I was recently involved in a discussion on Facebook where the main issue was the role that social and political issues have in storytelling. I won’t go into too much detail on the post, but here was the gist of it:

“Some people are saying they want stories without all the social and political messages being shoved at them. Did they not notice these issues in the stuff they watched as kids?”

I’m paraphrasing, of course, but I think that captures the essence of his point. He then went on to describe the sociopolitical messages in timeless classics such as Star Wars, Superman, Spiderman, Star Trek, and so forth. The post itself can be found here.

This brings up an important question: what is the role of social/political commentary in storytelling? In my personal opinion, if it is present at all, it ought to be incidental. Otherwise, it can have a negative impact on the story.

Purpose of Storytelling

To understand what I mean here, let’s first look at the purpose of storytelling. There are many theories on this, but I ascribe to the belief that we tell stories because stories are cool and we like sharing them. Simple enough, right?

Think of the excitement of an eight-year-old telling you about this one stupid thing his friend Johnny did at school, or the creative fervor of a writer trying to express the epic scene playing out in his mind, or even the uncompromising desire to tell your friend, “Hey, you’d never believe what happened to me today!”

We tell stories because we like them. Exactly why we like them is another matter, of course, one that will be left outside the scope of this particular article.

Literary Sacrilege

However, regardless of why we like stories, I personally find that few things sour one more than finding out someone is using it to shove their transient sociopolitical beliefs down my throat. At that point, it stops being about the story and starts being about this issue that I probably disagree with them about and have long since found is nearly impossible to discuss civilly.

In addition, I feel it can severely cheapen the story. The effect is similar to a used car dealership using images of Jesus to advertise their products. It cheapens what the Savior means to many people, scaling him down from a world-saving god to a hollow gimmick.

Or take this example: think of your fondest childhood memory. Think of why you cherish it, and then consider what it would feel like if someone took that experience and used it to sell lottery tickets. Kind of cheapens it, doesn’t it?

In like manner, using a story to shove a political message into someone’s face feels like a form of literary sacrilege. You take something that should resonate with the soul and convert it into an in-your-face advertisement for some temporary ideology.

Pure Art

Ultimately, I would argue that the purpose of the story is not to convey a message (the notion is a tad silly when you think of how there are far more direct ways to do so), but to exist for the sake of its own art.

Now, this doesn’t mean that sociopolitical issues have no place whatsoever in storytelling. In fact, they often play a key role. The point, however, is that the story exists for its own sake. It doesn’t act as a vehicle to convey a message. Instead, the sociopolitical issues inherent in the setting act as a vehicle to flesh out the story and reinforce its realism.

In other words, if the story has a realistic setting, that setting is going to have complex issues that people deal with. Those issues may or may not come up in the story, but they will still be present somewhere in a vibrant story world. They may pose challenges to characters in the forms of moral dilemmas, social uprisings, declarations of war, etc., but that all only serves the purpose of telling a story. In those cases, the story isn’t intended to convey a specific message. The issue’s presence is just incidental to the setting and action of the story itself.

Put simply, it’s a matter of intent. If you are writing a story purely to express this or that message, then there is a good chance you’ll do so at the expense of good storytelling and its constituent parts (compelling characters, interesting plotlines, vibrant world settings, etc.). This is because the message, not the story, is your objective.

On the other hand, if your primary goal is to tell a good story, then sociopolitical issues may well come out in the course of the story simply because they are part of the big, vibrant world you’ve created. They might be subtle, or they might not. Sometimes, they are extremely obvious. In an especially well-constructed setting, they get deliciously messy—especially when you apply the subjectivity inherent in how we all view art.

But ultimately, those issues aren’t the point of the story. The intent was to tell a story, and that’s what we get.

Anything more or less than that is advertising. Or parabolic. But that’s another matter entirely.

What are your thoughts? Agree? Disagree? Think I’m full of crap? Let me know in the comments! Also, please share this with all your friends. All proceeds  go toward creating messy moral dilemmas for fictional characters. Really.