weekend, email lists are what I call weekend entertainment readings.
It should be no surprise that I read a lot about entertainment and patterns in entertainment, and thus, I came across The New Yorker article in debate.
Dress this story up or down: on the page and on the screen, one plot—the trauma plot—has arrived to rule them all. Unlike the marriage plot, the trauma plot does not direct our curiosity toward the future (Will they or won’t they?) but back into the past (What happened to her?). [original quote by Paul Sehgal]
The idea of a “Trauma Plot” is simple. Given any fictional, or even non-fictional character of a story, this character could be deemed as good, bad, or neither. For whatever reason, the author finds it necessary to give an explanation of their current day actions, and this explanation happens to be some kind of trauma/some forms of bad events that occurred to this character in the past.
I haven’t seen the latest Spiderman movie but in the one before—mild spoiler alert but really if you don’t know this what kind of hole have you been hiding in can i join—the death of Iron Man became one of Tom Holland’s version of Spiderman’s biggest trauma. It looms in the back of his head. Though in a sense he still operates at his free will, but ultimately his every action is impacted by the loss and his guilt associated with it. This, is a form of the trauma plot.
And because this is a Marvel movie, he of course managed to overcome it. This trauma no longer haunts, it almost becomes part of his strength and fuels him.
Although I’m sensing there’s a trend of easily overcome trauma plots lately—more on this later.
This is also a case of Protagonist’s Trauma Plot, then there’s the case of A Collection of Different Trauma Plots.
In “Squid Game,” every main and side character is impacted by their past (unless you’re literally soooo unimportant to “the game” itself). This idea of a “Group Portrait” in shows has become quite popular in recent years’ cinema (again, more on this later) and “Squid Game” is a perfect example of it. Everyone NEEDS a reason to enter the game, or else it wouldn’t be convincing to show these characters fighting for each other’s death for the prize in the sky. It feels much needed. For the many problems this show had, I would say that this group portrait of trauma did not bother me.
For someone my age, trauma plot is simply something that exists in shows and movies and books, etc. etc.. I notice its existence, but perhaps because most shows today do contain a trauma plot, my brain tends to take it in naturally, perhaps even subconsciously crave it, I don’t know.
The New Yorker article above, then, interested me particularly because it argues that trauma plots are unnecessary, or worse, just lazy writing.
I then, want to ask the question, what makes a trauma traumatizing enough for it to be deemed as trauma?
In cinema, trauma often gets revealed in the form of flashbacks. Like many, I have a love/hate relationship with the “You” franchise. I refuse to watch it on my own because it just stresses me the fuck out. However, it does have incredible writing and great actors. When reading the New Yorker article, I immediately recalled this show.
Why did it spend so much bandwidth on Joe’s childhood in the second season?
For the existence of a third season, it makes some sense. It’s a good foreshadow for Joe’s inability to form a stable family—but of course he went ahead and had one, for just one season. And for Love to also become a main character in the franchise, mirroring her childhood to Joe’s is definitely very smart on the writers’ behalf.
In that sense, this plot works. Unlike most trauma plots, Joe’s trauma plot did not help the audience sympathize with him—really, there isn’t anything about Joe that is worth to be sympathized with, I think that point is clear. The trauma plot simply exists as a guiding bridge to the next climax of the franchise. It has a valid reason to exist.
But what Joe’s trauma plot did not do is the exact sole purpose of most trauma plots.
I don’t know about you, but at this point I am trained to rely on trauma plots to understand a character. I wait for the trauma plot to come in every story. So the character that previously interested me would become so real and present that I would think about them even when I’m not watching the show.
And it’s efficient.
(I am once again plugging a Chinese show and what about it! I’ll stop when someone actually takes my recs!)
Most Chinese would agree with me that “Reset” is the most well-produced show in perhaps the last two, three years. What most didn’t realize, though, is that this show follows a very formulaic, Netflix-esque pattern. A very simple concept: there’s a bomb on the bus, it can be set off both manually and timed, solve it or you will be stuck in a cycle. As the two protagonists, your job(s) is to:
-figure out who on the bus has the bomb
-who else (despite they’re not stuck in a cycle like you two) can potentially help you
-if you do get off the bus and survive, but the bus still ends up exploding, how do you convince the police to believe your innocence and maybe even get help from authority, before the cycle gets reset again at midnight?
-what is the motive of the bomber?
-is there anyone helping the bomber?
Though there are a lot of trashy drama that’s made every year by big media corporations in China, these mid-length (8-15 episodes) series typically don’t stray far away from excellence. Once in a while, pure excellence like “Reset” is made. But just like ALL shows, there are problems. Despite the guy lead being one of my favorite celebrities in China, his acting lacks a little while being compared to the rest of the cast. In fact, I still barely remember his character’s name in the show after I’ve finished it. The storyline is so simple to the point that 15 episodes can be too much, the writers might have dragged it out just to stress viewers out (and get more attention and talks for the show).
And, of course, there are trauma plots. A lot of them, in fact.
All while there is little to no character development.
The show made an effort to paint out a backstory for every single passenger on the bus—every single one of them!!!! And the fucking police cast! But even when we get to the very last episode, we know virtually nothing about the girl lead, other than the fact that ~she has a kind heart and she wants to save everybody~.
Bro the year is twenty-twenty-two. I do not give a fuck about good characters in shows.
It comes a point when the backstory plots of side characters become tiring for some viewers, though whenever someone points out this problem others are quick to fire back: it makes the characters human! It makes viewers care about the lives of every person in the story and therefore we want to know who has the bomb, who can survive, if they can be saved.
Not wrong. But could there have been better writing? Yes. Some of these backstories are also, mild to be called “trauma” but still narrated in a “this is supposed to be traumatic” sense. And since I’m recently brought to attention of the misuse of this writing method, it is glaring to me.
And I’ll go ahead and argue that the existence of trauma plots, and the way we are reliant on it for character development, bleeds into real life.
Is Britney Spear a good example for someone that has a “trauma plot?” No. Is her life traumatic at some point? In fact, her life was traumatic for a very long time. There is no one trauma that makes her the way she is today. Everything that happened to her makes her who she is. But if there’s a character that crafted with a Britney Spear style trauma plot, you’d think it’s dragging.
The logic of a trauma plot, boiled down: No one wants to see a lot of pain on screen on a regular basis. But we’d like to see some pain, because that makes us human, right? We want pain to be overcome. It’d be great if it can be overcome with one single highlighted event, too. And from that point on, this character gets to live happily ever after.
But this is exactly what makes pain different from trauma. Trauma does not simply get tackled one day in our adult lives. Trauma gets revealed in the sneakiest ways in our daily interactions. Despite most people try to be compassionate human beings for each other, we don’t notice people’s trauma often, and people don’t tend to open up about their trauma, sometimes ever.
Yet we keep seeing trauma plots dissolve and dissolve with ease on TV. Show after show. When in reality you’ve been missing your therapy appointments for over 6 months (I’m screaming at myself).
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Is it time for a conclusion?
I don’t know if I have one. This article feels unfinished. We might come back to it. We might not.
Thank you for reading my rambles after one New Yorker article… And call your therapist, ok?
