After reading this weeks readings, not only did I feel like I just put off doing cinema studies homework only to be slapped in the face with a invisible hand of interconnected relevancy, I also asked myself, perhaps it is time I made a decent effort in pulling apart one of the readings and putting it into a technical test.
Through this I used The substance of story reading by Robert McKee, (1997) to create a practical profile/exercise in reflection to the reading upon a Protagonist which I am familiar with.

(There is) Something far more profound than mere words beats at the heart of a story.
In this reading McKee explored the following bolded points, explaining that they are crucial to any protagonist fictional or non fictional for full engagement with their audience, taking these points I applied them to one of my favourite characters, Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation. (For all purposes I will use the weaker of the seasons the first season as to stop from spoilers, while analysing it at is most basic form)
A Protagonist is a willful character:
Within Parks And Recreation the audience is introduced to various main characters (typical of its genre) centrally there is only one Protagonist, Leslie Knope, presented to the audience by creators Greg Daniels and Michael Schur. Leslie in the first season is shown to be noticeably “wilful” through not only her initial introduction, but through the first seasons progression with her unrelenting aim being to turn an empty lot brought to her attention by fellow main character Ann Perkins into a park, for her city which she cares deeply for Pawnee.

The protagonist has a conscious desire:
Leslie, to say the least is dedicated. In the first season, a toxic mix of perkiness, passion, and desire come together to create a force to be reckoned with. Through creating a project team to counter any government opposition and gain momentum behind her proposal. Through Leslie’s conscious desire and aim to transform the community she lives within into one that does justice to the town she loves, even through something as small as turning an empty lot  into a park, as her characterisation allows she gives it her entire efforts and soul.

The protagonist has the capacities to pursue the object of desire convincingly:
Due to Leslie being Deputy Parks and Recreations director her being the main driving force behind transforming the empty lot near Ann Perkins house into a park, has the needed capacities to make it realistic and convincing to the audience. Her actions throughout the series in course of this are directly reflective of the fact she has experience in government workings, and thus knows how and what to do to take the empty lot from the clutches of people who either want to leave it abandoned or utalize it for financial toxic gain.

The Protagonist must have at least a chance to attain his desire:
The series of Parks and Recreation would not have worked as a whole without Leslie’s incessant attempts to transform the community she lives within. Her level of care for her town is unrivalled among the main character frame work of the series, due to her fellow employees simply there as a mean of employment.
If Leslie, per say had of been like the Director of Parks and Rec Ron Swanson, the entire series would have lasted one episode and essentially rather than both endorsing and questioning all at once the American governance system, it would have been an essential fuck you in the face of  American government infrastructure followed by a montage of Leslie and Ron eating steak and or breakfast food.
Her characterisation however, allows Leslie to have a chance always to attain her desires, and not even the mayor or city government denying her funding for the empty lot would get in her way of working toward the bigger picture.

The protagonist has the will and capacity to pursue the object of his conscious desire to the end of the line, to the human limit established by setting and genre:
Bits of the prior response tie in with this response, however through the human limit of Leslie, in the first season her limitation is exclusively Local Government bodies, (this tying in with one of its genres political satire) However as stated earlier, once Leslie is set on a goal she is unrelenting on achieving it.

The protagonist must be empathetic, he may or may not be sympathetic.
(empathetic is relatability)
In the main character base of Parks and Rec as a whole there are no characters which are not empathetic, however the audience is especially aligned with Leslie, as she presents audiences with this beacon of hope, that so long as you want something bad enough and you work for it you can achieve it.
The audience is also able to relate to her as a human being, with her work relationships, her friendship with Ann and her trials and tribulations with men which never seem to go quite normally.

A story must build to a final action beyond which the audience cannot imagine another:
The show, which is the opalescent tree shark love child created by combining Sit Com Mockumentary and Political Satire, would be an extremely anti-climatic and unappealing watch if for the entire season they were built up only to watch the abandoned lot, remain a creator in the ground where countless people went to break limbs, however luckily this is not the case (not so much luckily more due to the unrelenting unshakeable protagonist Leslie Knope.)

Another key point within Mckee’s reading is the idea of the three levels of conflict within both Fiction and Non fictional media forms; which I will also explore briefly using further Parks and Recreation application.

Three levels of conflict:
Inner, Personal, Extrapersonal

Inner:Leslie’s inner desire is to achieve and assist in what is best for the town that she loves Pawnee, which is of course in this season involves resolving and creating something from what is essentially nothing.

Personal: On a personal level Leslie is using the Lot as a personal goal to work on within her job, opposition faced on this works as a challenge and chance to excel and show utilise her personal strengths to overcome outside oppositional forces.

Extrapersonal: The extrapersonal conflict within the first season is the people opposing her vision to create a park, however while there are a lot  of nay sayers her personal drive and inner motivation for the town trumps over, and her love for Ann Perkins.

Through doing this exercise and applying McKee’s 1997 reading to a television series which ran from 2009 through to 2015 I feel I gained a new level of understanding in the practical elements which shape an audiences viewing of a Narrative/Non Narrative media text, such as Parks and Recreation.