The not so universal hero’s journey

Since the 1990s, Joseph Campbell’s research into mythology has become a cornerstone of the most influential and deeply entrenched model of screenwriting practised and taught internationally. Campbell’s finding that the quest myth, the hero’s journey, is ubiquitous around the globe, across human time, and therefore universal is constantly cited to prove the universality of what Robert McKee calls ‘classical design’; the story of a protagonist facing obstacles in pursuit of a goal. However, a close analysis of three of the myths and rituals, which Campbell cites to prove his theory, demonstrate he misinterpreted the meaning of the myths. Knowingly or not, he projected Anglo-Western storytelling and cultural values onto Indigenous mythic narratives, which in fact have very different storytelling norms and serve a very different purpose to the individualistic striving for self-fulfilment which he identified. Given this, it is time for practitioners and teachers to stop claiming that the hero’s journey and by default classical design are universal. Given the current struggle for inclusion of diverse, multi-cultural and marginalized voices into mainstream storytelling, this corrective is well overdue.