[stylist] MacGuffin

Sat Apr 25 14:15:09 UTC 2015

Discussion of the pungent slang term “gobsmacked” notwithstanding, what intrigues me more is the name of the MacGuffin foundation, cited in emails I've since deleted.  Given the definition below, why name the foundation “MacGuffin,” and what, if anything, does its name say about its purpose, mission, and future?  Or is it just a clever use of a literary reference?

Bill Meeker

Source:  Wikipedia; definition of MacGuffin

In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin or maguffin) is a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator that the protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation. The specific nature of a MacGuffin is typically unimportant to the overall plot. The most common type of MacGuffin is an object, place, or person; other, more abstract types include money, victory, glory, survival, power, love, or some unexplained driving force.
The MacGuffin technique is common in films, especially thrillers. Usually the MacGuffin is the central focus of the film in the first act, and thereafter declines in importance. It may re-appear at the climax of the story, but sometimes is actually forgotten by the end of the story. Multiple MacGuffins are sometimes derisively identified as plot coupons.

Objects that serve the plot function of MacGuffins have had long use in storytelling. Such objects in stories continue through to the name-sake of the 1941 film The Maltese Falcon and beyond. The name "MacGuffin" appears to originate in 20th-century filmmaking, and was popularized by Alfred Hitchcock in the 1930s, but the concept pre-dates the term. The World War I–era actress Pearl White used weenie to identify whatever object (a roll of film, a rare coin, expensive diamonds, etc.) impelled the heroes and villains to pursue each other through the convoluted plots of The Perils of Pauline and the other silent film serials in which she starred.[3]
Alfred Hitchcock[edit]
The director and producer Alfred Hitchcock popularized the term "MacGuffin" (a plot device that motivates the characters and advances the story) and the technique, with his 1935 film The 39 Steps, an early example of the concept.[4][5] Hitchcock explained the term "MacGuffin" in a 1939 lecture at Columbia University:
It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men on a train. One man says, "What's that package up there in the baggage rack?" And the other answers, "Oh, that's a MacGuffin". The first one asks, "What's a MacGuffin?" "Well," the other man says, "it's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands." The first man says, "But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands," and the other one answers, "Well then, that's no MacGuffin!" So you see that a MacGuffin is actually nothing at all.
Interviewed in 1966 by François Truffaut, Hitchcock illustrated the term "MacGuffin" with the same story.[6][7] He also related this anecdote in a television interview for Richard Schickel's documentary The Men Who Made the Movies, and in an interview with Dick Cavett. According to author Ken Mogg, screenwriter Angus MacPhail, a friend of Hitchcock, may have originally coined the term.[8]
George Lucas[edit]
On the commentary soundtrack to the 2004 DVD release of Star Wars, writer and director George Lucas describes R2-D2 as "the main driving force of the movie … what you say in the movie business is the MacGuffin … the object of everybody's search".[9] In TV interviews, Hitchcock defined a MacGuffin as the object around which the plot revolves, but as to what that object specifically is, he declared, "the audience don't care".[10] Lucas, on the other hand, believes that the MacGuffin should be powerful and that "the audience should care about it almost as much as the duelling heroes and villains on-screen".[11]

For filmmaker and drama writing theorist Yves Lavandier, in the strictly Hitchcockian sense, a MacGuffin is a secret that motivates the villains.[12] North by Northwest 's supposed MacGuffin is nothing that motivates the protagonist; Roger Thornhill's objective is to extricate himself from the predicament that the mistaken identity has created, and what matters to Vandamm and the CIA is of little importance to Thornhill. A similar lack of motivating power applies to the alleged MacGuffins of The Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps, and Foreign Correspondent. In a broader sense, says Lavandier, a MacGuffin denotes any justification for the external conflictual premises of a work. 

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter via stylist
Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2015 2:35 AM
To: 'Pagan Tree'; 'Writers' Division Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [stylist] MacGuffin

Are you serious? I'm just not sure if you're joking or not, seriously. It's just a definition of the word gobsmacked and it's origins, which are Anglo-Saxon. It means astonished, surprised, flabbergasted, astounded. It's an adjective.

Bridgit

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Pagan Tree via stylist
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2015 9:44 PM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: [stylist] MacGuffin

Can anybody explain this in not so technological terms? I just really do not get it.
Thanks, Eve
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