Story and Narrative Genre: Action

The main type of storyline used in the conventional action genre is the use of
having a protagonist defeating the antagonist. This can be shown in a variety, by
overpowering the antagonist by thwarting his devious plans which would not
allow him continue on with his plans. I think that the next most conventional
aspect of an action genre is having a potential love interest that is played by an
attractive actress which is also the damsel in distress. The female is normally the
one that comes between the protagonist and antagonist and can affect the
outcome. This is evident in the dark knight where the main protagonist Batman
is stronger than the villain in all aspects but his weakness is his deep affection
for his love interest which is used as an advantage for the antagonist to defeat
Batman. Also in some action films the love interest is kidnapped or murdered so
the protagonist goes out on a mission for who is responsible such as Taken 2.
Usually the film begins with the scene which with the protagonist encountering a
problem. The protagonist may feel anger and regret which may motivate him to
jump to conclusions. As a result of that he begins to take things slowly and tries
to find a solution. He then comes across a some indications that will help him
reach his goal. He searches deeper and he finds more information. This leads to
the protagonist encountering the problem and eventually solving it. Finally this
leads to the final confrontation between the two binary opposites.
The most common theory that relates to the action genre is Claude Levi
Strausss theory of binary opposites. Strauss was a French anthropologist who
lived in the early 1900's. He believed that the way we understand certain words
depends not so much on any meaning they themselves directly contain, but
much more by our understanding of the difference between the word and its
'opposite' or, as he called it 'binary opposites.
Some of the binary opposites that exist in films today are:

Good vs Evil
Young and Old
Protagonist vs Antagonist
Peace and War
Humanity vs Technology
Solution vs Problem
Man vs Nature

No longer are films today containing just simply two binary opposites. Nowadays
there are many such as in the superhero series Avengers and recent war related
films. Levi Strauss theory is based around the binary opposites and that the
binary opposites are the central climax of a narrative structure. Without binary
opposites the target audience would get bored because there is no for example if
an action movie only had a hero and no villain or if the Villain was triumphant in

the end instead of the hero. However if an action stuck to the normal
conventions with a few twists the audience would remain interested.