Theme fuels everything!

My friend Javier Grillo Marxuach wrote an amazing article some years back sharing his brilliant insight into something he calls an “Operational Theme.”

"Television is about creating characters driven by internal forces that, melded to the right situation, can fuel every action, every line, every scene, and every plot for hundreds of successful episodes. This is the operational theme: a situational vector that cleanly delineates the potential variations of action in service of the protagonist’s consistent emotional need."

This part is very important to Grok — Operational Theme is not a moral lesson or a message, but a situational vector that defines the potential actions of the protagonist.

Some examples of operational themes in current media are:

- In Breaking Bad, a high school chemistry teacher with terminal cancer becomes a drug lord to secure his family's future. The operational theme is: how far will a man go to provide for his family when he has nothing to lose?

- In The Good Place, a selfish woman dies and ends up in a utopian afterlife by mistake. The operational theme is: can a bad person become good in a place where everything is good?

- In The Hunger Games, a teenage girl volunteers to participate in a deadly competition where only one can survive. The operational theme is: how can a girl survive and rebel against a tyrannical system that forces her to kill or be killed?

- In Die Hard, a cop tries to save his estranged wife and other hostages from a group of terrorists in a skyscraper. The operational theme is: how can a cop outsmart and outfight a superior enemy in a confined space?

- In Stranger Things, a group of kids discovers a parallel dimension full of monsters and secrets. The operational theme is: how can kids use their friendship and curiosity to face the unknown and the dangerous?

- In The Handmaid's Tale, a woman lives in a dystopian society where women are enslaved and forced to bear children for the elite. The operational theme is: how can a woman retain her identity and dignity in a world that treats her as an object?

- In Black Mirror, various characters experience the dark and twisted consequences of technology and social media. The operational theme is: how can humans cope with the ethical and psychological dilemmas posed by modern technology?

Javi’s original article is worth a look:

Finding the Next Lost: What Is an “Operational Theme” and Why Don’t I Have One?