It’s become de rigueur for television shows, movies, and books to feature unreliable protagonists or narrators, the people who tell you the story, but for whatever reason you know you can’t quite trust their interpretation of the events. One of the earliest and most blatant cinematic portrayals of this is the classic film Rashomon, where the same story is told from three very different perspectives. The stories are not the same, but they’re all true. In the end, the viewer is left to decide what actually happened. This was groundbreaking for its time (1950), but the latter half of the 20th Century exploited this plot device so much, in my opinion, that viewers seldom believe what they see. We’ve lost trust in the narrator. With more than half of the movies or shows I watch, I have to suspend my disbelief every time a new character is introduced (LOST, anyone?), anytime a good guy turns bad or vice-versa (Jericho), or anytime I’m told one thing and shown another (I am Jack’s smirking revenge).

Is this indicative of the culture at large? Of course it is. Television either tells us what to believe or shows us what we already believe about ourselves. Either way, it’s a mobius strip. Our culture has lost trust in its own narrative. Cynical is the word. Are we being told the truth or just what we want to hear? Can we decipher reality for ourselves or does a talking box or a talking head need to do it for us? Where are the people that say what they mean without false pretense?

I’m tired of disbelieving.

[Ironically enough, this has been brought to you by rosaries, beads on a string that help some to believe in a Reliable Narrator.]