Do you agree with Alan Ball's belief on TV relationships?

[Orac Zen]

Six Feet Under is one of the best TV shows I've ever seen - hell, it may actually be the best TV show I've ever seen - but the fact Alan Ball created it doesn't make him some sort of oracle who has all the answers and speaks for everyone when he describes what TV relationships should be like. As brilliant as SFU is, as superlative as (almost all) its characters are and as fantastic as most of the relationships are, there were still times when I wanted to reach into the screen and slap some of them for being so damned stupid. Conflict is all very well but when it feels forced, or seems to exist for no other reason than keeping characters apart, it's stupid. Plenty of shows fall into that trap and SFU wasn't an exception.

Ball created a magnificent TV show but it doesn't mean his every utterance becomes gospel and it doesn't mean he's always right. Too often in TV relationships it seems characters are apart for no real reason - just to add to the "drama". IMO, that isn't "good drama"; it's (fictional) people being stupid. I don't find that interesting. To each their own.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Conflict is not a synonym for choice. Conflicts either have a winner and a loser, or a truce. Choices do not have to have a winner or a loser, or end in a truce.

A functional relationship can meet a challenge, finances when a child is sick, perhaps. The partners can work together to make the choices to deal with the situtation. The interesting thing is what each wants and thinks and how they work together. Calling this a "conflict" implies the interest is in whether they win. This is a very narrow view.

Also, unless you are determined to insist there is no difference between comedy and drama, you really must reserve conflict as the essence of comedy, not drama. The escape of conflict, then its happy resolution is what happens in comedy. They say humor is aggression. That's conflict.

Blah blah blah. You still haven't met my challenge: come up with a plotline for a movie - ANY plotline, involving a car or not - that doesn't hinge on conflict and that anyone would pay money to see, or even invest two hours in, if they got it for free.

Of course, it will also involve choice, which is another necessary element for fiction (either drama or comedy type fiction). If the protagonist doesn't have a choice how to try to end the conflict, then the audience will become alienated and frustrated. Okay, maybe choice isn't quite as vital as conflict - I guess you could dream up some existential story where there is conflict but the protagonist is helpless - but that's not something people generally are interested in.

What you're saying is correct, but it doesn't map to what this writer is saying. He's saying that the car must start out all smashed up and be all smashed up when the story ends-- except maybe get fixed for a while in the middle to give false hope and make the ending more depressing.

If that's what Ball is saying, then he lacks imagination as a writer. Maybe I should go back and read what he actually said because I've totally lost track by this point.

From the OP:

As he mentioned more than once, happy, functional relationships are boring on TV. The best relationships on TV shows are the ones filled with drama, difficulty, and conflict with temporary moments of happiness and that the only time everyone should get happy is the end of the series.

Okay, that's a paraphrase that is open to all sorts of interpretation. Anyone got a link to his actual quote?

 

[darthraidr]

FNL takes the hard path and if pays off. i'd like to hear from people that have seen FNL and still feel that "happy, functional relationships are boring on TV. The best relationships on TV shows are the ones filled with drama, difficulty, and conflict with temporary moments of happiness and that the only time everyone should get happy is the end of the series."

I've never seen that particular series, but I'd be astonished if it somehow operated under radically different rules than the ones I do watch, all of which derive their drama from conflict, familial or otherwise. They include: Dexter, Futurama, Big Love, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Entourage, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Caprica, V, Chuck and the late lamented Lost.

i cannot speak to Breaking Bad, Caprica nor Dexter as i have not seen them. FNL doesn't operate under radically different rules. there are plenty of "typical TV relationships" on the show, but even those are more forgivable, since they involved kids in HS. but FNL throws a curveball with the Taylors, as conflict does not define their relationship nor is it the foundation for them.

Relationships based on conflict constantly need more conflict to justify the relationship. it reaches a point where if you look back on the relationship, you should be hard pressed to understand why the couple decides to stay together, since there is nothing beyond the conflict save for the occasional bouts of physical intimacy. they almost always teeter on abusive relationships. "Oh partner X secretly had $60,000 in debt... but they got me a flower, so it's okay, i love them."

 

[stj]

Growing up stories (Bildungsroman in litereature,) are not about conflict. The child learns what is, and the reason it matters is because the child can now make a meaningful choice, which is adult. The climax of growing up is not winning.

Turning it around, "internal conflict" is extremely common. And it is of great interest to people. But, internal conflict is not "dramatic." Notoriously so, I might add. If conflict is drama, how could this be? Here's another experiment: Describe a plot based on internal conflict that doesn't demand choice for the protagonist.

If drama is conflict, then a horserace is drama. If drama is conflict, then any drama that doesn't end with a winner is unsatisfying. If drama is conflict, then a life and death struggle between a hero and a maniac without a motive is the starkest form of drama. If drama is conflict, then drama is comedy. If drama is conflict, the essence of tragedy is that the hero loses. If drama is conflict, then asking who the hero is, and whether he wins, is the essence of critical judgment.

Word games that try to label choice as conflict are the blah blah blah. The "drama is conflict" mantra blurs the distinctions between petty or arbitrary conflict and true drama. It reduces drama to vicarious pleasure in the hero winning, or a schmaltzy self-indulgence in suffering hero fantasy if he loses.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Okay, that's a paraphrase that is open to all sorts of interpretation. Anyone got a link to his actual quote?

Not me. All my responses are based on the original Post.

 

[Cicero]

Very much disagree. Just put the dramatic focus on something else and let the happy, functional relationship just be an element of the show. And who says happy, functional people having to deal with sudden life situations has to be boring?

I give you Eric and Tami Taylor as Exhibit A.

I think unneccessary "drama" can be eye-rollingly boring and predictable.

exactly. Friday Night Lights wonderfully disproves the horrid theory that happy couples are boring.

Parenthood is another show that has a few happy couples struggling with life.

The later seasons of The West Wing are a good example, too. While Sorkin wrote the series, President Bartlett and his wife were regularly (almost constantly) at odds with each other; I dreaded her appearance. After Sorkin's departure, Jed and Abby were written as having a strong, supportive relationship - Abby appeared to help resolve conflict, not provide more - and I came to love the character. Impact Winter provides a great example of how the characters faced drama together in the later seasons, much like a real loving married couple.

 

[Snaploud]

Good entertainment helps us learn how to deal with our own lives. A lack of strong, stable relationships on television does a disservice to us all. They don't have to all be strong and stable, but, when 99% of the relationships on television are disasters, writers need a wake-up call.

 

[sidious618]

The later seasons of The West Wing are a good example, too. While Sorkin wrote the series, President Bartlett and his wife were regularly (almost constantly) at odds with each other; I dreaded her appearance. After Sorkin's departure, Jed and Abby were written as having a strong, supportive relationship - Abby appeared to help resolve conflict, not provide more - and I came to love the character. Impact Winter provides a great example of how the characters faced drama together in the later seasons, much like a real loving married couple.

I had the same reaction. One of the few things that changed for the better because Sorkin could never write well for women barring CJ.