The text that I have selected for my discussion of narrative is the popular US sitcom, How I Met Your Mother. There are multiple reasons for my decision, the main one being due to the show’s mainstream success and overall critical acclaim (IMDb, 2015, [online]). The CBS comedy ended its nine-year run with an hour long finale that attracted an average of 12.9 million viewers and earned a 5.3 rating among viewers under 50 (Adalian, 2014, [online]).
The show itself revolves around the life of Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) and his four friends finding their way in New York City. The actual story synopsis is pretty much what the title implies; it is Ted retelling the story of how he met his wife to his son and daughter (the audience). That is the story of this sitcom (the sequence of events), the plot is its episodic structure (how it is shown) and the narrative is the episodes themselves (what we see).
Taking the pilot episode as an example, How I Met Your Mother strongly conforms to Nguyen’s five stages of narrative (Nguyen, 2012, p.84). These are exposition, development, complication, climax and resolution. This episode conforms to each of these stages; the scene is immediately set in New York City, more specifically in Maclaren’s Pub and Ted’s apartment (exposition). A situation develops and Robin is introduced to Ted and the audience (development). The equilibrium is disrupted by Ted’s lust for Robin and him missing his chance to make a move on their date (complication). Ted finally gets his chance when they resume their date but he messes up again leaving him thinking he’ll never see her again (climax). However, in the end he does see her again and they decide to be friends (resolution).
One of the most prominent features within narrative study is the idea of time, how a show manipulates or uses time to convey a particular meaning to the audience. In this case, I would argue that How I Met Your Mother employs both a ‘temporal order’ and a ‘temporal frequency’ (Bordwell & Thompson, 2008, p.75-76). This is due to the show using a lot of flashbacks which interrupt the chronology of the narrative and therefore, the ‘order’. Also because the show often displays the same scenario repeatedly from different characters perspectives, the frequency will increase which could change the meaning behind a scene.
How I Met Your Mother follows a conventional goal-oriented narrative (Bordwell & Thompson, p.80-81) seeing as Ted is constantly looking for “the one”, which is the ultimate goal. Even though he doesn’t meet her for seasons to come, his ‘drive to achieve the goal carries us through the story to a resolution’ (Cooper & Dancyger, 2005).
To conclude, I would argue that How I Met Your Mother’s mainstream success comes partly from it following regular narrative conventions. I feel that if it went against convention and used, say a distorted or unusual narrative structure, it would be much less favourable among its audience.
Bibliography:
Adalian, J. (2014). Ratings: How I Met Your Mother Exits With Its Biggest Audience Ever. [online] Vulture. Available at: http://www.vulture.com/2014/04/ratings-how-i-met-your-mother-exits-with-best-numbers-ever.html# [Accessed 20 Oct. 2015].
Bordwell, D. and Thompson, K. (2008). Film art. Boston: McGraw Hill.
Cooper, P. and Dancyger, K. (2005). Writing the short film. Burlington, MA: Elsevier/Focal Press.
IMDb, (2015). How I Met Your Mother (TV Series 2005–2014). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460649/ [Accessed 20 Oct. 2015].
Nguyen, V. (2012). Peter and Cornelius.
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