FILM AND TELEVISION

THE BIRTH OF A GENRE

the contemporary prequel

By Zoe Holtzman

The Terror We Know

What is a contemporary prequel? The Showrunners of Bates Motel (BM) think they know, because they are the ones who made up the term and the genre. BM is the story of Norman Bates and his mother Norma Bates, pre-Psycho. What’s odd about it is that the show takes place in a time period after the time period of the original that it’s supposed to be leading up to. So, right away, the time sequencing is wacky. As far as I know and as far as the Internet knows, this incredible innovation has never, ever happened before. And yet, the pleasures of the prequel (if there are any) are not lost, because a huge part of the tension is the buildup to what we know is coming. And what is coming is horrific and, of course, famous, and caused millions of American citizens to forgo showers as a means of cleanliness.

But again, our new genre, the contemporary prequel (CP) is playing games with how we think and experience a story. And at a certain point we aren’t even sure that what has happened will happen again–that’s how good these guys are at telling a story that we think we already know. So, what I want to do is to give you the new rules to the new genre: the great CP.

1.

The first rule of the CP is that the time period of the new work must be after the ending one of the old. This twisting of time is important because it unmoors the narrative from the logic of the original. Generally, prequels, the worst genre in all genres of the world, are careful about going back in time; in BM the narration goes forward in time. Even though it is a prequel, we don’t know what’s going to happen. A great example of this twisting of time is in Season 1, episode 1, when Norman and Norma first enter the house next to the hotel they bought. The house is decorated to look the same as it did in the original Psycho, but Norman says, “You certainly can’t buy furniture like this anymore.” This is a nasty joke on time: it both replicates the look of the original film, while superseding it in both the future and the past; it is a retrospective future that looks back in time.

As the show continues, we see modern items such as Iphones, headphones, hybrid cars, etc. The CP weaves together the modern with the old. We often see Norman watching black and white films, as Psycho was, but it is taking place much more recently. So, there we have it, we exist in two separate but related narrative planes.

2.

The next rule of the CP is the inclusion of new storylines and characters that shift us away from the main storyline we are expecting to pay attention to. BM plays with the idea that we are here to learn more about Norman pre-Psycho, and although it delivers on that end, it mixes in storylines that have to do with the town he lives in and the people he interacts with there. For example, when we first meet Norman’s brother Dylan, we wonder why Norma doesn’t care for Dylan in the way she does for Norman. To skip over to the main point of this storyline, we find out that Dylan is Norma’s child; however, he is also her brother Caleb’s son. Yes, that means that Norma was “raped” by her brother, got pregnant, and covered the whole thing up by pretending that her high school boyfriend was the father.

The reason I put the word rape in quotes is because the story of Norma and her brother continues to evolve as the series progresses and there are a great deal of differences and changes in the story we hear from Norma and her brother. Norma tells Norman she was raped, but later confesses that she and her brother were in love. Part of the fascination is not really knowing the whole story and being left with questions, because you never really know someone's whole story, either in fiction or in real life, and especially in contemporary prequels.

It's all way too much, together, to be dismissed

There is a lot that we know and don’t know about Norma because she lies so much to so many different people, so it’s hard to have definite answers when it comes to her and Caleb. The reason I believe that the inclusion of this storyline is important, is because Dylan plays such a huge role in how the storyline from Psycho twists, turns, and refracts from the original to create the new BM CP. Dylan’s struggle in finding out he is a child of incest enriches his character and draws us in further to what happens to BOTH Norman and Norma. The inclusion of new storylines and characters is exactly what is needed to make the CP what it is. The shifts of attention can be distracting, but the CP knows this and uses it to its narratorial advantage instead. We are unsettled and confused for most of the CP, while thinking that we know the end result.

3.

The next rule of the CP has to do with character progression. In normal prequels we need to explain how we get to the start of the first movie. So, in the example of the show Hannibal, if Hannibal is bad we need to know why he’s bad and all dates have to add up and so we learn that he got bad in, oh how original, Nazi Germany. The CP eschews or sidesteps this type of narrative. It knows we know the end, but what it does is it plays with that knowledge and subverts it. Much like a typical prequel, BM shows Norman’s slow progression of blacking out and becoming Norma. At first, we just think Norman blacks out, and we don’t get much insight into what happens or why he blacks out. We know things are strange surrounding his father’s death, but the writers don’t let us know too much yet.

Norma, Norman, Norma, Norman, Norma, Norman

Jump forward to season 3, episode 6, and we see the first time Norman blacks out and becomes Norma. This time it is harmless, even humorous. Norman is making breakfast for his brother Dylan as Norma and dressed in her robe. This is when Dylan realized that Norman thinks he is Norma when he blacks out, and also the first time watching the show that you get to see Norman become Norma. As the seasons progress Norman becomes Norma more and more often. To name a few, we see him become Norma with his teacher, his therapist, a stripper at the strip club, and with the police. All of his blackouts lead up to Norman unknowingly killing the real Norma, however much of “her” still remains…in more than one way.

The CP plays with your mind. Knowing more about Norman’s blackouts makes the viewer feel like they know where the story is going. BM plays with this when Norman goes to jail. You wonder how he will survive after admitting to a murder as Norman. Once he blacks out and Norma takes over, “she” seems to make it worse and you aren't sure if Norman will be sentenced to death or how he could possibly get out of jail. Unbelievably, Ramero, his mother’s ex-lover, breaks him out of jail. That’s when as an audience member, you realize we have to get back on track, because Norman has to kill Ramero in order to get free and live to kill another day. This constant battle of expecting and then receiving the unexpected and wondering how you will get from point A to point B as a viewer is exactly what the contemporary prequel does best.

Did you ever expect this?

4.

I'm not here to judge you.

The CP also has to include a biographical aspect, or in other words, a character to carry on the legacy. The interesting thing that BM does is give us one character just to tell the story of the Bates Motel. His name is Chick, and he and Norman begin to grow close after Norma’s death. Chick makes sure Norman is okay and brings him food, because he sees Norman has been keeping...duh duh duh… Norma’s dead body on the living room couch. Chick knows a lot about their lives and had been observing Norman and Norma for a while. Rather than harming or trying to get Norman committed, he is interested in who Norman is and telling his story.

Thank you, Chick

Ultimately, Ramero finds Chick in the basement writing the story of Bates Motel on a typewriter, and kills him. Although Chick meets a tragic fate, we see his story written on the typewriter, insinuating that we know the story because of Chick. Therefore, the CP wouldn't even be possible, if it weren't for a character to carry on the story. Now that I think about it, I don’t think there’s a single one of the main characters Chick didn’t interact with. The CP finds a way to make even the most insignificant seeming character become a huge part of the story and how it came to be, so much like the other rules, this rule plays with the outcome we expect.

5.

Now we are brought to the final rule: in prequels, we’re always heading to the end (the end being the beginning of the original work), where in the contemporary prequel, maybe? Season 5 of BM is where we really begin to see a direct response to Psycho and the melding of the two works. For example, the shower scene that everyone knows from Psycho. What BM does here is recreate the scene with Marrion stealing money from her job and coming to meet Sam Lumis. The difference is that Marion showers and then...duh duh duh… her shower ends.

We've seen this before, kind of

I mean really what would be the point of recreating that scene if it were to end the same way as the movie? The important part about all of this is that we still get a murder in the shower by Norman, or should we say...Norma, its just not the murder we expected. BM creates a second part to the storyline by making Sam Lumis the one who gets murdered because Marion is actually Sam’s mistress, and Sam has a wife in White Pine Bay. The replacement of a death with another death keeps us on our feet.

That wasn't supposed to happen

Throughout season 5, the CP continues an exchange of recreating a scene from the original, in this case Psycho, up until the end of that scene, and then changing the ending. The best example for this would have to be...HUGE SPOILER...Norman’s death. You are watching Norman's brother Dylan go over to his house for dinner and the only thought is don't go inside YOU WILL DIE. We believe so much in this narrative that Norman has to be the one to survive, that you forget there could be any other outcome. The CP plays with how you put an end, or how you sum up a narrative when you know the ending.

The BM is a show that manages to create a whole new genre of its own and does not disappoint. I hope to see more CP’s in the future because I have never been so captivated by a story I thought I already knew. The five rules of the Contemporary Prequel created a twisted version of the already twisted original work. Many of these rules are not new to the movie industry, but when sewn together, it creates an incredible masterpiece that captivated 4.6 million viewers and counting.

©Zoe Holtzman and the CCA Arts Review