VR and Catharsis

What are we after in VR, movies, storytelling in general? At its best, storytelling is transformational.  And a powerful way to that transformation is the emotional charge of catharsis, built through an escalation of emotional tension in the audience. But it is the experience of the storytelling that gets you there, not experiencing the hero’s journey personally as you would in VR.

The safety of cinematic peril

One reason for narrative fatigue in VR products is that it is difficult to engage the viewer emotionally in the same way the character is emotionally engaged.  The inner conflict driving the character doesn’t exist in the viewer—it’s not the viewer’s conflict—and they don’t want it to be.  Safe, cinematic peril is fear and safety all rolled into one and that’s what the audience wants.

In a 1986 article I discussed the use of “safe cinematic peril” to elicit emotional audience responses.  The simple version is audiences love feeling the fear of death while intellectually and physically not having to experience it.  The gag is to overwhelm the intellectual and physical with pure emotion.  Audiences are delighted because they know they are smart enough not be in danger, yet are fooled into a momentary reaction.  This is done through projection of the audience onto the hero which is easier when they are distanced from that character and their situation.

VR can still support a storytelling roll, but how the audience follows and why, is certainly changing.

In VR it’s not just Tom Cruise hanging over the street a hundred stories up—it’s Tom and you.  And that’s not all—now there is confusion as to who is the hero, you or Tom?  I’m using action as an example because the case is much more foregrounded than a genre like drama.  The corollary to be aware of is: the more the audience feels “in the scene” the less important the “hero” becomes—but the hero is functioning as the character that makes the choice you would never make, thus giving you the emotional charge without the danger.

Here’s the other thing: if Tom jumps, so do you because Tom is driving the story.  Will audiences jump off with him once they become accustomed to not dying in VR, no matter what they do?

To experience those events along with the character, might induce a heart attack at worst, at minimum the loss of some sort of bodily fluid.  Furthermore, if the storytelling is good, the character who goes through the action “for real” might only have a small cathartic release at the end, while the audience’s catharsis is massive.  How does one generate catharsis where death is at stake for the character, but not the viewer, yet the viewer feels they are part of the moment?