At the same time, I kept up a schedule of lecturing about The Writer's Journey that took me far afield from the literal, geographic bounds of Hollywood, into the greater-world Hollywood, the international film community. I had the fortune to see how the ideas of the Hero's Journey unfold in cultures different from the one I grew up in, as I traveled to Barcelona, Maui, Berlin, Rome, London, Sydney, and so on.
Local tastes and thinking challenged many facets of the Hero's Journey idea severely. Each culture has a unique orientation to the Hero's Journey, with something in each local character resisting some terms, defining them differently, or giving them different emphasis. My theoretical framework has been shaken from every angle, and I think is the richer for it.
A FORM, NOT A FORMULA
First, I must address a significant objection about the whole idea of The Writer's Journey — the suspicion of artists and critics that it is formulaic, leading to stale repetition. We come to a great divide in theory and practice about these principles. Some professional writers don't like the idea of analyzing the creative process at all, and urge students to ignore all books and teachers and "Just do it." Some artists make the choice to avoid systematic thinking, rejecting all principles, ideals, schools of thought, theories, patterns, and designs. For them, art is an entirely intuitive process that can never be mastered by rules of thumb and should not be reduced to formula. And they aren't wrong. At the core of every artist is a sacred place where all the rules are set aside or deliberately forgotten, and nothing matters but the instinctive choices of the heart and soul of the artist.
But even that is a principle, and those who say they reject principles and theories can't avoid subscribing to a few of them: Avoid formula, distrust order and pattern, resist logic and tradition.
Artists who operate on the principle of rejecting all form are themselves dependent on form. The freshness and excitement of their work comes from its contrast to the pervasiveness of formulas and patterns in the culture. However, these artists run the risk of reaching a limited audience because most people can't relate to totally unconventional art. By definition it doesn't intersect with commonly held patterns of experience. Their work might only be appreciated by other artists, a small part of the community in any time or place. A certain amount of form is necessary to reach a wide audience. People expect it and enjoy it, so long as it's varied by some innovative combination or arrangement and doesn't fall into a completely predictable formula.
At the other extreme are the big Hollywood studios who use conventional patterns to appeal to the broadest cross-section of the public. At the Disney studios, I saw the application of simple story principles, such as making the main character a "fish out of water," that became tests of a story's power to appeal to a mass audience. The minds guiding Disney at that time believed that there were proper questions to ask of a story and its characters: Does it have conflict? Does it have a theme? Is it about something that can be expressed as a well-known statement of folk wisdom like "Don't judge a book by its cover" or "Love conquers all"? Does it present the story as a series of broad movements or acts, allowing audiences to orient and pace themselves in the narrative? Does it take viewers someplace they've never been, or make them see familiar places in new ways? Do the characters have relevant back-stories and plausible motivations to make them relatable to the audience? Do they pass through realistic stages of emotional reaction and growth (character arcs)? And so on.
Studios have to use design principles and apply some kind of standards to evaluating and developing stories, if only because they produce so many of them. The average studio or division in Hollywood has bought and is developing one hundred fifty to two hundred stories at a time. They must spend more resources evaluating thousands of potential projects submitted by agents each year. To handle the large number of stories, some of the techniques of mass production, such as standardization, have to be employed. But they should be employed sparingly and with great sensitivity for the needs of the particular story.
STANDARD LANGUAGE
A most important tool is a standardized language that makes possible the thousands of communications necessary to tell so many stories. No one dictates this language, but it becomes part of everyone's education in the unwritten rules of the business. Newcomers quickly learn the lingo, concepts, and assumptions that have been passed down by generations of storytellers and filmmakers. This provides everyone with a shorthand for the rapid communication of story ideas.
Meanwhile new terms and concepts are always being created to reflect changing conditions. Junior studio executives listen carefully for signs of insight, philosophy, or ordering principle from their bosses. People take their lead from the leader. Any terms of art, any aphorisms or rules of thumb are seized upon and passed down, becoming part of the corporate culture of that studio and the general knowledge of the industry. It's especially true when those bits of received wisdom lead to successful, popular entertainments.
The Hero's Journey language is clearly becoming part of the storytelling common knowledge and its principles have been used consciously to create hugely popular films. But there is danger in this self-awareness. Overreliance on traditional language or the latest buzzwords can lead to thoughtless, cookie-cutter products. Lazy, superficial use of Hero's Journey terms, taking this metaphorical system too literally, or arbitrarily imposing its forms on every story can be stultifying. It should be used as a form, not a formula, a reference point and a source of inspiration, not a dictatorial mandate.
CULTURAL IMPERIALISM
Another of the dangers of standardized language and methods is that local differences, the very things that add zest and spice to journeys to faraway places, will get hammered into blandness by the machinery of mass production. Artists around the world are on guard against "cultural imperialism," the aggressive export of Hollywood storytelling techniques and the squeezing out of local accents. American values and the cultural assumptions of Western society threaten to smother the unique flavors of other cultures. Many observers have remarked that American culture is becoming world culture, and what a loss it would be if the only flavorings available were sugar, salt, mustard, and ketchup.
This problem is much on the minds of European storytellers as many countries with distinct cultures are drawn into a union. They are striving to create stories that are somewhat universal, that can travel beyond their national borders, for local audiences may not be numerous enough to support the always-growing cost of production. They are up against intensely competitive American companies that aggressively courts the world market. Many are studying and applying American techniques, but they also worry that their unique regional traditions will be lost.
Is the Hero's Journey an instrument of cultural imperialism? It could be, if naively interpreted, blindly copied, or unquestioningly adopted. But it can also be a useful tool for the storyteller in any culture, if adapted thoughtfully to reflect the unique, inimitable qualities of the local geography, climate, and people.
I found that artists in Australia were acutely conscious of cultural imperialism, perhaps because that country's people have had to struggle to create their own society. They have forged something distinct from England, independent of America and Asia, influenced by all of them but uniquely Australian, and humming with the mysterious energy of the land and the Aboriginal people. They pointed out to me hidden cultural assumptions in my understanding of the Hero's Journey. While it is universal and timeless, and its workings can be found in every culture on earth, a Western or American reading of it may carry subtle biases. One instance is the Hollywood preference for happy endings and tidy resolutions, the tendency to show admirable, virtuous heroes overcoming evil by individual effort. My Australian teachers helped me see that such elements might make good stories for the world market but may not reflect the views of all cultures. They made me aware of what assumptions were being carried by Hollywood-style films, and of what was not being expressed.