This is the beginning to my many love letters to
what makes the things love in Pop Culture the things we love. I'm not
sure if any topics in these love letters will be original, but they will be my
thought on the topic at hand, and that's enough for now. This time
around it's time we give some love (or hate, depending on where you stand) to
one of the parts of many a movie or book or TV series that keeps the gears
greased and rolling along just fine. This time around let's have a talk
about the McGuffin (or MacGuffin depending on what side of English you take.)
An object, event, or character in a film, TV show or story that serves to set and keep the plot in motion despite usually lacking intrinsic importance.
Sometimes the McGuffin is so interesting people talk about it for years after the popularity of the movie or TV show. Fans write Master's Thesis size posts about it or dedicate websites to the exploration of it. Many fan will have collections of McGuffins in a special place in their homes, or use the McGuffin to mass-snail mail the networks for canceling their favorite show.'
On the one hand you have what makes the McGuffin cooler than a penguin on an iceberg. A McGuffin could be a person, an object, a plot device, point or twist, a line of dialogue, an animal, etc. Other times the McGuffin is so fucking lame the only thing you can do is roll your eyes and hope something else can keep your interest in the show or movie - usually the hope of nudity or something blowing up real good might or might not make your forget exactly how brain meltingly stupid a McGuffin was. Most of the time it doesn.t.
Ironically, what makes a McGuffin cool can also make it really stupid? Alfred Hitchcock is the genius who coined the phrase, which makes sense because his movie relied on McGuffins in order to be what they were. This doesn't make him the master of McGuffins, but he knew how to use them, most of the time to great effect. For instance the McGuffin in Psycho was the money stolen by Norman's first on screen victim. One would think the McGuffin would be the Bates Motel or cross dressing hotel owners, but if you watch the movie carefully the money and those who either stole it or was looking for it is what brought everyone to the Bates Motel. The money served to fool you about what kind of movie you were watching. It opens with illicit sex, stolen money and Janet Leigh in a bra. Seemed like a typical crime drama about to happen. Until she got in the shower.
While Alfred Hitchcock coined the phrase and freely admitted the usage of the McGuffin in his movie, the undisputed master of the McGuffin has to be Gene Rodenberry. The Star Trek Franchise should be in the World Record books under McGuffin for several well-earned sub-lists
Most used McGuffin(s) in a TV show
Most amount of McGuffins in a TV Show
Lamest McGuffin ever (an award earned by every single version of Star Trek produced to date.)
Repeated use of more the one McGuffin in a given line of dialogue.
The "I didn't see that McGuffin coming" awards for some of the better episodes.
Finally, the "What the Fuck Were They Thinking" award for McGuffin's even a two year old would roll their eyes at.
People reading might say, "Surely we can find many a TV show or Movie guilty of that last one, Dafixer?" If there was only the original series this might be true, but because of the success of every other Star Trek movie. Crops of new series were spawned, and those series gave us the Olympic Champion of the "What the Fuck Were They Thinking" McGuffin: Holodeck episodes. Holodeck episodes are generally so bad they make babies in the womb cry.
Star Trek is not the first nor the last to over use the McGuffin, or to have more McGuffins then you can shake an Ark of the Covenant at. Science Fiction needs the McGuffin in all its forms - as do more than a few genre. But Star Trek piled them on like the weekly laundry bags at Octomom's house. It's no more guilty for using them then, let's say, an action movie or daily soap or slasher flick. But soaps have no choice and no one really remembers their McGuffins past two weeks, and horror movies use the same five or six McGuffins which is why the Scary Movie franchise stops being funny - how many times can you tell the same four jokes.
So how come action movie or series don't get the same rap as Science Fiction? Because the McGuffin(s) in any given Science Fiction hold a certain level of importance. Science Fiction relies on the McGuffin and far more suspension of disbelief the average action flick. After all you have to believe that a space ship travels from one solar system to another in less than a day, despite all that pesky science telling how impossible this is unless you get into some pretty high-falutin physics. So you need a Star/Warp/Gravatron drive to get you from Earth to Seti-Alpha 6. You only need a horse to get to the OK Corral, and a car in movie can move as fast as they want in any city street, town or hamlet
On the other hand, the McGuffin in your average action movies are of no real importance at all. Sometimes they stand out for good reasons or bad ones, but action movies do not need them to suspend the belief, they only need them to get everyone involved in the action. Once everyone is in the action the McGuffin is about as important as the color of walls in the hotel room you take a hooker to.
Instead of bumping into the genre and snarking away at how they might or might not use their McGuffin(s), let’s just break it down accordingly:
Horror - As I said before, Horror movies use the same few McGuffins, because they all boil down to something chasing someone to do some kind of harm to them they cannot fight by ordinary means. So the monster could be anything from a human to Satan the Horror movie's job is to scare and excite. When they came up with the "there are no new stories" line they were thinking about Horror. The monster is the McGuffin. Of course depending on if it's a book series, a Movie or a TV show there can be other McGuffins but they never out shine the main one, the monster and who it's going to hurt next.
Romance - Does not need a McGuffin but have been known to use one or two of them. It could be argued the love story itself it the McGuffin, but since they are, for the most part, cheaply made movies mostly about people trying to fuck, the McGuffin is of little if any importance.
Westerns - Western movies and TV show are America's self-congratulatory lie to itself, and therefore by their nature are the actual McGuffin of a storyline with well-defined McGuffins. The old west where lawlessness ruled, brave men and women go out to make some land their own, or bring a town to life from nothing, or fight those injuns who didn't quite think the land taken from them belonged to someone else. They are stories of overcoming harsh condition, bravery in the face of impossible odds and generally a lot of bullshit that leaves out genocide and slavery as if they didn't exist in the land of the Western. All that being true Western are McGuffins that use the same McGuffins over again, but that is one of the things that make them cool.
Science Fiction - Needs the McGuffin, loves the McGuffin, and wants to have dirty monkey-sex with McGuffins. Sci-Fi excepts the McGuffin like a fictional wolf excepts a human baby into its pack. The McGuffin grows up thinking it's a member of the pack, honestly believing Vulcan can be a desert world near no visible sun or that it's helping Andromeda escape the event horizon of a black hole. Science Fiction can have as many McGuffins as it wants even when it is dumber than a slug, but no Science Fiction can survive without the McGuffin.
War Stories - For the most part the war story have the distinction of rarely having a bad McGuffin. Because most the time the War Story is base (either loosely or heavily) on history therefore the McGuffin, for the most part, is already there. This is not to say there are no bad War Movies; just that there are rarely bad McGuffins in a war movie because the McGuffin tends to be part of the history. Some might be highlighted over others, but this does not change the facts of what makes a War Story a War Story.
Action - The McGuffin in an Action movie is nothing more than the starting line in a 100 yard dash leading to big explosions and guns then never run out of bullets. Sometimes you care about McGuffin, most times no one could give less than a shit. It doesn't matter what the Euro-trash are stealing, we just want to see John McClain get fucked up and do some fucking up back. Who were those villains in those 3 Mission Impossible movies, and what did they want again? Couldn't say off the top of my head but I can name the big stunts Ethan Hunt performed. In fact three of them have been imitated to the point of making you beg for mercy. Me, or, in fact, no one cares why Phillip Seymour Hoffman was upset in the first place, or why Thandee Newton was fucking both the good guy and the bad guy in the sequel. We wanted to see Tom Cruise jump from a building or out run a car crash. We don't want explanations; we want action so anyone complaining about a McGuffin in an action movie should take their asses to see a romance.
Crime/Thriller - There is usually one big McGuffin in these sorts of stories. Be it the results of the bank heist or the thing stolen for stereotype Mafia Don, or a black painted bird, there's always the McGuffin in the thriller that usually drives the story from beginning to end. The McGuffin and your average crime/thriller are bound together like trees to earth or divorced men to alimony. There may or may not be smaller McGuffins depending on the story, but in the end there's always the great big on that needs to work for the story to work. However Crime/Thrillers are unique in that the McGuffin could be well thought out or bat shit crazy as long as it works for the story it will always be successful. Hence this genre needs the story to work not the McGuffin.
Drama - The average drama doesn't need a McGuffin. They are heavily character driven and require only back story and resolution. You could have a McGuffin in a drama or not. Dramas can have McGuffins and can be disguised as other genre. For instant CW's show Smallville is the story of young superman complete with all the characters and locations that come with Superman yet at its heart Smallville was a drama wrapped in a Super Hero story. Thus, and this has been pointed out many times before, the character relationships in Smallville were barely different from those in 90210 or Gossip Girl. Being s Super-Hero show (i.e. Science Fiction/Fantasy) the show was filled with enough McGuffins to give Roddenbury a woody in his grave, but was still a drama and didn't need the McGuffins to make it a drama.
So let's have a toast to the McGuffin. It could be a drab as rings that let vampires run around in the sun or as mysterious as a briefcase that glows when you open it, but it's an important part of our world of entertainment and we should never neglect it nor put it down, unless it deserves to be put down. Love it or hate it the McGuffin is what drive most of what we love, or hate - and it should be given the respect it deserves.
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