The structure of most Hollywood films, famously known as the Hero’s Journey, follows an arc strikingly similar to the Christian story of Christ found in the Gospels. However, there is a fundamental divergence in where these two storytelling traditions choose to place their focus.
The Gospels essentially skip over the Hero’s reluctant "Call to Action." When we read the Gospels, we see a child born to be great, but the text bypasses the adolescent Jesus—who most likely would have been a typical, resentful carpenter's son.
Instead, we are introduced to a giant among men: calming wild oceans, healing the sick, feeding crowds, and raising the dead. Then, inevitably victimized by his own success, he accepts the burden of teaching his final lesson without words, but with pain, as he is crucified. He rises from the dead and lives happily ever after.
I believe that most people completely miss the intention of this story structure, or they have simply been exposed to badly told stories. Consequently, those who indulge in their victimhood—the people paralyzed by their own self-pity—are usually those who have never had the opportunity to acknowledge their own Hero's call to action.
The Hollywood Obsession with Reluctance
For the typical Hollywood film, the obsession lies precisely in the adolescent age of the hero, focusing heavily on beauty, moods, and behavior. The camera lingers on the conflict and the hero's stubborn refusal of the call to action. In the end, the hero only accepts the call because it becomes inevitable—usually because his dog has been killed or some other inciting incident forces his hand.
Unlike the Gospel narrative, Hollywood operates on a strictly transactional premise: the films attempt to claim that actions involving a harder puzzle to solve require a bigger reward. If a man fights in a cage of lions, his reward at the end of the film must be to marry a queen, save his family, or achieve some other life-altering prize. The hero gets exactly what he wants, and he lives happily ever after. Hollywood is telling us that there is a direct relationship between the effort you provide and the reward you should expect.
The Gospel of Failure and Agency
The Gospels, on the other hand, focus on the challenges that arise after accepting the call to action. Jesus tries using miracles to pitch faith to his colleagues, but he ends up with disciples who reduce him to a mere miracle maker. Even during his last lesson, where he teaches by enduring unjust pain and death, his disciples are not faithful enough; some deny him, and others doubt that he is the one who rose.
In a practical sense, the Gospel shows that Jesus was a failure. But he knew the chance for failure was high, and he still had the faith to take action just in case there was a small chance he could win. Even he, whom most considered the Son of God, lost faith for a moment when he asked why God had forsaken him—even though he expected it to happen.
The bigger lesson to learn from the Jesus story is that he never felt sorry for himself throughout these challenges. In fact, after calling out God for not standing up for a homie, he goes on to ask for a pardon for everyone, recognizing that no one really has any agency.
This brings us to the deeper lesson of the Gospel: one's agency is directly proportional to one's ability to do good deeds. If you put any man into two exactly similar universes and gave him the option between doing something good and doing something bad, every man would choose to do good. But inevitably, men do bad things because, at some point in their lives, they were tricked into handing over a bit of their agency to someone or something else. (This concept of agency is vast enough to warrant its own article).
The Effort Trap
While the Gospel shows that you are only capable of doing the little you can do and hoping for what you wish for, Hollywood promises a guaranteed return on investment. The consequence of Hollywood's storytelling is the "effort trap," which pushes most people into a victim mindset.
When people don't get what they believe they deserve, they assume it is because they simply haven't provided enough effort. This workaholic manifestation of the victim mindset is heavily promoted in self-help culture as a sort of redemption. But it is no different from any other form of victimhood, and worse, it can be easily exploited by tribal leaders to mobilize you to work against your own agency.
If well understood, the Gospel is a cure for this victim mindset. Its functional purpose was to create mental balance in people whose perspectives were entirely clogged by the transactional, reward-based stories of the Old Testament. The goal of the Gospel is to free you from Original Sin, and hence, cure you of the victim mindset. The Gnostics understood this, believing that this victim mindset was responsible for all the suffering in the world, especially tribal wars.
Therefore, the ultimate way to judge a good Hollywood film is by how well it achieves these two goals. Ask yourself: Do you feel liberated after watching a movie, or do you leave feeling sorry and vengeful for yourself and your tribe?
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