Only in recent years can I remember such an outcry against Hollywood for remaking, reimagining, and rebooting every movie in sight. Films that were once considered hallowed ground are being trampled with fresh new ideas and faces. Movies that never needed to see the light of day again are being remade, and even movies that were made in the last decade are being reimagined in a new way. Meanwhile, the complaint is always the same. “Why doesn’t Hollywood come up with original ideas?”
I am not saying that I was not in that crowd or that I still am not. I was there with all the other moviegoers who rolled their eyes when Sony announced the Spider-Man series reboot, or when David Fincher decided to reimagine The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as his next project, or when Sony announced the release of No Strings Attached just a few months after Paramount released their movie, No Strings Attached, with the same premise. If someone wants to accuse Hollywood of plot reuse, then they would be right to do so, because Hollywood is guilty of that, but is that really that bad? And are we really THAT angry about that fact?
To answer those questions, I point you to the other Hollywood medium besides movies, television. Commercial television has been around for close to seventy years, and if I wanted to accuse someone of reusing a plot, I would say that the television companies are even more guilty of that crime than the movie studios. They’ve been repurposing plots, and we love them for it. Case in point: I’m currently watching season six of How I Met Your Mother, an excellent sitcom that started in 2005. Regardless, I find myself regularly rooting for various characters to overcome obstacles, fall in love, and break up. to love. This is understandable, of course, because after six seasons, I’ve grown very fond of these characters. The funny thing about this is that I can predict how many of the episodes will end, but I still enjoy them. Why is that?
Taking a little detour, let’s compare How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) to another sitcom I’ve fully watched, Scrubs, which came out in 2001. Both sitcoms are the same show. HIMYM has Ted Mosby as its main character, who sometimes narrates the story, while Scrubs has Dr. John “JD” Dorian, who does the same. HIMYM has Marshall and Lily, who are the couple going through the trials of a long-term relationship and marriage, while Scrubs has Turk and Carla, who are going through the same problems. HIMYM has Barney Stinson who is a single player who fails to date due to his personality and gives Ted advice on dating and life, while Scrubs has Dr. Perry Cox who fails to date due to her personality and gives JD advice about life and sometimes dating. HIMYM has Robin Sherbatsky as the attractive single woman who gets a new boyfriend every few episodes, while Scrubs has Elliot, who is the attractive doctor who does the same. In the end, Elliot and JD end up in Scrubs together, and I still hope Robin and Ted end up in HIMYM together.
These are just a few of the similarities in the shows, and these are just two sitcoms. If we were to compare these two to other sitcoms like Friends, Seinfeld, or even Cheers, there would be striking similarities in each of them. The amazing thing is that all of these sitcoms were extremely popular in their day, and sitcom is still a very popular form of television. So the question is why do I and the rest of the world still find ourselves cheering for the HIMYM characters and the Scrubs characters and the Friends characters and the Seinfeld characters and the Cheers characters even though they’re all pretty much the same? Same characters going through the same plots over and over again?
The sitcom effect is the reason, and it’s this: given a given character, if the audience can become emotionally invested in that character; that is, being able to effectively put yourself in that character’s shoes, then that audience will follow that character to the ends of the earth and back. This is the backbone of good television and is most evident in sitcoms, but crime dramas are another perfect example of this. CBS currently has CSI: Las Vegas, CSI: Miami, and CSI: New York. I know of people, including my parents, who watched all three of these shows along with Without a Trace. They watched four CBS shows that were pretty much the same show, except each one used a different location and different people.
Now, this is not to say that sitcoms haven’t made an effort to differentiate themselves from each other. If How I Met Your Mother didn’t try to be different from Scrubs, it would be Scrubs and not How I Met Your Mother. Each one has its differences. The skin of a sitcom is very unique, but the skeleton is essentially the same. Whether the sitcom is shot in a mockumentary style like Modern Family and The Office, or the sitcoms are more focused on a workplace or school like Parks and Recreation or Community, they are all essentially the same. .
This brings us back to the movies. Too often I have heard that the story is the key to making a good successful movie. I don’t know if I’ll continue to believe that, because movies and TV have been using the same storyline over and over again for decades, and yet we as entertainment junkies keep coming back. The Sitcom Effect keeps bringing us back again and again and deep down I think we’re okay with that. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a movie that had a great premise, but it falls flat on its face, because the characters are stale and emotional. Show us emotion and we as an audience will get excited! It gives us hope to see this character who lives in an idealistic world and in which we have invested so much time and effort so that he succeeds big or small, because we know, deep down, that if he can succeed or at least change for the better so can we or if they can find love then so can we or if they can conquer that army of invading aliens then so can we. The sitcom effect is really just a fancy term for hope. If you promise us hope, we’ll follow you anywhere, Hollywood.
So the next time you automatically dismiss a movie or show because of its “tired and overused” plot, consider this. If the characters are people you can relate to and love, maybe that specific movie or show is what you need. If that’s the case, embrace it, because, to be honest, Hollywood shows no signs of slowing down the rehash, revamp, and reboot train any time soon.
PS I recently found out that Brian De Palma’s iconic 1983 version of Scarface, starring Al Pacino, was a remake. Who would have thought that a new version could be so beloved that it outshone its original, which was made in 1932 and produced by Howard Hughes?
