Montage fallacy

The training montage of Rocky was the most outstanding part of the story to me. It was inspiring to watch Rocky’s personal transformation, from a bum to a champion, effectively take place in several minutes.

This kind of montage is a common element in all sorts of movies. It’s an incredibly boring part of the process. It’s inspiring to watch Rocky run up the stairs a few times, making progress with each attempt.

Conversely, it would be incredibly boring to watch him run them every day. The details would be important though; some days he’d fail, other days he’d get out of bed late, and so on, and so forth. 

Similarly, we only watch Rocky drink raw eggs once or twice (which is more than enough); imagine the amount you would’ve watched him consume if you were a fly on the wall.

A film’s need to entertain has obscured the reality about change. Montages set an expectation that personal transformations are practically microwaveable; just find the right mentor, find the right program, make the perfect plan, do it a few times, and you’ll reach your goal. I call this the montage fallacy.

Whenever the statement, “I shouldn’t be experiencing this problem,” or, “That successful person doesn’t have to experience this problem,” you’re experiencing the montage fallacy. While it’s true your problems may be different from other people’s—what’s more true is that everyone experiences problems of some sort

There are other statements that reflect the montage fallacy too—like, “I’m not going fast enough,” or, “I’d like to skip this experience to the end.” 

Whenever somebody asks, “What’s the one thing you would recommend to be successful?” they are experiencing montage fallacy.

Marketers often exploit the montage fallacy, manufacturing dissatisfaction with situations, encouraging people to accept it, and persuading people that their products are the solution. 

The truth to personal transformation is much more boring—and ugly—than a montage will let on. You show up every day. You mostly make small gains, and experience the occasional leap—and persevere through setbacks. You have to choose the things you prioritize, which means you’ll decide to give up things you want to do. Because you know most shortcuts lead nowhere, you choose the longcuts. You make sacrifices, big and small, in order to save money so that you have some security for when things go wrong, or more options to do what you want to do in the future.

P.S., This applies to omissions too. The ones that come to mind immediately are Roy offering to train Jamie in Ted Lasso, or how Debbie Ocean spent five years toiling over the perfect plan while she was in prison in Ocean’s Eight. (Same goes for how Danny and Rusty gather so much information ahead of time, and remember it all perfectly, in their Ocean’s franchise.)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *