The Good of Conflict and Immorality in Movies

What follows is an article I wrote for a Catholic website in 2003, while I was writing the first draft to The Moral Premise. I'm resurrecting it here for the record and to facilitate some discussions with some I consult with about the nature of the motion picture industry.

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THE GOOD OF CONFLICT
AND IMMORALITY IN MOVIES

Often I hear Christians complain about the protagonist in a movie because he or she made one or more immoral decisions, and is therefore a poor role model. Another oft heard criticism is that movies are filled with too much on-screen conflict or violence, thus giving audiences the wrong idea about how to resolve problems.  

These are definitely valid concerns to the extent that the on-screen portrayal of conflict and immorality is gratuitous.  But for most popular films there are some very good and moral reasons why movies must be about imperfect, immoral human beings, and why the conflict and suffering must be made visible. 

The word "must" in that last sentence is pretty strong, so let me explain. In the history of civilization, stories have played a very important role in forming our culture by passing on history, defining cultural norms, teaching us how to deal with problems, and answering burning questions like, "Why is there suffering?"

Educational gurus might divide the world of learning into three kinds of instruction: (1) experience, (2) observation, and (3) lecture. Experience is the best teacher. Lecture is the worst. The reasons for that have a great deal to do with the number of senses, and consequently the degree of emotional involvement of the learner. The greater number of senses involved, the greater the emotional tension, and thus the deeper the learning.
Whereas lecturing involves only one sense—hearing, experience demands the active participation of all six senses [Footnote 1].  

Experience also involves physical and emotional risk. Risk situations cause the release of adrenalin into our brain etching deeper memories about the experience and its lessons.

Somewhere between experience and lecture is observation, and the modern "movie experience" which is closer to SIMULATION. 

Why Simulation? The darkened theater is replaced by extreme realism, and audience members are transported into the on-screen character's world. To a great extent, movies become so real for audiences that they are almost as good a teacher as experience itself...including the sense of personal risk. 

But, do we want movies to teach us things? After all, the people making movies, so conservative Christian sentiment goes, are immoral pagans who ridicule God, don't go to church, and well, do everything in their life wrong. On some level, with some filmmakers, that can be true. Yet, when it comes to moral lessons that agree with Judeo-Christian values, there is an astonishing phenomenon. 

As it turns out, when a movie conveys moral truth it "sits right" with audiences, and word of mouth increases the film's popularity, tremendously. Conversely, when a movie is morally deceitful, people avoid it. Over the years, filmmakers have recognized this. (Actually, in POETICS, Aristotle was the first to write about the correlation between the truth of a play's moral message and its popularity.) As a result, today, it is a safe bet that a box office success is also a movie that conveys a true moral message [Footnote 2] 

All of that brings me back to the criticism about immoral characters and on-screen conflict. Without these elements movies would be incapable of presenting positive moral messages, infusing us with hope, or suggesting answers to why we suffer. If we remove the immorality and conflict we are left with no drama, no story to tell, and no lesson to learn. Showing the problem allows us to learn how the protagonist overcame it, or the consequences if he doesn't. 

Here then are seven reasons why the appropriate, and not gratuitous, portrayal of conflict and immorality are necessary, not just in motion pictures, but in all stories, if those stories are to effectively teach us moral lessons.

1. Identity. Conflict and immorality are revealed in the life of a protagonist who is like us. This allows us to identify with the protagonist, and see that his problems are, or could be, ours.

2. Meaning. How the protagonist resolves the conflict and immorality reveals the meaning of the associated suffering. We translate that meaning to the suffering in our lives. 

3. Consequences. The protagonist's decisions regarding the conflict and immorality result in consequences. We learn that similar decisions in our lives could result in similar consequences.

4. Hope. The protagonist's hope and perseverance in dealing with the conflict and immorality allows success. We are thus encouraged to hope and persevere, and likewise overcome our problems.

5. Risk. The on-screen protagonist must count the cost and take risks in opposing the conflict and immorality. This reminds us that our noble intents are worthless unless we honestly count the cost and are also willing to take risks to defeat sin and evil. 

6. Sacrifice. On screen heroes often suffer and sacrifice emotional and physical loss in their effort to love and save others from harm. Those are examples to us, of how we are asked to love our neighbor and families, and resist sin, even shedding our own blood in the process. [Footnote 3]

7. Visible. Movies are really about spiritual and emotional conversion. But since we can not see such journeys, filmmakers make the reality of that most important journey visible in the physical realm, as a metaphor. While we may think our spiritual journey is only spiritual or mental, the proof is in our behavior, in our actions and works. What we do in the physical realm, represents exactly what is going on inside.

So, the next time you go to a popular movie, recognize what it is you're watching. Look for and analyze the moral messages, and recognize that without the appropriate portrayal of conflict and immorality, there would be little to be learned about how to live in our conflicted and spiritually dangerous world.

[1]  There are six, not five senses. Most forgotten is the sense of balance, which is necessary for physically activity, including sitting in a chair during a scary movie. 

[2] Whether a movie conveys a morally true message has nothing to do with its ratings or appropriateness for children. See MEANINGLESS RATINGS.

[3] "In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood." Hebrews 12:4

ARISTOTLE'S NICOMACHEAN ETHICS - Mean Virtue

Back in February 2010 I wrote about how a producer I was working with had suggested that the vices of a particular story we were working on were at the two extremes of a moral continuum, with the virtue being in the middle. I had always said that any virtue taken to extreme produces a vice; but I had never diagrammed it or put it in a table until that day in the story meeting. It struck an immediate chord. You can read about that illumination at this post: EXPANDED CONFLICT OF VALUES AND THE MORAL PREMISE.

What that producer articulated was the result of some insightful thinking thousands of years earlier by Aristotle in an essay known as ARISTOTLE'S NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. (Wikipedia Article.)

I felt embarrassed to have missed such a basic piece of early literature that is reflected in the Moral Premise book. (As I have said, this is nothing I invented; but just trying to articulate it and make it useful for today's story writers).

A summary of Nicomachean Ethics and that "middle" or "mean virtue" discussed in the Feb. blog can be expressed in a table, which Aristotle constructed. Below is a simplification and expansion of his table thanks to ideas and prompting from several readers: Thank you Janet and Kit.

I have blogged several times since about this, and you can find those articles collected HERE (which is the TOPICS link in the right column).

The words in the table, like all words, contain contextual and cultural connotations that may be different from your understanding or your character's experiences. Therefore, the table should be used only as a guide or suggestion and not as a rule.

Feel free to add your comments and suggestions to the com box thread.

Click on the chart below to enlarge.

Addendum November 15, 2025

I came across two additional charts that enhance the above content. Here they are.

Romances and the Conflict of Values

A reader writes with a problem (indented).

Dear Dr. Williams:  Thank you for writing The Moral Premise and frequently updating your blog. I have learnt a great deal from both, and I'm actively trying to incorporate the methods outlined in the book into my own work. I am a novelist, and I can see how this is just as applicable to us as it is to screenwriters. My genre is 'love story' which opens up another can of worms for me as a writer. I'm having some issues when trying to understand how to apply antagonistic forces. I believe you stated somewhere that love stories would involve a co-protagonist setup and that the man and woman would be antagonists to each other. With no clear antagonist practicing the vice side of the moral statement, I am unsure how I apply the vice side throughout a love story and how the two characters should arc. If you are able to provide me with any guidance as to how a moral premise operates in a love story with two protagonists I would be very grateful.  (Signed: G.M.)

Dear G.M.: Tell me a bit about your story and how ends. Is it a love story (someone dies), a romance (a persona dies), or a romantic comedy (two egos die)?  (Stan)

[Following: GM is in black and my response is inbetween in purple. (SW)]

It's a romance as I have not envisioned a tragic ending. The story involves a man and a woman who dated when they were young and fell in love, however his work/career was extremely important to him and they amicably parted ways as she knew how much it meant to him.

Sounds a little like Nicolas Cage's FAMILY MAN.

She did not realize until later that she was pregnant with his child. By then he was career bound, and she had lost contact with him. She decided to raise the child alone but this came at the expense of her own career. When the novel essentially begins, he is driven by his career and money, and he is isolated and lonely. Conversely she has struggled to keep her daughter and herself afloat, and all three (mother, father and child) will somehow come together at some point in the story (the inciting incident and goal that will bring them together is still unknown) and priorities will have to shift if he is to learn to value love over business/money, he is to connect with his daughter, and we are to have the man and the woman fall in love again.

So, it's a remarriage, romance story.

With so many elements to the story, I’m worried that the above will not follow one set moral premise statement, and perhaps I have thought about the story in a backwards manner with the ‘moral premise’ as a step after the above plot brainstorming rather than before it.

 Based on what you've told me so far, there's not too much for even a movie.  Novels, which I have not studied in depth in terms of the moral premise, may well indeed have more than one moral premise... even as some movies do. Some other posts deal with this from some of my other readers.  But I  suspect the different moral premises need to be tightly linked on a value level. Novels can do this more easily than movies, because novels can be longer, have multiple stories interwoven, and transcend eras easier. But the novel will resonate best with readers if the story comes back to one thing about which the story ultimately reinforces.

My idea behind the story stems from putting love first as opposed to money, and as a result I have put together:

Greed and selfishness leads to isolation and hatred, but
Generosity and sacrifice leads to inclusion and love.

Yep, that is what I was going to suggest, or something very much like that.

My difficulty in getting my head around all this is due to the fact that in romances the two characters are typically opposites.

As they are even in successful marriages... opposite in some respects, but not every respect. The drama explores the opposites, not what they have in common. Perhaps you're thinking they need to be opposite in every respect. The story will assume they have much in common, but the drama and the emotional journey of the story will explore how they learn to "love" each other's differences. (I'm thinking of the Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers films. They both loved to dance, but the drama was never about the dancing.)

In a typical non-romance story this would mean one was a protagonist and one was an antagonist. Yet in a romance we have two protagonists who we want to remain opposing for conflict purposes, yet we still need both heading for the same goal with the same moral premise, and all this is with a different type of antagonistic force present. 

Moving the “normal” structure around to fit a romance is proving difficult to visualize. 

Many thanks,
G.M. 

[Now, my in depth response.]

Well, let me help you. It's not that difficult at all.

The simple answer is that each character (the man and the woman) struggles with the vice side of the moral premise in their own way, and becomes the obstacles and the antagonist for the other. 

Jeff Bridges & Maggie Gyllenhaal, CRAZY HEART (2009)

I like the way Michael Hauge explains this. He calls the two moral premise values the character's "identity" and the character's "essence." At the beginning of the story each character has an "identity" that they have given to themselves; that is they have put on a mask and are pretending to be someone they are not at their essence. But the identity, because it is false, has holes, and the romance character can see through those holes to the person's true essence. Each character falls in love with the other person's essence and are repulsed by that person's false identity. In Crazy Heart, the romance sub-plot between Blake and Jean occurs because Jean sees what Blake could be. She falls in love with his essence. But when he can't seem to fall in love with his own essence, she breaks it off.

So when the man reveals or practices his false identity the woman is turned off and repulsed. Likewise when the woman reveals or practices her false identity the man is turned off and repulsed.  But when each practices their essence, there is attraction.

In over simplified terms of the Moral Premise, the false identity is that person's vice, and their essence is their virtue. In more accurate terms, it's the moral premise vice that allows the character to hide behind their identity and camouflage their essence. And it's practicing the moral premise virtue that allows their true essence to be revealed. 

Although the man and woman may have similarities, the story is about how these two characters are different, even opposite in some ways. To be complete and happy and fulfilled, they have to be together so their essences are complimentary. 

Both may love the opera, but one likes to sit in the balcony and the other in the front row. They are both stubborn and demand their own way. Thus the drama comes out of the battle to decide where they will sit to enjoy the thing that they both love. the story is about stubbornness and forbearance --  not the opera.

Now about somethings each needs to be stubborn... justice, for instance, or if they're investors in the opera they can be stubborn about the singers being on pitch and not just looking the part. But about other things they need to drop the stubborn "identity" and be "forbearing."

Each character, at a subliminal level, longs to be complete and whole. In and by themselves they never will be. But with the right mate, they can participate in that wholeness somewhat vicariously, and by virtue of being married and (one flesh) they can participate with the other person that makes them a whole, if only by  proximity.

A personal example: my wife, Pam, and myself. I am not sentimental nor do I value nostalgia in the least. But at the right time I realize that being sentimental and nostalgic has some value. But to this day I could never express such emotion or sympathy toward others. But Pam does it so naturally. So, I can facilitate her getting to a family gathering where she can dole out the sentimentality, nostalgia and sympathy. I'll sit next to her when she does this, and I will aid her by finding money so she can buy the stupid little gifts that others love for their tacky sentimentality. (Can you tell I am not into this.) So, in that way, we are made whole. My vice (hating to be sentimental) is countered by her virtue (sentimentality.)  But my vice (arrogance) can prevent her from being sentimental and putting her down for it.

 

2. The arc from vice to virtue does not need to be wide or long, nor does it need to deal with vile or overly righteous values.  Not shown above, but imagine, the story being about moving from courage to honor (two small arrows at the right would do this). That is the moral arch of THE BLIND SIDE which deals with two virtues (one not as good as the other)  and how any fool can have courage, but not everone arrives at honor. 

In the diagram above the two yellow arrows can represent the moral arcs of a romantic couple. For their peculiar reasons each is deceptive to the other, thinking they need to lie about what they do, where they're going, or why, in order to appease the love of the other. But the other doesn't buy the lie and there's rejection. It's only when they take off their masks, and are truthful to each other that there is acceptance. 

3. Here's a variation on this theme:

The character represented by the left arrow believes (has the false identity) that they have to be deceptive to be accepted. Whereas the character represented by the right arrow is so scrupulous about telling the truth that it sounds like an over the top lie all the time. Both are vices. The virtue is graciously telling the truth. 

In these ways each protagonist becomes the antagonist for the other. So the man's goal and the woman's goal is to get together with the other. To do that he thinks he has to be God's gift to women and be arrogant and controlling. (WHAT WOMEN WANT) But that "identity" he keeps practicing turns off the woman, and thus he's rejected. At the same time she arrogantly believe she has to protect herself from such cads, and defends everything she does and puts him in his place. And that repulses him. So, they become each other's antagonists. 

4. Now, in your case, both the man and the woman have to practice a vice which will block their true essence from being regularly revealed. they are both determined to be right about what they believe, and both have to change to meet in the middle and get together. A very typical virtue and vice scenario for stories like yours is arrogance vs. humility. Or going back to your original moral premise statement:

Greed and selfishness leads to isolation and hatred, but
Generosity and sacrifice leads to inclusion and love.

The man, involved in business, is easy. But,how can you make her greedy about what she is doing? They both have to be imperfect. She can't be greedy about making money, that's his problem.  OR, perhaps she is greedy by virtue of being poor. Perhaps she's a hoarder: or perhaps she is about time. Or she could be selfish and proud about being poor. She could see "money is the root of all evil" but she only believes that because she's never had any. She's forgotten that the adage is "the LOVE of money is the root of all evil". In what ways is she NOT generous? That is her vice, and it blocks the guy's ability to see her goodness. But she does have some and by the first ten pages we know that that is.

But, if you're determined to make her the perfect person, and him the bad guy, then you have a story about HIM, not her.  If you want to make the story about both of them, they both have to be imperfect. 

Watch any Romantic Comedy that was successful in the box office and you'll see this. Take out the wild comedy, and you'll have your romance. 

Hope this helps. Let me know. 

See also this post on the Conflict of Values: http://moralpremise.blogspot.com/2010/02/expanded-conflict-of-values-and-moral.html

The Dramatic Center

Recently I was asked by two editors to write a chapter for "their" book — a book written by others, but with the editor's names on the cover. I've never thought this was a very good idea. And sure enough, this was one time when the more I discussed the chapter with them (by email) the more I felt they were typical charlatans. What tipped the scale for me was when the chapter that I wrote for them for free, they refused to allow my book's website URL in my bio. Enough. A couple of the values I value are fairness and generosity. The editors and I had a conflict. The essence of all good stories. So I told them: "End of story. No, you can't use my essay."

So, here it is, I'm at least generous, but not a sucker.

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The Dramatic Center - the Conflict of Values

The dramatic center of any story is the conflict between two opposing values. Discovering what those values are, which drive your protagonist and antagonist against each other, is critical to knowing what your story is about, and how it begins and ends.

When writers come to me for help because their story doesn’t resonate, often it’s because the conflict is not centered around a central opposing pair of values. Many writers will construct a story around a physical conflict, but fail to realize that for the story to organically connect with an audience the physical conflict must be rooted in opposing psychological mind-sets or moral values. Never forget that all physical or visible action begins with a psychological decision, and that decision is rooted in a value. Stated another way, no action can occur without first being motivated out of moral ideals.

Consider that 9-year old Toby wants a dog, but his mother has said, “No!” The explicit premise or physical storyline might be: “Toby tries to persuade his Mom to let him have a dog.” That’s what the movie is “about.” But what is it “really about?” What are the values that Toby and his Mom each hold that cause them to be in conflict? Is it that Toby loves dogs and his Mom hates them? Not likely. You have to go deeper and examine the human conflict in terms of universal values, or the things people hold true regardless of culture.

For example, Toby and his Mom may be in conflict over the difference between slothfulness and orderliness. Mom knows Toby pretty well and she doesn’t think her son will pick up the backyard after a dog’s droppings, and Mom, in the same backyard, is trying to hang clean laundry on the line to dry. Yikes! Or, perhaps the story is about keeping promises vs. breaking promises. Toby promises to take care of his messes, but Mom always ends up picking up after him.

The other dimension of such conflicts is that society, in general, will value one of these traits as morally good (cleanliness or keeping promises) and the other as morally bad (slothfulness or breaking promises). The values that allow society to make progress are called virtues, and those that degrade society are called vices. Thus, the story of Toby and his Mom is really a story of moral values, or to be precise it’s about a moral premise. While the physical or explicit premise is about taking care of the dog, the psychological or implicit premise is about taking responsibility. And it is those psychological values that drive the protagonist and antagonist to conflict and thus create drama.

Once you figure out what the essential conflict in values is, you’re story will write itself. Suddenly you will know what Toby’s character flaw is (he’s a pig pen and he loves it) and what Mom’s character virtue is (she keeps a clean house and she loves it). And now you can write out what is called the story’s moral premise around which every creative aspect of the story will flow. It could be something this simple as this: Slothfulness leads to Loss; but Orderliness leads to Gain. And the question for your plot is this: Does Toby’s values change or do Mom’s values change? And what are the physical consequences?

Understanding the heart of the moral conflict in your story, and how the consequences flow from the virtues and vices involved, will forever liberate you from writer’s block.

EXERCISE

Let’s look at one of those great stories you’ve started but could never finish. Take one out of that dull gray filing cabinet in the corner, and let's see if we can fix it.

Process the following steps iteratively. That is, repeat them until the answers to each step are in sync with the others, and when repeating the questions your answers do not change.

1. Revisit a story that you’ve given up on. Scan enough of it get it fresh in your mind.

2. Write down the protagonist’s physical goal. Make sure it’s something the audience can visibly see and root for, or against.

3. Write down the value that ultimately drives the protagonist successfully toward that goal. If your story is redemptive, this must be a strength or virtue. If the protagonist is a “bad guy” the value is a weakness or a vice.

4. What is the value opposite the value you wrote down in No. 3? Your answer to this question should be the motivating value of the antagonist. Is it? If not, fix it.

5. Write down the physical consequences that naturally (in reality) follow the practice of the values you identified in Questions 3 and 4. Is your story consistent to this “truth and consequence?” Or is the consequence contrary to the vice or virtue practiced?

Now, a word of caution. Understand the difference between your voice as the screenwriter or filmmaker and the voice of the story. They are not necessarily the same, especially when it comes to ironic endings. CHINATOWN is a good example. The story’s voice says that evil wins, but the filmmaker’s voice rejects the evil, and claims the movie a tragedy.

6. After thinking about the story you’ve dragged out of the dust pile, see if you can create a true moral premise statement for the story that you want to tell. It should be structured like this:

[a moral vice] naturally leads to a [detrimental consequence] but
[a moral virtue] naturally leads to a [beneficial consequence].

Formulating such a statement will tell you everything you need to know about your story and the motivation of all its characters.

8. Repeat these steps until they are in harmony. Now rewrite the screenplay. You’ll love it.