10 Reasons why real life is not like the movies.

by Amy Yvonne Simpson

We’ve all seen the films. Girl loses boy; boy finds girl; girl gets boy. Good triumphs over evil; the wicked are punished; and justice serves up her richest trifle for those most deserving. Unfortunately, real life doesn’t follow suit...

Much has been made of narrative structure in stories only having a few elements. Google 'Joseph Campbell' and you'll find a huge amount of work on the topic. The same elements appear in stories again and again, because people find them so satisfying - and because people have certain expectations of what a story is. You get exceptions, like zen stories that break narrative structure on purpose in order to teach you something. But mostly, stories follow a pattern, and movies follow stories.

So how do movies differ from real life?

An older villain will not kidnap you. A younger hero will not rescue you.

The basic premise of many action and thriller films is an older bad guy capturing good girl, and a good guy having to rescue her. From a psychological viewpoint it’s kind of creepy. The chances in real life, however, of being stolen by an older villain and your husband/father/brother/lover/whatever just happening to have been trained with the SS or the CIA or FBI (and the list goes on) and coming to your rescue is farfetched to say the least. Case and point ‘Taken’. It’s a great story, sure, but I’m pretty sure if anyone attempted to tear apart the entirety of Paris (even if the cause was justified) then the French authorities would be on them faster than a gourmand on a snail.

Shot cars do not blow up automatically.

Even if you found yourself in a real-life action sequence, there would be fewer explosions. Car manufacture being what it is, cars don't just blow up when shot. A hail of bullets won't tear apart a building. The movie stunt guy and the camera crew may make the shoot out scenes mindblowingly awesome, but they'll make sure the action scene is way more graphic, violent, dirty and bloody. If you get involved in a real-life action sequence, expect lots of confusion and shocked witnesses telling you what you missed afterwards.

Good guys don't automatically dodge bullets.

How often have you seen the good guy running whilst millions of bullets rain down upon him? There is no chance that all of those bullets missed him.

Real-life sex isn't shot from the most flattering angle. Usually it's not shot at all.

Sex is nothing like what you see in films. Unless it’s low budget pr4wn, the majority of girls do not shriek in an unholy manner. Sex scenes are always made out to be romantic or flattering in movies. Events always smoothly. Ha! There’s no awkward silences when you both ask if the other has a condom. Then the look of “oh holy crap” as you realise neither of you have. People in movie sex scenes never wear skinny jeans. Ever tried to take your partner’s skinnies off? Yeah. Not romantic, not sexy.

We don't get our own movie soundtrack.

A

t a pivotal moment in your life, when you realise something of utmost importance, there is no violin playing in the background. There isn’t even music. Unless by some sort of freakish coincidence your iPod is playing. And even then, Fate being the cruel mistress that she is, it’s probably Rage Against the Machine ‘Bullet in your Head’.

Real-life folks don't have magical abilities

An obvious one is having magical abilities, but it's still worth pointing out. I have yet to see someone fly, unless it’s in an aeroplane, and even then that’s with the aid of human technology. Telekinesis I have yet to witness with my own eyes, along with any other supernatural powers. I’m open to the possibility that such things may exist. There may be, in some other dimension, a possible metaphysical other world where all this is realised. Even if magical powers do exist, they're probably not as glamorous as films make them out to be.

Relationships don't always end on a high note.

Girl always gets boy in films. Or boy gets girl. The ending is always them smiling and laughing and it’s all violins and cherubs. Ha! What they don’t show you is the aftermath... the arguments over curtains, him being incredibly messy whilst she totally freaks out about the fact that he has used her toothbrush. The everyday little things get left out.

Real people need the toilet.

What really baffles me is that no one ever needs the toilet in films. Something as ordinary and mundane as this rarely ever gets shown unless it's for laughs. The best example of this is probably the first 'American Pie'. Shame on you if you haven't seen it. GO WATCH IT. You’ll cry with laughter, and you'll also be blessed with seeing a movie which has a toilet in it.

Cliques in movies and in real life...

Talking of cheesy American high school movies, it’s not just American teenagers that conform to certain stereotypes. ALL schools everywhere conform to stereotypes. Everyone, everywhere has a niche that they fit snugly into. Whether it’s the girl everyone wants to date, the incredibly handsome football player; the attractive, yet slightly pervy boss that everyone wants to sleep with or the musician that wants to make it big. Although films make these ‘genres’ out to be so much bigger than they are, it’s going on all around us all the time. We’re just not always aware of it. You could argue that we end up trying to turn real life into a narrative structure to try to make sense of the other 6 billion people we're sharing the planet with - if we can turn those people into just a few different character types it makes life easier to deal with. But people aren't that simple. Just because we see stereotypes in movies, we shouldn't be so quick to drag it across into the real world.

Life doesn't have a fitting finale.

And finally, the finale. The wicked are punished and the good are rewarded. Unfortunately, and it is incredibly sad that I have to type this, this is far from the truth. The wicked often walk away unpunished, whilst the good guys, those just unlucky enough not to catch a break, are left alone, broken and miserable. It is an incredibly rare fortune if you are lucky enough to have a happy ending. The real problem is probably the word 'ending'. Films end on a scene that conveniently wraps everything up. Our end comes when it comes, and it doesn't wait for a fitting moment to tie all the loose ends together.

Life is not all doom and gloom. For one thing, there’s cake. I’m merely drawing attention to the fact that if we want movies to mimic real life then script writers should have a healthy dose of reality injected into them intravenously. The problem is we all want to see films because they remove us from reality, or offer us aspects of reality in easy to swallow bites. Movies add a little bit of something special to our everyday lives, and this is where the magic truly lies in the beauty of the cinema.

If you're really interested in the idea of stories versus real life, check out Joseph Campbell's explanation of the hero's journey. He researched all the most popular myths and epic stories, and broke them down into a series of steps to show their common narrative structure. You'll see that many movies follow these same themes. Joseph Cambell's work is really useful for novel and screenplay writers who want to write a story that has nothing to do with real life whatsoever ;)

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