In 1949, American mythologist Joseph Campbell published a thesis he'd be known for for the rest of his life and beyond. A Hero With a Thousand Faces laid out the map of what has come to be known as "The Hero's Journey" or simply, "The Monomyth." Campbell proposed that all our most significant myths and legends through history followed the same format.
In his book, he lays out 17 Stages a hero endures along his path to self-realization and the "Ultimate Boon," some piece of knowledge to better the human race. In his book, he uses the myth of Prometheus as an example, and the fire he steals from the gods acts as this boon.
Since the book was published, movie makers have eaten this idea up, most famously George Lucas. Lucas had a full outline written for his Star Wars epic. Then he read A Hero With a Thousand Faces and re-wrote the entire thing. Since then, hundreds of other movie makers have been inspired by Lucas and Campbell. On top of those, there are hundreds more who may have never realized they followed this format but did anyway. After all, that was Campbell's thesis: that there is something shared in all of us about what is important and what it means to be a hero that molds our narratives through history into this general shape. Pretty neat, right?
We can quickly identify movies that follow the Monomyth path, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Avatar, A Princess Bride, The Matrix... It seems if your story has sci-fi, or swords and sorcery, you better have Campbell's stamp of approval on the cover.
If you're unfamiliar with the monomyth, there is a good amount of information out there. If you need a quick lesson, here's a YouTube channel dedicated just to breaking down examples: or you can read it here.
So there's a Call to Adventure, a magical talisman passed down from a wise wizard figure, a descent into a deep dark dungeon... This is all your classic fantasy story stuff, right? But what about more modern stories? Does Campbell's thesis hold as true for us as it did for Ancient Greeks?
This week we're looking towards a different unlikely creature: the Oscar winning Best Picture of 1986, Oliver Stone's Platoon. I knew I wanted to talk about the monomyth and I picked Platoon to talk about it with for several reasons. 1) It's probably my favorite war movie, and I love war movies. 2) Platoon is all about ambiguity. Most war movies are as black and white as those fantasy stories above. There are two sides who are clearly differentiated by the way they dress. One side is clearly good. One side is clearly bad. Rarely do good guys do bad things. Sometimes they screw up, but Bilbo and the Fellowship never torches a village full of innocent elves along the way to Mordor.
Platoon is nothing like The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. "Good guys" do real bad things. There's no wizards issuing out magical talismans. There's no beast with a belly to swollen them up. The “Bad Guys” are almost an after thought. The soldiers in Platoon aren't on a noble quest. Ideals like nobility and glory never make it off the plane, let alone into the bush. It begs the question, can the mold of the Monomyth be applies to a down-to-earth, gritty, ambiguous tale like Oliver Stone’s Platoon? Let's take a look at the 17 Stages:
Call to Adventure - We actually start this movie after our hero, cherry Private Chris Taylor, has already heard and accepted the Call to Adventure. As the movie opens, he's getting off a plane in Vietnam with a herd of other FNGs. We quickly learn that he'd volunteered to fight against his parents wishes.
Refusal of the Call - No sooner than he steps off the plane,Chris is greeted by rows of body bags. The romance of glorious combat ends right there as they walk by dead bodies being unceremoniously loaded on to the plane they just got off. On his first letter back, Chris writes, "I don't know if I can do this for a whole year, gramma. I think I made a big mistake."
Supernatural Aid - Alas, help does come. Sure, there are no magical sword dispensing fairies, but we do meet SGT Elias. A sergeant in the platoon he looks out for the newest soldiers and soon takes Taylor under his wing. This is our wise-old man, the Gandalf/Ben Kenobi figure of the Nam.
Crossing the threshold - The Threshold is the location where our hero leave the normal behind. It’s the place where our hero suddenly realizes he’s a long ways from home. It’s the point of no return. For Chris, that may have been the moment he stepped off the plane, but since that moment comes so early in the movie, we’re treated to a second. Chris is set out on ambush with the other FNGs on Ambush. In his first encounters with the VC, he’s wounded, blamed for sleeping on his watch, sees the one person he came to Vietnam with die before his eyes, and quickly realizes the whole platoon hates his guts. Thankfully, this Chris is not long in this world and he is soon re-born. But more on that later.
Belly of the Whale - Bunker Complex. Soon after he recovers, Chris, now re-born as Taylor, heads back out into the bush. He’s on point when he stumbles across a bunker complex. We watch SGT Elias descend into a tunnel system, and from there things go from bad to worse. The descent is symbolic more than geographic. Although we only watch one soldier go down into that hole, we watch the whole platoon go down into a very dark place.
Road of Trials - Private Taylor’s journey is marked by days instead of miles. There is a sense in Platoon that all locations are the same. They move back and forth to different locations without much sense of progress. But each individual has a count of how many days they have left in country.
Meeting with the Goddess - There is no Galadriel or Princess Leia in Vietnam.
Woman as Temptress - A word on this stage of the Hero’s Journey. There is something inherently sexist about viewing all women as either a “Goddess” or a “Temptress.” What can I say? Joseph Campbell wrote A Hero with A Thousand Faces in 1949. People thought different back then. If it helps, remove the feminine association with this step and think of it purely as a temptation and a challenge of character. With that said, right on time with his mold, we do see the morals of our characters challenged. Our heroes come across one of their comrades who has been taken, tied to a tree and cut at the throat. They’re frustrated, tired, angry, and seeking revenge. Their temptation comes when they come across a village of innocent locals who seem to them anything but. Some members of the unit abandon principles and do horrible things to the people there. Others try to prevent as much of the atrocity as they can. I also want to be clear on a specific moment. There is a rape scene at the point in the movie, and I am in no way saying that these victims “tempted” our “heroes.” All the temptation comes from within, and those who fall into temptation are no longer heroes. That’s why this stage is so important. This is where the heroes are separated from the villains and the cowards.
Atonement with the Father - This is one of the best scenes in the movie. Taylor is confronted by his evil father figure, his platoon sergeant, SSG Barnes played by Tom Berenger. There is a short physical altercation, but it’s the verbal exchange that is just dynamite. Berenger was nominated for an Oscar for Best Support Actor, and in my opinion he should have won it for this scene alone. “Atonement” might not be the right word for this exchange, but there is definitely an airing of grievances as these two come to an understanding.
Apotheosis - Of all of the 17 Stages, only one is AWOL (The Goddess) and two are out of order. Taylor’s Apotheosis, or re-birth from death, comes earlier in the movie. After his first encounter with the enemy, Taylor is wounded and then re-introduced to the platoon, "This ain't Taylor. Taylor been shot. This here is Chris."
But before we go on to the next stage, I’d like to talk about another Apotheosis. SGT Elias, our wise guide, is killed in a dramatic Christ-pose scene in front of Taylor’s eyes. Taylor is then left to take the place of SGT Elias. They are both labeled as "crusaders," and it’s clear that Taylor now has to stand on his own to feet. The death of the wise-old man is also typical of the Hero’s Journey. Think of Kenobi’s and Gandalf’s deaths in A New Hope/The Fellowship of the Rings.
The Ultimate Boon - In all but the most surface level stories, the Ultimate Boon comes in some form of knowledge. It is the reward for accomplishing the journey. In literary terms, it’s the completion of the character’s arch. As Taylor says it, it’s his desire "To learn something I don't yet know."
Return - After a bloody night of fighting, Taylor comes to in daylight, surrounded by bodies and craters. This is the beginning of his return.
Refusal of the Return - None of that here. Taylor’s glad to go, although there is hesitation in leaving the men he’s come to know so well through adversity.
The Magic Flight - Swap those giant eagles of Gandalfs with a Huey Medevac helicopter.
Rescue from Without - An air strike saves Taylor just as he’s about to be killed by SSG Barnes with a shovel
Crossing of the Return Threshold - As they’re brought back to the rear, Taylor is now one of those bodies being loaded onto an aircraft to be hauled out of country.
Master of Two Worlds - Taylor can go back to his civilian life knowing he’s not “sheltered” or “a fake person” they way he felt about himself at the beginning of the movie.
Freedom to Live - Taylor is a "two timer" who will be shipped out of Vietnam.
Where the 7 Point Plot Structure primarily focuses on the EXTERNAL STRUGGLE, The Hero's Journey is more concerned with the INTERNAL STRUGGLE. Taylor's journey is an emotional journey. The battle isn't for some MCGUFFIN DEVICE, but for his own identity. I cruised through the later stages of the journey because Taylor's outro monologue is a playbook for The Hero's Journey and does a better job summarizing those stages than I could: "I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. And the enemy was in us. The war is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days as I'm sure Elias will be, fighting with Barnes for what Rhah called possession of my soul. There are times since, I've felt like the child born of those two fathers. But, be that as it may, those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life."
Now that we’ve talked HEROES, next installment we’ll flip the coin and talk about those dastardly devils, the ANTI-HEROES. Who are they and how do they work? And why are they so damn compelling? We’ll hash it out and watch more flicks in two weeks. See you then!
In his book, he lays out 17 Stages a hero endures along his path to self-realization and the "Ultimate Boon," some piece of knowledge to better the human race. In his book, he uses the myth of Prometheus as an example, and the fire he steals from the gods acts as this boon.
Since the book was published, movie makers have eaten this idea up, most famously George Lucas. Lucas had a full outline written for his Star Wars epic. Then he read A Hero With a Thousand Faces and re-wrote the entire thing. Since then, hundreds of other movie makers have been inspired by Lucas and Campbell. On top of those, there are hundreds more who may have never realized they followed this format but did anyway. After all, that was Campbell's thesis: that there is something shared in all of us about what is important and what it means to be a hero that molds our narratives through history into this general shape. Pretty neat, right?
We can quickly identify movies that follow the Monomyth path, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Avatar, A Princess Bride, The Matrix... It seems if your story has sci-fi, or swords and sorcery, you better have Campbell's stamp of approval on the cover.
If you're unfamiliar with the monomyth, there is a good amount of information out there. If you need a quick lesson, here's a YouTube channel dedicated just to breaking down examples: or you can read it here.
So there's a Call to Adventure, a magical talisman passed down from a wise wizard figure, a descent into a deep dark dungeon... This is all your classic fantasy story stuff, right? But what about more modern stories? Does Campbell's thesis hold as true for us as it did for Ancient Greeks?
This week we're looking towards a different unlikely creature: the Oscar winning Best Picture of 1986, Oliver Stone's Platoon. I knew I wanted to talk about the monomyth and I picked Platoon to talk about it with for several reasons. 1) It's probably my favorite war movie, and I love war movies. 2) Platoon is all about ambiguity. Most war movies are as black and white as those fantasy stories above. There are two sides who are clearly differentiated by the way they dress. One side is clearly good. One side is clearly bad. Rarely do good guys do bad things. Sometimes they screw up, but Bilbo and the Fellowship never torches a village full of innocent elves along the way to Mordor.
Platoon is nothing like The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. "Good guys" do real bad things. There's no wizards issuing out magical talismans. There's no beast with a belly to swollen them up. The “Bad Guys” are almost an after thought. The soldiers in Platoon aren't on a noble quest. Ideals like nobility and glory never make it off the plane, let alone into the bush. It begs the question, can the mold of the Monomyth be applies to a down-to-earth, gritty, ambiguous tale like Oliver Stone’s Platoon? Let's take a look at the 17 Stages:
Call to Adventure - We actually start this movie after our hero, cherry Private Chris Taylor, has already heard and accepted the Call to Adventure. As the movie opens, he's getting off a plane in Vietnam with a herd of other FNGs. We quickly learn that he'd volunteered to fight against his parents wishes.
Refusal of the Call - No sooner than he steps off the plane,Chris is greeted by rows of body bags. The romance of glorious combat ends right there as they walk by dead bodies being unceremoniously loaded on to the plane they just got off. On his first letter back, Chris writes, "I don't know if I can do this for a whole year, gramma. I think I made a big mistake."
Supernatural Aid - Alas, help does come. Sure, there are no magical sword dispensing fairies, but we do meet SGT Elias. A sergeant in the platoon he looks out for the newest soldiers and soon takes Taylor under his wing. This is our wise-old man, the Gandalf/Ben Kenobi figure of the Nam.
Crossing the threshold - The Threshold is the location where our hero leave the normal behind. It’s the place where our hero suddenly realizes he’s a long ways from home. It’s the point of no return. For Chris, that may have been the moment he stepped off the plane, but since that moment comes so early in the movie, we’re treated to a second. Chris is set out on ambush with the other FNGs on Ambush. In his first encounters with the VC, he’s wounded, blamed for sleeping on his watch, sees the one person he came to Vietnam with die before his eyes, and quickly realizes the whole platoon hates his guts. Thankfully, this Chris is not long in this world and he is soon re-born. But more on that later.
Belly of the Whale - Bunker Complex. Soon after he recovers, Chris, now re-born as Taylor, heads back out into the bush. He’s on point when he stumbles across a bunker complex. We watch SGT Elias descend into a tunnel system, and from there things go from bad to worse. The descent is symbolic more than geographic. Although we only watch one soldier go down into that hole, we watch the whole platoon go down into a very dark place.
Road of Trials - Private Taylor’s journey is marked by days instead of miles. There is a sense in Platoon that all locations are the same. They move back and forth to different locations without much sense of progress. But each individual has a count of how many days they have left in country.
Meeting with the Goddess - There is no Galadriel or Princess Leia in Vietnam.
Woman as Temptress - A word on this stage of the Hero’s Journey. There is something inherently sexist about viewing all women as either a “Goddess” or a “Temptress.” What can I say? Joseph Campbell wrote A Hero with A Thousand Faces in 1949. People thought different back then. If it helps, remove the feminine association with this step and think of it purely as a temptation and a challenge of character. With that said, right on time with his mold, we do see the morals of our characters challenged. Our heroes come across one of their comrades who has been taken, tied to a tree and cut at the throat. They’re frustrated, tired, angry, and seeking revenge. Their temptation comes when they come across a village of innocent locals who seem to them anything but. Some members of the unit abandon principles and do horrible things to the people there. Others try to prevent as much of the atrocity as they can. I also want to be clear on a specific moment. There is a rape scene at the point in the movie, and I am in no way saying that these victims “tempted” our “heroes.” All the temptation comes from within, and those who fall into temptation are no longer heroes. That’s why this stage is so important. This is where the heroes are separated from the villains and the cowards.
Atonement with the Father - This is one of the best scenes in the movie. Taylor is confronted by his evil father figure, his platoon sergeant, SSG Barnes played by Tom Berenger. There is a short physical altercation, but it’s the verbal exchange that is just dynamite. Berenger was nominated for an Oscar for Best Support Actor, and in my opinion he should have won it for this scene alone. “Atonement” might not be the right word for this exchange, but there is definitely an airing of grievances as these two come to an understanding.
Apotheosis - Of all of the 17 Stages, only one is AWOL (The Goddess) and two are out of order. Taylor’s Apotheosis, or re-birth from death, comes earlier in the movie. After his first encounter with the enemy, Taylor is wounded and then re-introduced to the platoon, "This ain't Taylor. Taylor been shot. This here is Chris."
But before we go on to the next stage, I’d like to talk about another Apotheosis. SGT Elias, our wise guide, is killed in a dramatic Christ-pose scene in front of Taylor’s eyes. Taylor is then left to take the place of SGT Elias. They are both labeled as "crusaders," and it’s clear that Taylor now has to stand on his own to feet. The death of the wise-old man is also typical of the Hero’s Journey. Think of Kenobi’s and Gandalf’s deaths in A New Hope/The Fellowship of the Rings.
The Ultimate Boon - In all but the most surface level stories, the Ultimate Boon comes in some form of knowledge. It is the reward for accomplishing the journey. In literary terms, it’s the completion of the character’s arch. As Taylor says it, it’s his desire "To learn something I don't yet know."
Return - After a bloody night of fighting, Taylor comes to in daylight, surrounded by bodies and craters. This is the beginning of his return.
Refusal of the Return - None of that here. Taylor’s glad to go, although there is hesitation in leaving the men he’s come to know so well through adversity.
The Magic Flight - Swap those giant eagles of Gandalfs with a Huey Medevac helicopter.
Rescue from Without - An air strike saves Taylor just as he’s about to be killed by SSG Barnes with a shovel
Crossing of the Return Threshold - As they’re brought back to the rear, Taylor is now one of those bodies being loaded onto an aircraft to be hauled out of country.
Master of Two Worlds - Taylor can go back to his civilian life knowing he’s not “sheltered” or “a fake person” they way he felt about himself at the beginning of the movie.
Freedom to Live - Taylor is a "two timer" who will be shipped out of Vietnam.
Where the 7 Point Plot Structure primarily focuses on the EXTERNAL STRUGGLE, The Hero's Journey is more concerned with the INTERNAL STRUGGLE. Taylor's journey is an emotional journey. The battle isn't for some MCGUFFIN DEVICE, but for his own identity. I cruised through the later stages of the journey because Taylor's outro monologue is a playbook for The Hero's Journey and does a better job summarizing those stages than I could: "I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. And the enemy was in us. The war is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days as I'm sure Elias will be, fighting with Barnes for what Rhah called possession of my soul. There are times since, I've felt like the child born of those two fathers. But, be that as it may, those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life."
Now that we’ve talked HEROES, next installment we’ll flip the coin and talk about those dastardly devils, the ANTI-HEROES. Who are they and how do they work? And why are they so damn compelling? We’ll hash it out and watch more flicks in two weeks. See you then!