THE GOING-INTO-BUSINESS STORY: GHOSTBUSTERS AND BE KIND, REWIND

Warning! Mild Ghostbusters and Be Kind Rewind spoilers ahead!

This is a silly post for a silly subject.

Ghostbusters is a key movie for Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind: not only is it the first movie the Jack Black and Mos Def characters remake—”swede”— but the two movies actually share the same plotline: friends going-into-business.

Kurt Vonnegut:

Anyone can graph a simple story if he or she will crucify it, so to speak, on the intersecting axes I here depict:

“G” stands for good fortune. “I” stands for ill fortune. “B” stands for the beginning of a story. “E” stands for its end.

A much beloved story in our society is about a person who is leading a bearable life, who experiences misfortune, who overcomes misfortune, and who is happier afterward for having demonstrated resourcefulness and strength. As a graph, that story looks like this:

This story shape describes most comedies, especially romantic ones:

In the case of the going into business story, it goes like this:

1. friends go into business to wild success (good fortune)
2. business gets shut down by government agency (misfortune)
3. the community rallies behind the friends to save their world (good fortune)

Here’s Ghostbusters:

1. Friends get kicked out of Columbia, go into business for themselves, land on the cover of Time magazine, etc.
2. Walter Peck from the EPA comes down and shuts down the power grid and all hell breaks loose
3. the mayor gets the Ghostbusters out of jail, NYC rallies behind them, and they kick Gozer’s ass

Now Be Kind Rewind:

1. Jack Black erases the tapes, so he and Mos Def have to record their own movies, and everybody loves them
2. the lawyers from the MPAA come to shut them down (and the developers want to tear down the building!)
3. the ‘hood rallies, they make the Fats Waller documentary together, and they have the screening in the building so the developers can’t tear it down

It’s a great plot because it has great American themes: friendship, capitalism, and community.

Okay. So this post might not pass the “so what” test. I’ve had a couple margaritas…sue me.

Can anyone else think of other “going into business” plotlines?